With just two weeks to go before the ninth anniversary of the opening of the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo, almost everyone in a position of authority in the US has failed to resolve, in a satisfactory manner, the bitter legacy left by the Bush administration. In fact, to judge by two recent developments, [...]
On December 22, during a largely self-congratulatory news conference by President Obama, dealing with a number of achievements notched up in the last session before the Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives (including the new START treaty, on arms control, and the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”), one of the administration’s conspicuous [...]
How messed up is American politics? Well, here are a few clues. Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed a $1.1 trillion continuing resolution, which funds the government through to September 30 next year. As The Hill explained, the resolution was needed “because Congress failed to pass any of the 12 regular appropriations bills [...]
This holiday season, thousands of Iraqi refugees are living in limbo in the Middle East. Iraqi Christians and other religious and sexual minorities, as well as U.S.- affiliated Iraqis are struggling to survive outside Iraq with limited ability to exercise their basic rights, obtain formal employment or access services such as education and heath care, [...]
Just when it seemed that President Obama’s paralysis regarding Guantánamo couldn’t get any worse — with any further trials or prisoner releases apparently on permanent hold because any other course of action would be politically inconvenient — the House of Representatives and the Director of National Intelligence have stepped in to make the prospect of [...]
If nothing else, the election of 2010 has taught us that a “third” political party is not the answer. Like the two existing major parties, it too would simply become another political commodity to be purchased by the corporations and wealthy elite for their own purposes, rather than serving the interests of ordinary voters. Political salvation will [...]
On his show last Friday, Glenn Beck did something quite unusual for a guy who makes his living scaring people into thinking that America is on the road to communism — he promoted an idea straight out of the Paris Commune of 1871, an idea considered by the Commune to be a necessary stepping stone [...]
To be brutally honest, those of us concerned with “national security” issues (indefinite detention without charge or trial at Guantánamo and elsewhere, trials by Military Commission, and accountability for the Bush administration’s torturers) and foreign policy (the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) could tell by May 2009 that “hope” and “change” were dead in the [...]
Every now and then I’m forcefully reminded of the extent to which Guantánamo is still used by unscrupulous lawmakers as a political plaything, even though it is a place where, by any objective measure, a small number of terrorist suspects are held alongside insignificant Taliban foot soldiers and others unfortunate enough to be in the [...]
This story was written and reported by Jason Leopold and Robert Corsini. It was originally published on Truthout. Of all the arguments that have been made over the past year in support of California’s initiative to legalize marijuana, perhaps the most convincing is the one found on page 237 of Katie Arnoldi’s novel “Point Dume.” [...]
