Category : Columnists

02 Jan

Marginalizing Ron Paul

by Robert Scheer

It is official now. The Ron Paul campaign, despite surging in the Iowa polls, is not worthy of serious consideration. According to a New York Times editorial, “Ron Paul long ago disqualified himself for the presidency by peddling claptrap proposals like abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to the gold standard, cutting a third of the [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Robert Scheer

02 Jan

‘Nuts’ to Iran

by Froma Harrop

When the Germans told Gen. Anthony McAuliffe to surrender his forces in Belgium during World War II, the commander of the 101st Airborne Division famously replied, “Nuts!” The German officers didn’t quite get his drift, which was “Go to hell.” Iran has just threatened to block the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf if [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Froma Harrop

02 Jan

Give a Gift That Matters

by Jim Hightower

It wasn’t that long ago that the act of “gift giving” didn’t require a maddening trip to Walmart or a desperate online search for this season’s must-have toy. Rather, a gift implied something from within, a little piece of yourself, no matter how small, showing you care. Could that old-fashioned concept possibly become new-fashioned? Yes. [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Jim Hightower

02 Jan

On to the Next ‘Bubble Fantasy’

by Robert Scheer

Few journalists have greater influence on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East, than the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. But his tortured obit of a column this week on the official end of the neocolonialist disaster that has been the Iraq occupation reminds one that the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner often gets [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Robert Scheer

02 Jan

The Lethal Fantasies of Dear Old Ron Paul

by Joe Conason

The latest evidence of simmering racial resentment on the American political fringe showed up Monday in a Facebook post by a California man who urged the assassination of the president and his two daughters in obscene, racist language. Aside from the Secret Service, there was little reason for most of us to pay attention to [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Joe Conason

02 Jan

‘Cool’ Cities Are Not Necessarily Warm

by Froma Harrop

The soft economy has left lots of Americans in place, whether they want to be or not. That would include the most mobile group, young people. But to the extent that adults ages 25 to 34 are still moving, their preferred destinations seem to be “cool cities,” according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. What are [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Froma Harrop

29 Dec

Loom of the Jackboot: Obama Gives Military Extreme Powers

by Alexander Cockburn

Too bad Kim Jong-il kicked the bucket last weekend. If the divine hand that laid low the North Korean leader had held off for a week or so, Kim would have been sustained by the news that President Obama had signed into law a bill that puts the United States not immeasurably far from the [...]

23 Dec

Suffer the Little Children

by Alexander Cockburn

Newt Gingrich, who recently admitted that his own childhood was comfortable, seems to have a problem with youth — poor youth, that is. Back in 1994, the Gingrich master plan to shrink the welfare rolls was to ship the children of the poor off to orphanages. He told a Harvard audience not so long ago [...]

21 Dec

There Goes the Republic

by Robert Scheer

Once again, the gods of war have united our Congress like nothing else. Unable to agree on the minimal spending necessary to save our economy, schools, medical system or infrastructure, the cowards who mislead us have retreated to the irrationalities of what George Washington in his farewell address condemned as “pretended patriotism.” The defense authorization [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Robert Scheer

21 Dec

Gifts for the Unemployed

by Froma Harrop

To many rational economists, holiday gift-giving is “an orgy of wealth-destruction,” writes Dan Ariely in The Wall Street Journal. A behavioral economist at Duke University, Ariely makes pro-gifting arguments while acknowledging the bah-humbug view, which goes as follows: Givers often spend money on things others don’t necessarily want, and the recipients frequently think the present [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Froma Harrop