Tag: politics

Ten years from now, looking back on the sequestration.

The case for hope, continued.

The new book by “class traitor” Robert Monks shows a system at its breaking point—and names the twenty-four Americans who can fix it.

The problem is that the IRS has interpreted our tax laws to allow big corporations and wealthy individuals unlimited political influence.

The problem with Obama’s second term.

Increasingly states are quashing the power of local governments—and thwarting innovation.

A look at the administration’s latest approach to drugs, and what they’ve done so far.

Hezbollah’s recent activity casts doubt on its relationship with Europe.

It’s dumb journalism, stupid.

A profile of photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier, whose exhibition A Haunted Capital is at the Brooklyn Museum through August.

Just doing what’s popular would make us healthier, wealthier, wiser, and less indebted.

Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode Island, is calling for the Justice Department to do what the IRS won’t.

Will the GOP team up with Wal-Mart’s data specialist?

Bribes, wires, and little surprise.

When it comes to Israel, Palestine, and Iran, it could all come crashing down.

The right regulates the bedroom before the banks.

Obama’s energy pick has a wealth of business connections.

Emails to Heather Podesta from an interim director raise questions about outside influence on the agency’s decisions.

And what we must do to get it back.

The rise and fall of Germany’s Pirate party casts doubt on a future of crowdsourced politics.

Politics today is still a fight for social justice.

Why did 13 percent of appointed positions remain unfilled after the President’s first term?

A budget that makes needed public investments is crucial to prosperous future.

Your right to swing your fist in religious practice ends when your fist reaches my nose, or uterus.

Federal law often falls short of regulating Congress itself.

Four years, four reversals on dark money.

The last best chance for the truth about a lost war and America’s war-making future.

The provocateur on Obama’s second term and the role of bad behavior in fiction.

How Obama is unraveling Reagan Republicanism.

For Obama’s gun control proposals to succeed, Congress must learn the NRA’s past tactics.

The U.S. is conducting drone strikes in at least three countries beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s a reading guide to understanding the our shadow wars.

The neocons hate Chuck Hagel. That’s a sign he’s qualified for the job.

Fifty years ago, college was cheap, unions were strong, and there was no terrorism-industrial complex.

Seven easy, onscreen steps to making U.S. Torture and detention policies once again palatable.

Banking regulators admitted the Independent Foreclosure Review was a big expensive mess and shut it down. But many details about the $8.5 billion settlement that replaces it remain murky.

The American system of suffering, 1965-2014.

A look at the government’s response as the foreclosure crisis enters its seventh year.

The demanding gifts of 2012.

We should call the Republicans’ bluff and and go over the fiscal cliff.

From a speech at the Earth at Risk conference, Roy on the misuses of democracy and the revolutionary power of exclusion.

Why the formerly Grand Old Party needs to change and won’t.

Even as water grows more precious, the Environmental Protection Agency has permitted oil and gas, mining and other industries to contaminate aquifers in more than 1,500 places.

America’s rich may have lost this round, but they’ll be back.

Yes, unemployment is down, but don’t believe all the hype coming out of Wall Street.

Forget the fiscal cliff, there are three other, bigger dangers.

Democrats, here are eight principles to guide you in the coming showdown over the fiscal cliff.

An open letter to the community organizer and Constitutional law professor who became a robot President.

The poet C.D. Wright discusses book-length works, the political in art, and more.

Debtpocalypse, austerity, and the hollowing out of America.

Generals who run amuck, politicians who could care less, an “embedded” media…and us.

he records of overflight requests show more than 200 tons of “bank notes” from Moscow to Damascus.

The award-winning author on why he loves to write fiction and talk politics, and how nationalism fuels climate change.

Several pro-Russian op-eds are revealed to actually have been written by a PR firm employed by the Russian government.

For those newly in office, the easiest route is that of least resistance.

Robert Reich weighs in for strategies for getting the economy under control.

How not to change the world.

With the fiscal cliff approaching, it’s time for Obama to make some big decisions. Here’s what he should do.

Hurricane Sandy rides in.

Amidst an election that has us feeling like a divided nation, the challenge is to rediscover the public good.

In the wake of the election of Barack Obama, a writer explores black American identity and the ritual of return in Ghana.

In the aftermath of Sandy, it’s time to reevaluate what it means to be dependent on government.

How hope and fear have defined America’s last two presidential campaigns.

Our political language is in desperate need of a change.

Dear progressives: You may think there’s not a huge difference between Obama and Romney. But there is, and you should still vote.

Mitt Romney’s election campaign is rife with questions, and wholly uncertain answers.

This year’s presidential campaign is bigger and louder than anything we’ve ever seen before.

Why it’s decidedly ironic that the New York Times ran a story about Romney being a man of details.

Where does the rage in the Republican Party come from?

How the U.S. and Pakistan became the dysfunctional nuclear family of international relations.

President Obama’s performance in Tuesday’s debate was a significant improvement.

The Cuban Missile Crisis and ownership of the world.

The so-called fiscal cliff might not turn out as dramatic as we imagine.

The problem may not be their lack of integrity, but how we frame the issue.

What Joe Biden needs to know before the vice presidential debate.

The discrediting of U.S. military power.

Even in death, the travails of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif aren’t over.

Media headlines are crowing over the drop in the unemployment rate—but we need to look closer.

Banned Books Week: This year, one Michigan school district tried to keep Morrison’s haunting narrative out of the classroom. A writer explores how Baby Suggs and Beloved teach us what we don’t learn in school.

No one should be surprised by this video of Romney talking about Bain’s business goals.

Aman Sethi consults a troubled storyteller about the terrifying urban legends proliferating among Delhi’s displaced urban poor.

A letter to my dismal allies.

The author talks with Natasha Lewis about his new book Subversives: the FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power.

Can the free market exist without the government’s imposition?

No amount of packaging can change what we already know about Mitt Romney.

Joe McCarthy would understand today’s Islamophobia.

A look inside Pamela Geller’s 9/11 “Stop Islamization of Nations” conference reveals apocalyptic language, racial paranoia, and surprising links to the political mainstream.

Forget Mitt Romney, can the president make it to November 7?

The election’s not over yet, and rumors of Romney’s demise are premature.

A vision of citizenship expressed in Obama’s convention speech might signal a new direction for his administration–and the country.

What Mitt Romney’s 47-percent comment means.

Doug Saunders’s new book fights fears about “the Islamization of America” with historical and sociological fact, but slippery terminology gets in the way.

Unemployment, immigration, women’s rights—the list of Romney-Ryan’s failings goes on and on.

It’s the first anniversary of the Occupy movement, and there is much to look forward to.

Hanna Rosin’s controversial new book proclaims the “end of men.” But what about the women?

Shifting healthcare costs to the workers is not the answer.

After warning the U.S. about the deficit, rating agencies are now concerned that “fiscal cliff” cuts will be too steep.

The debate on the campaign trail has focused on Obama’s past economic policies, but the real question is what will be done after January.

What the all-you-can-eat buffet tells us about misguided nostalgia, overcoming privation, and the RNC.

Obama’s speech was missing the one thing it needed most: an economic plan.

Clinton’s speech has given Americans just what they need: facts.

The most important news won’t be anything coming from the Democratic National Convention.

Despite years of talk about American withdrawal from Afghanistan, the number of military bases there has steadily expanded.

Bernstein was paid $12,000 for remarks in which he challenged the State Department to show evidence the Mujahadin-e Khalq should still be designated a terrorist organization.

Sonia Gandhi and Aung San Suu Kyi have overcome tragic and arduous pasts to emerge as leaders of India and Burma. What’s next for these two historical icons?

Income inequality is one of the most pressing issues facing the country, but you wouldn’t know it from watching the RNC in Tampa.

A provision of the Voting Rights Act, which requires districts with a history of suppressing minority votes to get federal approval of new voting laws, may be headed to the Supreme Court.

London won its Olympic bid based on a promise to reinvigorate the nation’s interest in sport—now, after the Games, Parliament has to deliver the funds

Hurricane Isaac may end up reminding voters of the legacy of George W. Bush.

How quickly will the U.S. leave Afghanistan?

The campaign is glutted with anonymous money because of loose FEC oversight, and the Commission is unlikely to become more assertive anytime soon.

Every campaign is guilty of exaggerations, but Romney’s lies are another thing altogether.

How an American disaster paved the way for Big Oil’s rise—and possible fall—in Iraq.

The director of the Arab Association of New York talks with Meaghan Winter about mosque monitoring, civil liberties, and kids asking ‘why do they hate us?’

Cornel West considers the possibility that the Occupy Movement might fundamentally reshape American democracy.

Drawing on documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission, here’s your guide to how 501(c)(4) groups have used their tax status for purposes the law never intended.

Todd Akin’s comments highlight the danger of letting ideology create facts instead of the other way around.

Introducing the so-called bold, marvelous, and much-needed Ryan-Romney economic plan.

Romney’s alleged 13% tax rate violates the core principles of tax fairness and equal sacrifice.

A decade after John Reed’s Orwell parody was released, it still feels current, and, perhaps, even more relevant than before.

Two conservative non-profits have poured $60 million into the presidential race, far outspending the super-PACS.

Mitt Romney has charged that the Affordable Care Act will make massive cuts in Medicare. Is he right?

The iconoclastic leftist and novelist discusses the rage that fueled him, and how he felt about his coming end alongside the ruin of America.

How two administrations and both parties made illegality the American way of life.

Senior FTC official said it was looking into the Google privacy issue before any articles were published about the case.

Instead of using her closing statement to express remorse, Yekaterina Samutsevich of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot talked about Putin, power, and the subversive potential of images.

By selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has provided a stark contrast for voters.

The election year outsourcing that no one’s talking about.

Don’t harass me on my email, don’t stalk me on the apps that I use, says Crystal Harris after receiving a pop-up message asking her to share her email with the Romney campaign.

“Extreme oil” and the destruction of our oceans

The American debate over healthcare seems absurd most everywhere else.

A message written in blood that no one wants to hear.

The Bahrain American Council says it doesn’t have any lobbyists on its staff. But it sure is close to them.

Writer and former radical bookstore owner Sean Stewart talks about his new book on the underground press that was so vital to ’60s counterculture.

China’s voracious appetite for resources isn’t something to be feared—it should be emulated.

Calls for a Western intervention in northern Mali, now being called “Africa’s Afghanistan,” rely on logical fallacies and ignore recent history.

How the Magna Carta became a minor carta.

As Egypt’s first civilian president assumes his role, it’s unclear how much political power the nation’s generals will wield.

Ivan Illich traces poverty and consumer dependency back to the enclosure of the commons.

How the deficit obsession has been distracting us from our country’s most pressing issues.

How Berlin’s past shapes its present and future as an artist base.

Our democracy is for sale. And people are buying.

The two visual artists on the gravitas needed to make protest art, the rhetoric and representations of the Occupy movement, and how to seduce an audience by grabbing them by the eyeballs.

Secret wars, secret bases, and the Pentagon’s “new spice route” in Africa.

No one knows for sure why or how many cell phone records have been picked up, or whether it’s fully legal.

As narcotraficantes terrorize Mexico with surreal acts of violence, it’s time to reconsider our basic assumptions about the U.S. War on Drugs.

There’s the media portraying President Obama’s tax proposal, and then there’s the real thing.

What is the best way to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon?

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, here’s the insider-trading Libor scandal.

A process of militarization is working its way through all facets of American government, and it’s not likely to stop any time soon.

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare obscures the ruling’s other, deeply conservative result: a road-map for gutting Congressional power.

There are two competing visions of patriotism in America today.

America’s multimillionaires are buying the 2012 election—and with it, American democracy, taking us back to the Gilded Age.

The weird and dangerous groupthink of America’s foreign policy.

Washington feels under siege. Who’s outside the walls?

Is the Obama administration’s crackdown on leakers and whistleblowers indicative of a new sort of Imperial Presidency?

The problem isn’t taxes or Wall Street. It’s that we just don’t have enough money.

Less than half of Americans believe that the Supreme Court is doing a good job. Here’s what that may mean.

Scott Walker is the first American governor to survive a recall election. It wasn’t just about the money.

To solve global problems, we have to start thinking in terms of civilizations instead of than nation-states.  A dispatch from the recent Istanbul Partners Forum.

The U.S. Postal Service is scaling back in the face of a massive budget deficit. Did it bring this on itself, or is someone else to blame?

What happens when censorship becomes an artistic device?

Climate change denial is facing significant new challenges, but the fight is nowhere close to over.

We may be about to enter the worse of both worlds.

The Romney campaign is getting very close to Donald Trump, but why?

True patriotism means taking your share of America’s burden.

Dissident Wuer Kaixi talks about fellow activist Chen Guangcheng, his own attempt to return to China, and his continued hope for “counter-talk” with the regime that exiled him.

Globalizing the global war on terror.

Whistling past the graveyard of empires.

Are the recent controversies surrounding JPMorgan Chase and Bain Capital isolated incidents, or symptomatic of a single, larger problem?

Egypt’s presidential election is a tremendous opportunity for the Egyptian people, but does not come without risks.

With surveillance cameras on every corner and our smartphones tracking our every move, we’ve entered a new era of the war on civilian privacy.

Mitt Romney has spoken highly of the Clinton administration. Is it pandering, or could he really mean it?

The environmental nightmare you know nothing about.

Noam Chomsky on the importance of thinking outside the box.

Kelly Reichardt’s Oregon Trilogy, screening at the Whitney’s Biennial, explores the thin lines between hope and loss, sorrow and joy, the America we’ve got and the one we could have had.

There will be a winner in the 2012 election, but it won’t be Obama or Romney.

J.P. Morgan’s mounting losses and poor monitoring reveal the ongoing fragility of the U.S. banking system.

Honduran President Pepe Lobo received an International Leadership Award last week from the U.S. Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute. But why?

On a recent trip to Israel, Randa Jarrar gets detained, denied entry, and sent to the “Arab Room.”

On staring death in the face and not noticing.

Health care reform may be repealed if Republicans win in November, but it may not be the only president’s signature legislation that’s in danger.

Six recent clashes and conflicts on a planet heading into energy overdrive.

The latest election controversies are over gay marriage and abortions, but we’re not in trouble because of what goes on in the bedroom. We’re in trouble because of the CEOs in the boardrooms.

On the history of the U.S. economy in decline.

Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are staging hunger strikes in Israeli detention centers.

It’s a bad idea to enact cuts in government spending right when consumers can’t spend more.

A planet connected by wild weather.

While the United States advocates for international criminal justice, it may be ignoring human rights abuses closer to home.

Sending debt oeonage, poverty, and freaky weather into the arena.

Beena Sarwar on the “hornet’s nest” of modern Pakistan.

Obama: Weakling at home, imperial president abroad.

The director of Free Speech for People weighs in on Citizens United, corporate personhood, and preserving the integrity of American democracy.

Why the international search for the new head of the World Bank was a charade.

Our economy’s death cycle has a very famous historical parallel: the lead-up to the French revolution.

“The Island President,” a new film about the crisis in the Maldives, wants to change the way we talk about climate change.

Dilip Hiro describes how the Pakistani government has outmaneuvered Washington to the tune of several billion dollars.

Richard Falk on the so-called decline of violence, nuclear weapons, and subtle academic corruption.

Robert Reich on how economic fairness encourages growth, not stifles it.

Robert Reich on three reasons why Obama’s plan to reduce income equality will not do enough.

In this edition of the Alternative Radio podcast, the president of the ACLU talks about how our basic liberties are being violated in the name of preserving liberty.

Vietnam has left town, say “hello” to the new syndrome on the block.

The numbers suggest our economic recovery may be stalling, and it’s for the simplest of reasons.

Director Micha X. Peled’s Bitter Seeds is a compelling portrait of families and biotechnology in modern India.

Anis Shivani interviews Tom Engelhardt, creator of TomDispatch, about how today’s political leaders are leading us toward Soviet-era doublethink and decline.

Skyrocketing student loan debt has dramatically changed the historical conversation about the social worth of education.

France has institutionalized discrimination against Muslims, Sikhs, and Jews—but that hasn’t stopped India, home to large populations of Muslims and Sikhs, from brokering an international arms deals with the country.

How a picture of an astronaut set off a court case over student free speech rights.

Hoodiephobia is real, irrational, racial—and that’s why the Million Hoodies March is so important.

The Trayvon Martin case is emotional, high-stakes, and has been getting a lot of attention—but should human drama drive the discourse?

With a bit of political jujitsu, the President could turn any such defeat into a victory for a single-payer healthcare system—Medicare for all.

Q&A with the recent winner of the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

Hana Shalabi continues her historic hunger strike to protest abuse that she experienced and her objections to the Israeli practice of prolonged detention without charges, without trial.

Is the anti-Occupy law fundamentally un-American?

Mitt Romney needs to learn that we’re no longer in an Etch-a-Sketch world.

A lesson in Republican math.

Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, on how the most important thing in Washington now is “messaging”, and how this affects Washington’s unnerving national security.

How we cured the “culture of poverty” but not culture itself.

M.I.A. likes to portray herself as a revolutionary, but if the “Bad Girls” video is any indication, she’s more interested in pandering to Western stereotypes of Arab countries.

Danny Thiemann interviews the founders of the Syrian citizen-journalist movement.

The Dutch love to chide America on its unethical domestic policy—so it’s time they looked at their own.

Why 21st century oil will break the bank—and the planet.

With the wealth gap so large, shouldn’t we be aiming higher than a “Buffet tax” on the incomes of millionaires?

The professor Glenn Beck loves to hate speaks with Cornel West about waitressing, black nationalism, how the radical right helped her define her politics, and why she’s gloomy about America’s future.

The former Secretary of Labor on the Great Recession, class warfare, and why President Obama must challenge right-wing distortions with a counter-narrative.

In the wake of sedition threats by the Indian government, the writer and activist describes the stupidest question she gets asked, the cuss-word that made her respect the power of language, and the limits of preaching nonviolence.

The unrepentant revolutionary poet and Beat godfather, now 91, looks back at friendships with Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda, Fidel, and the Sandinistas—and asks when The Nation will publish his next poem.

The former prisoner of the Colombian FARC on life in the jungle, coming to forgive, and Emmanuel, her son born in captivity.

The Burma expert defends aid, diplomacy, and “understanding” Burma’s dictators in order to improve human rights, sway softliners, and save lives.

Columbia professor Moshe Adler on why Main Street needs to take economics back from Wall Street.

At the beginning of 2008, the list of the richest Russians contained 101 billionaires; a magical number that for the time being will not be matched. These photographs document a very different Russia.

The financial watchdog on the trouble the American middle class is in, who’s responsible for it, and what needs to be done to get out of it.

Just as the 1800s were ripe for the abolition of slavery, this century will bring forces to bear on freeing women from violence, slavery, and oppression.

The Ohio Congresswoman (and the House’s longest-serving woman) on the vested interests in our broken system, how the bailout made things worse, and if she traded earmarks for donations.

The controversial critic of U.S. foreign policy discusses his forthcoming book, the hypocrisy of neoliberalism, where he feels hopeful about democracy despite U.S. terrorism, and his friendship—okay, passing acquaintance—with Hugo Chavez and other “pink tide” presidents.