How Hate Speech Shapes the Right

By Michael Winship
January 10, 2011

The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a rule: if you show a gun in the first act, by the time the curtain falls, it has to go off.

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Sarah Palin's Belated Remorse

By Dennis Bernstein
January 10, 2011

As far as we know, the often tearful, new House Speaker John Boehner hasn’t shed a tear over the near-fatal wounding of his Arizona colleague Gabrielle Giffords, but the folksy Sarah Palin sounded a solemn note as she went to her Facebook page to mourn the close-range shooting of the just-reelected Democratic congresswoman.

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Dangerous Right-Wing 'Victimhood'

By Robert Parry
January 10, 2011

The full story of the bloody Tucson, Arizona, rampage that killed six and grievously wounded a U.S. congresswoman has yet to be pieced together, but the tragedy reminds us of the risk to democracy from both violent political rhetoric and reckless exaggerations about “victimhood.”

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The Coming Christian Divide

By the Rev. Howard Bess
January 8, 2011

Five years ago, we became aware that something significant was happening among Christian churches. Young people were leaving churches in huge numbers, most with no intention to ever return.

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The Power of False Narrative

By Robert Parry
January 7, 2011

As the House of Representatives was engaged in its reading of an abridged version of the U.S. Constitution – leaving out parts like the sections on slavery that would make the Founders look bad – I was reminded again of the power of false narrative, especially at a time when the American Right dominates the U.S. media landscape.

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Preparing for More Reagan Mythology

By William Blum
January 7, 2011

Feb. 6 will mark the centenary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The conservatives have wasted no time in starting the show.

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Republicans Give Aid to 'Terrorists'

By Lawrence Davidson
January 6, 2011

Here is an interesting piece of news from the Washington Post: "A group of prominent U.S. Republicans" went to Paris last month to attend a rally of the French Committee for a Democratic Iran. This organization just happens to be intimately connected with the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK).

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Hating the Government Until You Need It

By Michael Winship
January 6, 2011

We probably should have stayed in New Orleans.

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Justice Scalia's 'Originalist' Hypocrisy

By Robert Parry
January 5, 2011

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia unintentionally revealed the hypocrisy of the Right’s rhetoric about “originalist” interpretations of the U.S. Constitution with his comments about how the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection under the law” doesn’t mean equal rights for women.

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Republicans Aim Info-War at Obama

By Robert Parry
January 4, 2011

Finally, Congress appears ready to hold some high-profile hearings – except they won’t be about the most important scandals of the past decade, like how the United States was misled into the Iraq invasion, how the Afghan War was bungled, how torture became a U.S. practice, or how bank deregulation and Wall Street greed nearly destroyed the economy.

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Should US Extend Nuclear Umbrella?

By Ivan Eland
January 4, 2011

The hawks are at it again.

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Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Docs

By Ray McGovern
January 3, 2011

Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can better understand the futility of his Afghan War strategy.

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The Danger of Pro-Israel Extremism

By Lawrence Davidson
January 2, 2011

When we think of the great struggles of our day we almost always think in terms of movements and groups. There are Communists and Fascists, Capitalists and Socialists, Jews and Muslims, Zionists and Christian Fundamentalists, Democrats and Republicans, Western Civilization and its rivals, ad nauseum.

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A Zoo of Our Own Making

By Phil Rockstroh
December 31, 2010

In an age, when nature is besieged and the political landscape blighted, and one stands, stoop shouldered and wincing into the howling wasteland of epic-scale idiocy extant in the era, a solitary person can feel lost ... marooned inside an increasingly isolated sense of self.

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Birth of Pakistan's Islamic Extremism

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
December 31, 2010

Hardly a day goes by without news about the penetration of the Pakistani state by Islamic fanaticism and the connection between that country’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and radical groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban.

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The Coming War over the Constitution

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2010

Despite a few victories in the lame-duck session of Congress, Democrats and progressives should be under no illusion about the new flood of know-nothingism that is about to inundate the United States in the guise of a return to “first principles” and a deep respect for the U.S. Constitution.

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The US Media Hit on Helen Thomas

By Danny Schechter
December 29, 2010

In 1960, I co-founded a student magazine at Cornell University called Dialogue. I was a wannabe journalist, fixated on emulating the courageous media personalities of the times from Edward R. Murrow to a distinctive figure I came to admire at Presidential press conferences, a wire service reporter named Helen Thomas.

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Argentina's Dapper State Terrorist

By Marta Gurvich
December 29, 2010 (Originally published August 19, 1998)

“What is your favorite book," a journalist asked Gen. Rafael Videla, after he ascended to power in Argentina in 1976.

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Hungary's Embrace of Propaganda

By Abby Martin
December 29, 2010

Naomi Wolf's book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, argues that there are ten steps common to every state that has made the transition into fascism.

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Obama's Fear of the Reagan Narrative

By Robert Parry
December 28, 2010

At a closed-door White House meeting this month, President Barack Obama justified his repeated concessions to the Right as necessitated by its success over three decades in selling Ronald Reagan’s anti-government message to broad sectors of the American public.

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Trying More Carrots with Iran

By Ivan Eland
December 28, 2010

Although the recently released WikiLeaks secrets document the well-known animosity of Iran’s neighbors to the radical Islamist regime — with their hopes for a U.S. attack on the nation over its nuclear enrichment program — talks to end the Iranian effort will continue.

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America's Slide toward Totalitarianism

By Abby Martin
December 27, 2010

In George Orwell’s 1984, Britain is depicted as a totalitarian police state that is ruled by the Party, or Big Brother – an enigmatic, ubiquitous elite that controls society through heavy surveillance, nationalist propaganda and historical revisionism.

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America's Dangerous Self-Deceptions

By Lawrence Davidson
December 27, 2010

Benjamin Disraeli once labeled Britain’s government "an organized hypocrisy." That was in circa 1845. Things have not changed much and by now hypocrisy might well be seen as a common sin of democratic government.

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The Christian Myth of Jesus's Birth

By the Rev. Howard Bess
December 24, 2010

The Advent season is a fun time. For many Christians, it is the happiest season of the year. The joy comes from the anticipation: “Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her king.”

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An Echo of the 'War on Christmas'

By Michael Winship
December 23, 2010

In the snows of yesteryear, far away from Don’t Ask Don’t Tell or START treaties or the War on Christmas, I see the movie house of my youth, the Playhouse Theater on Chapin Street, the only one in my small hometown -- except for a nearby drive-in that closed during the winter.

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WikiLeaks and the Fight for Privacy

By Nat Parry
December 23, 2010

Everyone should enjoy a basic right to privacy, according to one of the more compelling arguments against WikiLeaks’ “megaleak” of over 250,000 diplomatic cables.

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Is Barack Obama the Problem?

By Robert Parry
December 22, 2010

Despite some recent victories like repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” many on the American Left are feeling a cumulative disgust toward President Barack Obama, not just for his generally timid policy choices but – even more so – for his failure to articulate and fight for progressive values.

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Replacing 'They Decade' with Can-Do

By Mort Rosenblum
December 21, 2010

America's “They Decade” is ending, and it is time to heed Edmund Burke. Evil happens when good men do nothing.

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US Anti-War Resistance on the Rise

By Kevin Zeese
December 21, 2010

Mike Ferner, the president of Veterans for Peace, was speaking outside the White House calling for a “culture of resistance” against U.S. wars. His organization was leading a protest outside the White House at the same moment that President Obama was inside announcing the continuation of the Afghanistan War.

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WikiLeaks and the Secrets that Deceive

By Danny Schechter
December 20, 2010

In the days of Stalin’s Russia, not only would dissidents “disappear” but images of officials at the May Day reviewing stands would be erased from photographs when their political stars fell.

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Thoughts at the White House Fence

By Ray McGovern
December 20, 2010

“Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you are,” my grandmother would often say with a light Irish lilt but a heavy emphasis, an admonition about taking care in choosing what company you keep.

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What Christmas Owes to Abolitionists

By William Loren Katz
December 19, 2010

Before Christmas emerged as a commercial success, it led a checkered social life. In the 13 American colonies and the early days of the United States, it was known as a festival of heavy drinking and brawling.

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Losing Afghan Hearts and Minds

By Gareth Porter
December 18, 2010

The Obama administration's claim of "progress" in its Afghan war strategy is based on the military seizure of three rural districts outside Kandahar City in October. But those tactical gains have come at the price of further exacerbating the basic U.S. strategic weakness in Afghanistan – the antagonism toward the foreign presence shared throughout the Pashtun south.

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Barack Obama's Lost Principles

By Lawrence Davidson
December 18, 2010

When President Obama ran for the presidency, his rhetoric was distinctly progressive. He is a very good orator and a superior debater and so we can be forgiven for taking the rhetoric seriously.

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Curiosities Abound in Assange Case

By Dennis Bernstein
December 18, 2010

DB: Let me get your overview here of Julian Assange and what is happening to him. How do you see this?

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Hitler's Shadow Reaches toward Today

By Robert Parry
December 17, 2010

The U.S. government protected Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in the years after World War II and later unleashed the infamous Butcher of Lyon on South America by aiding his escape from French war-crimes prosecutors, according to a new report issued by the National Archives.

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Journalists Are All Julian Assange

By Robert Parry
December 16, 2010

Whatever the unusual aspects of the case, the Obama administration’s reported plan to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for conspiring with Army Pvt. Bradley Manning to obtain U.S. secrets strikes at the heart of investigative journalism on national security scandals.

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A Treasonous Christmas Eve Truce

By Gary Kohls
December 14, 2010

In World War I, as happens to be true in most wars, the Christian church leadership joined in the patriotic fervor with very un-Christ-like, nationalistic and racial/religious superiority stances.

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Rabbis' Decree Reveals Anti-Arab Bias

By Lawrence Davidson
December 14, 2010

On Dec. 7, some 50 Israeli rabbis issued a "decree" forbidding their Jewish fellow citizens from "renting or selling homes or land to Arabs and other non-Jews." The "decree" was soon endorsed by an additional 250 Israeli rabbis.

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'Giant' Holbrooke Failed on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern
December 14, 2010

President Barack Obama hailed Richard Holbrooke, who died Monday, as “one of the giants of American foreign policy.” The President’s kudos reflected the Establishment gravitas that Holbrooke, the special envoy overseeing U.S. policies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, had acquired in his long career — fact and reason to the contrary.

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WikiLeaks and the Power of Truth

By Rory O'Connor
December 13, 2010

What do Richard Nixon, Liu Xiaobo and Julian Assange have in common?

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The War to Silence WikiLeaks

By Elliot D. Cohen
December 13, 2010

It's curious that Sweden, the most sexually liberal nation in the world enlisted Interpol to hunt down Julian Assange on sexual charges stemming from a broken or unused condom.

Read on.

Bush v. Gore's Dark American Decade

By Robert Parry
December 12, 2010

Ten years ago, the United States stood at a crossroads though the dimness of the future made it hard for many to see which path led toward a brighter day and which headed toward disaster. But then, a partisan Republican majority of the U.S. Supreme Court made the choice for the nation.

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How the Right Shapes US 'Reality'

By Lawrence Davidson
December 11, 2010

There is a postmodern position that states "reality is a social construct." In other words, individuals and groups have their own realities and, according to the postmodernists, one reality is as true as another.

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Big Media's Curious Nixon Judgment

By Robert Parry
December 11, 2010

When Richard Nixon’s presidential library this week released tapes of him making bigoted remarks about blacks, Jews and various ethnic groups, major American news outlets jumped at the juicy details, recounting them on NBC's Nightly News, in the New York Times and elsewhere.

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Demanding American Exceptionalism

By Don Monkerud
December 10, 2010

A plethora of wannabe presidential candidates is beating the drum again for American exceptionalism, a warmed-over rehash of bravado, jingoism, and chauvinism.

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Big Media's Guilt in Gary Webb's Death

By Robert Parry
December 9, 2010

It’s been six years since I received the shocking news that journalist Gary Webb had committed suicide with his father’s pistol.

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Wall Streeters Line Up for Big Bonuses

By Danny Schechter
December 9, 2010

Go, Wall Street, Go!

Read on.

What's Behind the War on WikiLeaks

By Ray McGovern
December 8, 2010

WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in.

Read on.

Obama Aids His Enemies on Tax Deal

By Michael Winship
December 8, 2010

There’s this old joke about the French Revolution. A group of prisoners is lined up before the guillotine. One by one, their heads are lopped off. Then, the next man is put in place. The lever is pulled, but the blade stops just inches above his neck.

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Who's Right? Obama or the 'Base'?

By Robert Parry
December 8, 2010

When President Barack Obama lashed out at the liberal base of the Democratic Party – condemning many on the Left as “sanctimonious” purists – he underscored how profoundly his actions have alienated some of his past supporters and how little he understands why.

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Getting Sensible about the Koreas

By Ivan Eland
December 7, 2010

Why does the U.S. government’s foreign policy often hinge on the naïve and moralistic expectation that other countries should act against their own interests? Wouldn’t a more realistic U.S. foreign policy be better for everyone concerned?

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How Jesus's Message Was Hijacked

By the Rev. Howard Bess
December 6, 2010

The great religious divide in the world today is not a divide between Christianity and other religions, but rather within Christendom.

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Ellsberg Calls for Boycott of Amazon

By Daniel Ellsberg
December 6, 2010

I hope you will join me and others in boycotting Amazon -- inconvenient as that may be -- to provide some counter-pressure to efforts by Senator Lieberman and the Administration to demonize, hound, block and prosecute Wikileaks, and ultimately to control whistleblowing and dissent on the Internet.

Read on.

Killing the Goal of 'Open Diplomacy'

By Lawrence Davidson
December 6, 2010

Given the ahistorical nature of the public mind, few people will recall that as the United States prepared to enter World War I, American citizens were quite exercised over the issue of "open diplomacy."

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CIA Dodges Guilt for Peru Tragedy

By Melvin A. Goodman
December 4, 2010

Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency released a blistering inspector general’s report that dissected a secret drug interdiction program in Peru that was responsible for the death of an American missionary and her infant daughter in 2001.

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The US Empire Targets Iran

By William Blum
December 4, 2010

One of the most common threads running through the WikiLeaks papers is Washington's manic obsession with Iran.

Read on.

Gitmo Detainees Given Risky Drug

By Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye
December 3, 2010

The Defense Department forced "war on terror" detainees arriving at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician compared to subjecting the prisoners to “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Read on.

NYT Stokes Fear of Iran

By Ray McGovern
December 2, 2010

From the very large photo dominating page nine of the New York Times of Nov. 29, you can just tell from the look on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s face, not to mention the endless ranks of military officers standing in rows behind him, that Iran is determined to build a nuclear weapon. Anyone can tell. It’s obvious, right?

Read on.

The Right's Power of Media Money

By Robert Parry
December 2, 2010

In assessing what went wrong with the U.S. political process over the past few decades, it’s easy to see the broad outlines of the right-wing Republican ascendancy and the liberal-left Democratic decline, an imbalance that has now left the nation incapable of doing much besides waging endless wars, bailing out too-big-to-fail banks, slashing taxes for the rich, and running massive deficits.

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A Full-Body Scan for the US Empire

By Phil Rockstroh
December 2, 2010

As many wags have noted, the disclosures of WikiLeaks have subjected the U.S. Empire and its operatives to their own version of a full-body scan.

Read on.

Flush Republicans Play Hardball

By Michael Winship
December 2, 2010

Bees in Brooklyn are producing honey that’s bright red in color. Or, as The New York Times described it, “an alarming shade of Robitussin.”

Read on.

NYT Takes US Side in Iran Missile Flap

By Gareth Porter
November 30, 2010

A diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

Read on.

The Painful History of US-Iran Distrust

By Danny Schechter
November 30, 2010

The building was smaller than I remembered. The fading images in my mind were grainy: angry crowds, students marching, flags burning, chants of “Death to America,” and Americans diplomats in blindfolds.

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Behind Benedict's Shift on Condoms

By Daniel C. Maguire
November 29, 2010

There is nothing new about the recent shift of Pope Benedict on condom use. It is also no novelty when conservatives in the church say no shift is happening at the very moment it is happening.

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Cables Hold Clues to US-Iran Mysteries

By Robert Parry
November 29, 2010

Newly released U.S. diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has played a double game with Iran’s Shiite government, mixing public offers of reconciliation with secret collaboration on hard-line strategies favored by its Sunni Arab rivals and Israel.

Read on.

Beck v. Assange, or Fiction over Fact

By Lawrence Davidson
November 29, 2010

For those who pay attention to the battle of ideas that constantly goes on in the United States, two people presently have taken center stage for diametrically opposite reasons: Glenn Beck and Julian Assange.

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Young Christians Desert US Churches

By the Rev. Howard Bess
November 28, 2010

Chances are that if you are in your 20s or 30s, you are not hanging around a church.

Read on.

Petraeus Duped by Afghan Imposter

By Gareth Porter
November 25, 2010

The revelation that the man presumed to be a high-ranking Taliban leader, who had met with top Afghan officials in reconciliation talks, was an imposter sheds new light on Gen. David Petraeus's aggressive propaganda about the supposed Taliban approach to the Hamid Karzai regime.

Read on.

Is the Right Flipping on US Security?

By Michael Winship
November 24, 2010

To paraphrase that cult movie classic, Eating Raoul, frisk me, pat me down, make me write bad checks. If it keeps my flight from falling out of the sky, do what you must. Just don't expect breakfast in the morning and a thank you note.

Read on.

On Korea, Here We Go Again!

By Robert Parry
November 24, 2010

If American journalism should have learned one thing over the years, it is to be cautious and skeptical during the first days of a foreign confrontation like the one now playing out on the Korean Peninsula. Often the initial accounts from the “U.S. side” don’t turn out to be entirely accurate.

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Bush Gloats Over Dan Rather's Ouster

By Robert Parry
November 23, 2010

George W. Bush, in his memoir Decision Points, says he was shown a copy of a purported memo about his shirking of his National Guard duty before a story citing the document appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes-2,” and the former president gloats over the resulting controversy that cost the jobs of anchor Dan Rather and his star producer Mary Mapes.

Read on.

Pat-Down Fury vs. Perfect Security

By Ivan Eland
November 23, 2010

After the initial hysterical security response to the 9/11 attacks — inane measures included posting 19-year-old National Guardsmen with automatic weapons at crowded airports and the temporary discontinuation of electronic tickets — lasting security augmentation entailed hardening of aircraft cockpit doors and beefing up passenger screening in airports.

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A Dark Humor Pervades US Politics

By Don Monkerud
November 22, 2010

A U.S. senator has an affair with the treasurer of his election campaign and political action committee. He then gives her a no-interest loan of $40,000, and pays $15,000 for her children's private school tuition. After their affair becomes public, he fires her, gives her husband a lucrative lobbying job to keep him quiet, and his parents give her $100,000 as a "gift."

Read on.

Iran-Nuke NIE Stopped Bush on War

By Ray McGovern
November 22, 2010

Why should George W. Bush have been “angry” to learn in late 2007 of the unanimous judgment of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon four years earlier? Seems to me he might have said “Hot Dog!” rather than curse under his breath.

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America's 'Christian Nation' Myth

By the Rev. Howard Bess
November 22, 2010

While people came to the American continent for many reasons, one prominent reason was to find a place to escape religious persecution. Sadly, those who were persecuted because of their faith often became the persecutors.

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Obama's Frantic Mideast Peace Gamble

By Lawrence Davidson
November 22, 2010

The U.S. government acknowledges that it is actively negotiating with Israel the price of a proposed 90-day cessation of settlement activity on the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). It is reported that the Israelis are demanding two things be given them free of charge: 20 stealth fighters (worth $3 billion) and the release of the spy, Jonathan Pollard.

Read on.

Iranian Nuke Documents May Be Fake

By Gareth Porter
November 21, 2010

The most important intelligence documents used to argue that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons research and development program in 2003 turn out to have a fatal flaw: the technical drawings depict a reentry vehicle that had already been abandoned by the Iranian missile program in favor of an improved model.

Read on.

George W. Bush: Dupe or Deceiver?

By Robert Parry
November 20, 2010

George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, is without doubt a self-serving defense of his presidency – and Bush’s own words condemn him as a liar – but there is another nagging question that surrounds this curious book: Has the U.S. media/political system become so polluted with falsehoods that even people at the top now believe the propaganda?

Read on.

A Prince Pursues Ecological 'Harmony'

By Stuart Sender and Julie Bergman Sender
November 19, 2010

When we began production on HARMONY, people would understandably ask us about “The Prince.” But as HRH The Prince of Wales has insisted, HARMONY: A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT OUR WORLD has never been about “The Prince,” but rather about “The Principles.”

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US Consumers Urged to Splurge

By Danny Schechter
November 19, 2010

Funny how, back in 1929, we had a black Thursday and then a Black Friday as the market crashed, plunging the country into a depression. Now we have every retailer in every mall in America on their knees praying for a prosperous “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving.

Read on.

The World's Crisis in War Reporting

By Don North
November 18, 2010

At this complex and dangerous moment in history, we must recognize that journalists around the world are failing in their duty as watchdogs of the people and that – combined with economic stresses – the traditional role of journalism is diminishing.

Read on.

Did GOP's Cantor Cross Line on Israel?

By Lawrence Davidson
November 18, 2010

Zionists of all stripes incessantly complain about anti-Semitism. They tell us that it is on the rise and that is why Israel is so important.

Read on.

US Military at Ease over Gay Soldiers

By Michael Winship
November 18, 2010

Although I grew up in a small town, I live in the West Village of Manhattan, New York City, just three blocks from Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn, where in 1969 a police raid led to angry demonstrations that marked the start of the gay rights movement.

Read on.

Obama's No-Win Afghan Quandary

By Bruce P. Cameron
November 17, 2010

As President Barack Obama looks toward his promised December review of the Afghan War, he faces tough options – both military and political – including whether he will risk sinking his own presidency to sustain a war long bungled by George W. Bush.

Read on.

Will Bush's Book Burnish His Legacy?

By Ivan Eland
November 16, 2010

As George W. Bush does a rash of media interviews to promote his new book, Decision Points, some people — even his post-Katrina nemesis, hip-hop star Kanye West — have begun to mute their criticisms of his presidency.

Read on.

Time to Apologize to Plame/Wilson

By Robert Parry
November 14, 2010

During the scandal known as “Plame-gate,” it became an article of faith in many Washington power centers that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson wasn’t “covert” and thus there was no “underlying crime” when the Bush administration intentionally blew her cover.

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Dogmatism in an Age of Complexity

By Judith J. Johnson
November 13, 2010

We have all known people (some of whom we may be related to, or voted for) who act as if they're the sole expert on a topic.

Read on.

The UN and the Hypocrisy of Power

By Lawrence Davidson
November 13, 2010

The United Nations celebrated its 65th birthday (1945 to 2010) on Oct. 24, having lasted 27 years longer than its predecessor, the League of Nations, which was started in 1919 and didn’t formally shut down until 1946 although it had failed years earlier in its primary goal of preventing a second world war.

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WikiLeaks Ban or Global Secrecy Act?

By D.H. Kerby
November 11, 2010

Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, has proposed amending the Espionage Act specifically to target WikiLeaks and other media organizations that “publish the name” of anyone “helping in our efforts against terrorism.”

Read on.

Yemeni Drone Strikes' Risky Fallout

By Gareth Porter
November 11, 2010

The drone war that has been anticipated in Yemen for the last few months has been delayed by the failure of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) to generate usable intelligence on al Qaeda there.

Read on.

Angry Voters of a Decaying Empire

By Phil Rockstroh
November 11, 2010

Once again, partisan Democrats are reeling in shock and humiliation, boggled by a familiar scenario -- the sheer velocity of their reversal of fortune and the Republican right's perennial ascendency.

Read on.

GOP Victory Derails High-Speed Trains

By Michael Winship
November 10, 2010

Now that an entire week or so has passed, it’s possible to make a cool, complete and objective assessment of the meaning of the 2010 vote. Thus, ladies and gentlemen, it becomes clear what this election was all about: jobs.

Read on.

CIA Officer Duck Video-Torture Case

By Jason Leopold
November 10, 2010

Nearly three years after he was appointed to investigate the destruction of at least 92 interrogation videotapes, some showing two “war on terror” detainees being tortured by CIA interrogators, Special Prosecutor John Durham has decided he lacks sufficient evidence to bring charges.

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The Hard Lessons of Election 2010

By Robert Parry
November 10, 2010

Election 2010 was a victory for corporatist Republicans even more so than Tea Party radicals, a stunning resurgence for the Establishment GOP that says as much about weaknesses among Democrats and the Left as it does about strengths on the Right.

Read on.

Intrusive Airport Searches Miss Point

By Charles V. Peña
November 9, 2010

Security guru Bruce Schneier defines the term security theater as “security measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security.

Read on.

Krystallnacht and Christianity

By Gary Kohls
November 9, 2010

I am what could be called a cradle Christian.

Read on.

Jesus's Teachings and the Tea Party

By the Rev. Howard Bess
November 8, 2010

According to the Luke gospel, after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer, he withdrew for 40 days to think, ponder, and pray.

Read on.

Olbermann's Exile: The Back Story

By Danny Schechter
November 8, 2010

Alex Gibney's new film “CLIENT # 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer" shows how the former Governor's indictments and criticisms of many Wall Street firm's led to counterattacks and pushback from powerful people.

Read on.

Bush Boasts of Waterboard Order

By Ray McGovern
November 7, 2010

Former President George W. Bush continues to be beyond shame. Those favored with an advance copy of Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, say it paints a picture of a totally unapologetic Bush bragging, for example, about authorizing the CIA to waterboard 9/11 “mastermind,” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Read on.