Today's
Stories
December 7, 2010
Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Actual Wiki Cables Belie NYT's Version of Saudi / Gulf States' Stance on Iran
December 6, 2010
Michael Hudson
Deficit Commission Follies
Paul Craig Roberts The US Government's Frontal Assault on Freedom
Mike Whitney
How Ireland Can Strike a Blow Against the Imperial Bankers
Sasan Fayazmanesh
Iran and the Leaks of Wikileaks
Steve Breyman
The Return of Debtors' Prisons
Davey D
The Copyright Police: First They Came for the Hip Hop Sites ...
Neve Gordon
Uprooting the Bedouins of Israel
Greg Moses
Shall American Teenagers Dream Free?
Mark Weisbrot
The Drive to Cut Social Security is Based on Deception
Ben Terrall
Animating "Howl": the Subversive Art of Eric Drooker
Website of the Day
WikiMirror
December 3 -5, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Julian Assange: Wanted by the Empire, Dead or Alive
Darwin Bond-Graham
Nuking the Social Contract
Andy Kroll
The New American Oligarchy
William Blum
Anti-Empire Report:
From Wikileaks to TSA
Rannie Amiri
All Eyes on Lebanon
Ray McGovern
No Evidence? No Problem:
NYT Still Stalking Iran
Saul Landau /
Nelson P. Valdes
Leaked Cuba Memo to Raise Eyebrows
Ramzy Baroud
Turkey Must Reveal Its Cards
P. Sainath
India's Lobbying Scandal
John Carroll, M.D.
Dying in Haiti
David Rosen
Culture Wars Redux: Sex and the Tea Party Congress
Steven Colatrella
How Shall We Pray? Give Us Bread; Forgive Our Debts
Thomas I. Palley
Why Obama is Failing
Francis Shor
Wikileaks and the Spanish Prosecutors
Russell Mokhiber Bank Power
Mark Weisbrot
A Setback for Haiti
John V. Whitbeck
New Language for Middle East Peace
Sherry Wolf
I am a Rent-aholic
Ronnie Cummins
The Road to Cancun
Michael Winship
Bad Buzz From the Capital Hive
Ron Jacobs
Black Liberation in an Occupied Land
Nilofar Suhrawardy
Pampering India's Nuclear Ego
Missy Beattie
Friend or Foe?
Bill Manson
The Merchants of Fear
Linh Dinh
Helpless
Bruce E. Levine
5 Myths About Depression Treatments
John Grant
Wikileaks is Good for America
David Macaray
Should Show Biz Celebrities Be Muzzled?
Yves Engler /
Bianca Mugyenyi
Cars and the Tea Party
Charles R. Larson
Literary Hijinks Made Fatal
Scott Borchert
In the Ruins of the Perfect Future
Harry Clark
The Fever Chart
David Yearsley
The Organ-Building of Munetaka Yokota
Poets' Basement
Ford, Yankevich and Orloski
Website of the Weekend
Closing a Deadly Gateway
December 2, 2010
Michael W. Hudson
The Borrower and the Billionaire
Paul Craig Roberts
What the Wiki-Saga Teaches Us
Franklin C. Spinney
Staying the Course in Afghanistan
Benjamin Dangl
Wikileaks and Bolivia: the Ambassador Has No Clothes
Uri Avnery
The Original Sin of the Israeli State
Mike Whitney
If the US Wants Peace in North Korea, It Should Keep Its Word
Russell Mokhiber
Obama's Kleptocracy Initiative: What About Wall Street?
David Macaray
The Family and Medical Leave Act Revisited
Ed Moloney
The Hypocrisy of Peter King
Brian McKenna
Wild West Journalism
Website of the Day
Right 2 Survive
December 1, 2010
Gareth Porter Wikileaks Exposes Complicity of the Press
Paul Craig Roberts
Hillary's Blame Game
Russ Wellen
The Frontlines of Disarmament
Nikolas Kozloff
Wikileaks Comes to Latin America
Conn Hallinan
The Future of Kashmir
Sheldon Richman
Afghanistan: No Hurry to Leave
Rich Broderick
The Free Market Puts Ireland on a Starvation Diet ... Again
David Solnit
11 Years After the WTO Uprising
Farzana Versey
No Looking "Backwards"
Charles M. Young
Whole Lotta Lies
Charles R. Larson
Six Ways to Eliminate the Deficit
Website of the Day
John Lennon: Bull in Search of a China Shop
November 30, 2010
Ralph Nader
Missing the Mark on Deficits
Paul Craig Roberts
Fabricating Terror: the Portland "Bomb" Plot
Bill Quigley
Why Wikileaks is Good for Democracy
Jonathan Cook
Wikileaks and the New Global Order
Dean Baker
When the Bubble Burst
James McEnteer
Indian Givers: South Africa is More Than Black and White
Tom Engelhardt
The National Security State Cops a Feel
Sherwood Ross
Holder v. Assange
Gina Ulysse
Haiti's Fouled-Up Election
Bill Manson
The Long Run to the Bottom
Website of the Day
Act Now to Save the Galapagos!
November 29, 2010
Paul Craig Roberts
The Stench of US Economic Decay Grows Stronger
Israel Shamir
Assange in the Entrails of Empire
Mike Whitney
Hammering Ireland
Lawrence Davidson
Glenn Beck, Julian Assange and the Battle of Ideas
Winslow Wheeler /
Sanford Gottlieb Memo to Tea Party Senators: Cutting the Defense Budget
John Carroll, MD
The Road to Vote in Haiti
P. Sainath
Obama's Indian Outing
Carl Finamore
Pilot Protests Underscore Passenger Safety
David Macaray
Why Not Declare Class War and be Done With It
Dave Lindorff
The Yahoos are in Charge
Website of the Day
Mark Ruffalo Put on Terror Watch List for Screening Anti-Natural Gas Film
November 26 - 28, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Run, Russ, Run
Winslow T. Wheeler
The Defense Budget and the Deficit: How the Plans Compare
Ramzy Baroud
Obama Surrenders Palestinian Rights
Harry Browne
Ireland and the House of Cards
Bill Quigley /
Nicole Phillips
Haiti's Sham Elections
Saul Landau
Bombing the Senses: Ads to the Brain
Brian Cloughley
Thanksgiving of the Drones
Fidel Castro
The Lights of Rebellion:
Evo Answers NATO
Francis Shor
Normalizing Blowback
Steve Heilig
How (Not) to Legalize Pot
Terrence Paupp
Obama's Fading Empire
Brenda Norrell
The Women of AIM: Watching for the Men in Shiny Shoes
Missy Beattie
The Greedy and the Needy
Linh Dinh
Power Grabs at the Airport
Christopher Brauchli
Gouged While Flying
Eric Walberg
Russia and NATO
Ellen Taylor
The Navy's Toxic Tentacles
Ron Jacobs
Zizek and the End Times
Bill Manson
Manufactured Hysteria and Relative Risks
Harvey Wasserman
Terror! Oil!! Opium!!!
Walter Brasch
Fairness and the Bristol Stomp
Michael Dickinson
World Strike Day 2012
Ingmar Lee
The Appalling BC Tar Sands Pipeline
Gwyneth Leech
Staying, Not Going:
Artists Loving New York City
David Ker Thomson
Asking For Whom the Bell Tolls
Charles R. Larson
Lynd Ward: America's First Graphic Novelist
Poets' Basement
Dennison, Chaet and Clark
Website of the Weekend
Don't Touch My Junk
November 25, 2010
Michael Hudson
A "Flat Tax" for the Rich?
Mike Whitney
Memo to Ireland: "Tell the EU and IMF to Shove It!"
Gareth Porter
Why Gen. Petraeus was Snookered by the "Taliban" Imposter
Sarah Anderson
Food Should Not be a Poker Chip
Karl Grossman
The Skin of Our Teeth: Avoiding Nuclear Destruction
David Ker Thomson
Canadian Thanksgiving: If We Didn't Have It, We'd Have to Invent It
Rajesh Makwana / Adam Parsons
Rethinking the Global Economy: the Case for Sharing
Charles R. Larson
Palintology 101 (Part One)
Website of the Day
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us"
November 24, 2010
Jeffrey St. Clair
BP's Inside Game
Paul Craig Roberts
TSA's Gestapo Empire
James Ridgeway Invasion of the Body Scanners: Is TSA Spreading Cancer?
Michael Scott
First a Hand on Your Crotch, Next a Boot in Your Face
Nick Dearden
The Climate Loan Crisis: Making Poor Countries Pay Twice
Russell Mokhiber
Private Insurance Induced Stress Disorder?
Daniel Moss
Tear Down the Dam; Restore the Commons
Farzana Versey
The Media as Middle Man
Yasin Gaber
The Marvels of Exile: Judith Butler on Edward Said
Dan Beaton
A Tale of Two Elections: Burma and Haiti
Website of the Day
Useless Gobshites!
November 23, 2010
Pam Martens
Ten Ideas to Starve the Wall Street Beast
Patrick Cockburn
The Dangers of Embedded Journalism
Ben Rosenfeld /
Lauren Regan
When the Constitution is No Obastacle for the FBI:
Legal Lessons From the Green Scare
Franklin C. Spinney
Another Free Ride for the Pentagon?
Dean Baker
Sinking Ireland
Ralph Nader
Obamabush: Semper Fi, Barack
Ray McGovern
Bush the Warmonger in His Own Words
George Wuerthner
Livestock and Predators: How to Stop the Killing
Don Monkerud
America's New Entertainment
Clare Bayard
Healing From Empire
Website of the Day
The American Galapagos
November 22, 2010
Michael Hudson
Why Paul Krugman Waves the Flag for Uncle Sam
James Abourezk
Honoring Helen Thomas
Paul Craig Roberts
Insouciant Americans
Sasan Fayazmanesh
When Sanctions Are Not Enough
Richard Forno
TSA and the New "Americanism"
Gary Leupp
Ignorance There ... and Here
Martha Rosenberg
Seven Ways Medical Conflicts of Interest are Disguised
Lawrence Davidson
Obama Plays the Fox
Patrick Bond
"Leave the Oil in the Soil!"
Michael Dickinson
Kiss My Ring: the Vatican Versus Jesus
Website of the Day
Globeistan
November 19 - 21, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Time for a Real Mutiny
Jeffrey St. Clair
Let Them Eat Oil
Mike Whitney
Tying Bernanke's Hands
Joanne Mariner
The Banalization of Torture
Gareth Porter
The Fatal Flaw in the Iran Missile Docs
Karen Greenberg
Guilty Until Proven Guilty
Thomas Christie, Pierre Sprey, Franklin Spinney et al.
How to Cut the Defense Budget
Rannie Amiri
Way Beyond Chutzpah: Cantor Crosses the Line
Dr. Jim Morgan Haiti's New Normal: Dispatch from Cite Soleil
Lawrence Swaim
Israel's War Against the Dead
Ramzy Baroud
Education at Gunpoint
Ron Jacobs
No Alternative in Afghanistan?
Robert Alvarez
Shelving START
Russell Mokhiber
War is a Drug
P. Sainath
India's Great Drain Robbery
David Macaray
194 Years of Scabs
Carl Finamore
Hyatt's Dirty Safety Record
Brian Tierney
Hotel Workers Rising
Franklin Lamb
How the US and Israel Hope to Destroy Hezbollah
Gerald E. Scorse
The Truth About Capital Gains
Joshua Brollier
Natives Without a Nation
Missy Beattie
So Many Messages
Stewart J. Lawrence
Immigration Supporters Win Big Victory in California
Brenda Norrell
On the Border: Where Skin Color is the Dividing Line
Christopher Brauchli
Pot and the Deficit: the Hidden Cost of Prohibition
Carol Polsgrove
The Governor and the Power Plant
David Ker Thomson
Against Jane Jacobs
Dave Lindorff
No News is Not Good News
Jeff Deasy
Here Come the FrankenSalmon
Bill Manson
The Politics of Nice
Clifton Ross
Dancing With Dangl
Charles R. Larson Twain: the Last Word, One Hundred Years Later
Richard Estes
"Carlos:"
An Orientalist Masterpiece
David Yearsley
Schumann and the Warm Bath of Memory
Poets' Basement
Springate, Orloski and Cirino
Website of the Weekend
Buy Nothing
November 18, 2010
Diana Johnstone
NATO's True Role in US Grand Strategy
Mike Whitney
Ireland's Suicide Pact with the EU
Behzad Yaghmaian
Facing a Leaderless Globalization
Kenneth E. Hartman
Are They Really Opposed to the Death Penalty?
Norman Solomon
Wooing the Economic Royalists
Michael Winship
Don't Ask, Don't Care
Patrick Bond
Will Zimbabwe Regress Again?
Joel S. Hirschhorn
The Anti-Incumbent Movement Failed
Website of the Day
Free Speech on Trial
November 17, 2010
Vicente Navarro
The Hypocrisies of Mario Vargas Llosa
James Bovard
The Political Slaughterhouse
Jonathan Cook
Obama's Bribe
Dean Baker
Seoul Searching on Trade and Currency
Ralph Nader
Bush at Large
Nick Turse
Off-Base America
Sherry Wolf Alienation 101: the Online Learning Rip Off
Judith Scherr
Why Aristide's Party Won't Vote
Peter Certo
Defense Cuts Go Mainstream
Website of the Day
The Last Outsider Director: an Interview with Jean-Luc Godard
November 16, 2010
Pam Martens
How the Fed and the Treasury Stonewalled Mark Pittman to His Dying Breath
Richard Forno
TSA and America's Zero Risk Culture
Gareth Porter
The Unending Occupation of Iraq
Harry Browne
Bruce Springsteen's "Promise" and the Price You Pay
Peter Lee
QE2 as Self-Inflicted Wound
Alan Farago
How Much Gold Does George Bush Own?
Franklin Lamb
Is the American Public About to Toss Israel?
Frank Green
Conspiracy in Theory: Truthers Slog On
Sheldon Richman
Blood on His Hands
Thomas H. Naylor
Shattering the Myth of Vermont
Website of the Day
Peaceful Uprising
November 15, 2010
Michael Hudson
Obama's Greatest Betrayal
Steve Hendricks
More Torture, Please?
Paul Craig Roberts
Eyes Only on Burma
Harvey Wasserman
Accidents in Progress:
America's Eggshell Nukes
Lawrence Davidson
Palestine and the Fate of the UN
Clancy Sigal
The Long Disease of War
David Macaray
The War Over Food Stamps
Tom Engelhardt
The Stimulus Package in Kabul
Steven Fake
Liberating Thought
Website of the Day
Whatever ...
November 12 - 14, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
A Very Bitter Woman
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's Stalemate Ends
Mike Whitney
Erin Go Broke
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Militarization of the World: the Case of Iran
Dean Baker
The Perverse Priorities and Fatal Flaws of the Deficit Commission Report
Gareth Porter
Intel Failure in Yemen
William E. Alberts
Why Are the Feds Targeting Black Officials?
Bill Hatch
Jerry Brown's Parable of the Rocking Boat
Jonathan Cook
Re-Unifying the Palestinian Nation
Patrick Madden Mystifying the Crisis: Deadlock at the G20
Ramzy Baroud
Another Baghdad Massacre
Rannie Amiri
The Quest for Power in Iraq
James Zogby
Whither Obama's Middle East Agenda?
Ron Jacobs
Palestine, a Family's Story
Mark Weisbrot
Why It Could Get Even Worse for the Democrats
Tanya Golash-Boza
Targeting Jamaicans
Paul Wright
The Case Against Stacia A. Hylton
Steve Early
TDU in Chicago: Still Punching
Martha Rosenberg
Vioxx All Over Again?
Celia McAteer
London Calling: Student Militancy a Welcome Surprise
Larry Portis
Imperialist Architecture in Egypt
Michael Winship
Riding the Rails, Looking for Work
Brian McKenna
Anorexia and Capitalism
Gerald E. Scorse
Channeling Reagan on Tax Reform
Christopher Brauchli
Making Oklahoma Safe From Sharia Law
Roberto Rodriguez
Arizona: Where Fear is the Predicate
Dr. Susan Block
My Porn Star Girlfriend
J. T. Cassidy
Unlocking Imagination in Japan
Linh Dinh
Revolution Number 10
Farzana Versey
The Misinterpreters of Kashmir's Maladies
David Ker Thomson
The Elizabethan Era: Life in the Ice Age
Phil Rockstroh
Public Like a Frog
Charles R. Larson
Abused Women ... Still a Growth Industry
David Swanson
Tall Tillman Tales
Saul Landau
"Stone:" Walking Invisibly in the American Crowd
Kim Nicolini
An Intimate Look at How Things are Made in China
David Yearsley
The Esserzici Work-Out Book
Poets' Basement
Three by Lee Stern
Website of the Day
Bombs Away!
November 11, 2010
Peter Linebaugh
Laying Down of Arms
Paul Craig Roberts Licensed to Kill
Bill Quigley
Bush Pens True Crime Book
David Macaray Dissing the Boss: the NLRB Files a Landmark Complaint on Free Expression in the Workplace
Liaquat Ali Khan / Jasmine Abou-Kassem
Why the Oklahoma Shariah Law is Unconstitutional
Dedrick Muhammad
Race and Economics
Robert Bryce
Cars for the Elite: Obama's Electric Vehicle Fetish
Alan Farago
What, No Phone Books?
Website of the Day
London Calling
November 10, 2010
Allan Nairn
US-Backed Death Squad Files Surface in Indonesia
Dean Baker
Wall Street's TARP Gang Rides Again: Now They're Coming After Your Social Security!
Nicola Nasser
Waiting for Godot in Palestine
Missy Beattie
Running Scared:
My Colonoscopy Saga
Sergio Ferrari
Worrying Signs From Venezuela to Ecuador
Patrick Cockburn
Can Iraq's Leaders Do a Deal?
Dave Lindorff Mumia: New Lawyer, New Round
Sherwood Ross
How Affirmative Action Brought Willie Mays to the Giants
Joshua Frank
Sinking the Breakwater
Website of the Day
Stiglitz: "Throw the Bankers in Jail to Save the Economy"
November 9, 2010
Uri Avnery
Obama's Defeat
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Dollar Policy
Jordan Flaherty
The Incarceration Capital of the US: the Crisis Inside New Orleans' Jails
Afshin Rattansi
Red Poppies
Annie Gell
Haiti's Unnatural Disasters
Dean Baker
The Fed's Second Shot
Dave Lindorff
BS From the BLS: Things are Much Worse Than They are Telling Us
Stewart J. Lawrence
The Nancy Monster That Refuses to Die
Walter Brasch
Love and Loss Among the Wild Horses
Website of the Day
Cut This: an Open Letter to the Tea Party
November 8, 2010
Paul Craig Roberts
Phantom Jobs
Thomas Healy
An Interview with Wendell Berry
David Swanson
A CIA Kidnapping in Milan
David Smith-Ferri
What Laila Sees
Ralph Nader
When Betrayed Voters Go to the Polls
Ray McGovern Torture Sans Regrets: Bush's Confessions
John Feffer
The Lies of Islamophobia
Christopher Ketcham
TV Toxicosis: What the Stewart / Colbert News Clowns Are Really Up To
Website of the Day
Sam Husseini Interrogates Rand Paul and Mike Pence
November 5 - 7, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Now for the Good News
Vijay Prashad
Obama in India: a Tide of Turbans
Patrick Cockburn
If al-Qa'ida Really Want to Hit the West, They Can
Darwin Bond-Graham
Guess Who's Not Coming to Tea?
Mike Whitney
Dollar in the Dustbin
Linn Washington, Jr.
An Epidemic of Brutality: Oakland Filmmaker Feels Police Wrath
Rannie Amiri
STL = Sandbag the Lebanese
Ramzy Baroud
The Middle East's Stagnant "Change"
Larry Portis
Chou Sar? What Happened in Lebanon?
Gary Leupp
The Yemeni Toner Cartridge Bomb Story
William Loren Katz
Are Cruel Years Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?
Brian Cloughley
Spheres of Influence
Mark Weisbrot
The Fatal Mistake
Rubén M. Lo Vuolo, Daniel Raventós / Pablo Yanes
Basic Income in Times of Economic Crisis
Joseph Nevins
Ecological Privilege and the Frequent Flyer Activist
Neve Gordon
Thought Crimes
Alan Farago
The Bhopal Economy
Stewart J. Lawrence
Immigration Policy After the Midterm Elections
James R. King
The Other Side of Yemen
Ron Jacobs
How Ken Kesey Turned On America
Franklin Lamb
Israel Claims Victory in US Midterm Elections
James McEnteer
Beyond the Rational:
the Alamo Election
Richard Phelps
Guy Fawkes and the Pressure of a Terrorism Spotlight
Saul Landau
Where's the Sanity Clause?
David Ker Thomson The Long Argument
Evelyn Pringle
The Vaccination Profiteers
Joseph G. Ramsey Until Pigs Fly: the Morning After With Michael Moore
Stanley Heller
Up Yours, John Stewart
Missy Beattie
The Big Universe
Harvey Wasserman
Vermont's Great Green Election Day Victory
Billy Wharton
Where Did Everybody Go?
Shamus Cooke
Democrats Run to the Right
Linh Dinh
War Games: Guns and Balls
Windy Cooler
Rallying Through This
Charles R. Larson
Witnesses of Haiti's History: Edwidge Danticat's "Create Dangerously"
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards' Demon Life
David Yearsley
Bach and the Music of Time
Website of the Weekend
Smearing Jean-Luc Godard as an "Anti-Semite"
November 4, 2010
Doug Peacock
Desert Solitaire, Revisited
Andrew Cockburn
Why Summers Goes and Geithner Stays
Iain Boal
Crisis at Pacifica: the Two-Percent Putsch
Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotence of Elections
Chase Madar
Guantánamo: Exception or Rule?
Dave Lindorff
Take That You Smug Bastards!
Russell Mokhiber
Bought and Paid For
Laura Flanders
Lessons From Elizabeth Warren
Website of the Day
Moyers: the Howard Zinn Lecture
November 3, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
America the Clueless
Franklin C. Spinney
Democratic Debacle
Chris Floyd Dissatisfied Mind: Flickers of Hope in a Deadly Political Cycle
William Blum
Jon Stewart and the Left
Sheldon Richman
Provoking Yemeni Terrorism
Stephen Soldz
Fleecing Members, Colluding in Torture
Mark Weisbrot
Dilma's Victory in Brazil
Stewart J. Lawrence
Court Sends Mixed Signals on Arizona Immigration Law
Manuel Garcia, Jr. Election Night in Oakland
Norman Solomon
Now What?
Website of the Day
Save Our Social Security
November 2, 2010
Vincent Navarro
What's Happening in Europe?
Ishmael Reed
Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, T-Shirts
Uri Avnery
The Occupation and Political Corruption in Israel
Mark Driscoll
When the Pentagon "Kill Machines" Came to an Okinawan Paradise
Mike Whitney
Midterm Day of Reckoning: "Let the Landslide Begin"
Linh Dinh
Prone Pioneers: Punishing the Desperate for Being Desperate
David Macaray
Bring Back the Fifties! America's Most Misunderstood Decade
Randall Amster Wikilessons: War is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny
Betsy Ross
How the Banks Trumped Keynes
Yves Engler
A Sad Spectacle:
Canada and the Jewish National Fund
Website of the Day
Gulf Oil Toxic to Humans
November 1, 2010
Ted Honderich
The Farce of Fairness
Steven Higgs
Don't Act Don't Sell: Why Liberals Will Get What They Deserve on Election Day
John Ross
A Ding-Dong Year for Death in Mexico
Dean Baker
A Darkening Future: Why Growth Still Feels Like a Recession
Ralph Nader
When Corporations are the Government
Justin E. H. Smith
The People Without History
Marjorie Cohn
Hyping Fear
Scott Boehm
Juan Williams and Katrina
Brian Tierney
The Struggle of DC's Nurses
Trish Kahle
Jon Stewart, Are You Really That Sane?
Martha Rosenberg Bathrobe Erectus: Feting Hugh Hefner
Website of the Day
Scary New Wage Data
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December 7, 2010
Institutional Insanity
GOP Wackopedia
By RALPH NADER
If there was a mental health hospital for institutions the Republican Party and its top leaders would be admissible as clinically insane. Their bizarre wackopedia seems to contain no discernible boundaries. Repeatedly, these corporate supplicants oppose any measure, any regulation, any legislation that will directly help workers, consumers, the environment, small taxpayers and even investor-shareholders.
There are some exceptions. Since these Republican politicians eat, some did vote for the long-delayed food safety bill last week so that e-coli does not enter their intestines to disrupt the drivel drooling from their daily repertoire.
The Republicans get away with countless absurdities for at least two reasons. One is that their nominal opponents are the spineless, clueless, gutless Democrats (with a few notable exceptions) who present themselves as uncertain waverers, dialing for the same corporate dollars as the Republicans chase. The other is the political reporters who dwell on questions directed toward tactics and horseraces that the dimmest of Republicans can handle easily.
Take the evasive next Speaker of the House, Ohio Republican John Boehner. I've lost count of the times he said the recent health care law would "kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country." I don't recall one reporter asking him to be specific on these claims. Instead, the questions focused on Capitol Hill timing and tactics.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, makes similar declarations such as: "I've said over and over again, you don't raise taxes in a recession." Really? Of all previous presidents, only Only George W. Bush did not raise taxes but actually reduced them in wartime. But don't expect a reporter to ask McConnell whether he thinks the children and grandchildren should be sent the bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Or if he thinks repealing the Bush tax cuts on the rich would help reduce the deficit.
How many times have you heard the Republicans demand cutting the national deficit? Probably as often as they did nothing when George W. Bush piled up trillions of dollars in red ink. Now that Obama is president, they rarely get specific about just how they are going to do this, other than jumping on Medicare (where corporate fraud is indeed rampant and untreated by them) or social security which is solvent for another 30 years.
For most Republicans, it is never about cutting the bloated military budget—ridden with corporate crime and fraud and burdened with massive redundancies that keep the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about deep in profitable government contracts.
Nor do the Republicans go after the corporate welfare budget—the hundreds of billions of dollars per year of subsidies, giveaways and handouts to domestic and even foreign corporations. Except for Ron Paul and a very few others, that is. (See: http://www.taxpayers.org and http://www.goodjobsfirst.org)
Another assertion made in this year's mid-term elections by Republican candidates for Congress all over the country is that: "Government does not create jobs, only the private sector does." Let's see. Government not only creates jobs, taxpayers have paid trillions of dollars for research, development and tax credits that are given over to build entire industries. These include the semi-conductor, computer, aerospace, pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and containerization industries, to name a few.
The Pentagon created the job-producing Internet, for example. When the government funds public works or expands the armed forces, millions of jobs are created.
Will there be one reporter who challenges this Republican nonsense, often expressed in press interviews on cell phones while driving on highways in cars with seat belts and air bags either based on taxpayer-funded research, directly paid for, or regulated into being through the government?
Mute Democrats and mindless reporters make insane Republicans possible. Bringing these cruel descendants of Lincoln's Party down their ladder of generalities is to become concrete, to give substantiating examples that will either show that they have no clothes or that they prefer mink.
The American people deserve to have reporters ask one question again and again: "Senator, Representative, Governor, President, would you be specific, give examples and cite your sources for your general assertions?"
For instance, especially Republicans regularly roar their demand for "tort reform." A reporter could ask for clarification such as: "Sir, do you mean by 'tort reform' giving more access to the courts to millions of excluded Americans who get nothing for injuries and illnesses recklessly caused by manufacturers, hospitals, and other wrongdoers, or do you mean further restricting the law designed to afford these people compensation for their harms? (See: http://www.centerjd.org)
The same demand for concreteness can be directed to the dittoheads who cry out against "over-regulation." Where? Over Wall Street? For health and safety requirements that are either weak when issued, technically obsolete or rarely enforced? (See: http://www.progressivereform.org)
Bringing these well-greased pontificators down their abstraction ladder to where people live, work, overpay, bleed and suffer is a major step forward so the sovereignty of the people can begin exercising itself.
Ralph Nader is the author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, a novel.
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