From the Archive: The late Supreme Court Justice Scalia put his right-wing ideology above any respect for the Constitution’s Framers, even resorting to a made-up view attributed to Alexander Hamilton in Scalia’s dissent to the landmark upholding of the Affordable Care Act, wrote Robert Parry in 2012.
From the Archive: The death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia has prompted fawning eulogies about his legal brilliance and his heart-felt faith in constitutional “originalism,” but the reality is that he twisted the Framers’ thoughts into whatever was political convenient, as Robert Parry noted in 2011.
President Obama’s failure to prosecute Bush-era torturers created an impunity that has encouraged some Republican presidential candidates to tout new plans for more torture if they reach the White House, a grotesque example of “American exceptionalism,” as Nat Parry explains.
By relying on NATO interventions and other military strategies, the U.S. is bleeding itself economically and crippling its ability to cooperate with Russia, China and other emerging forces in the multi-polar world that is taking shape, a grave geopolitical mistake, says ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.
Exclusive: Official Washington’s demonization of Vladimir Putin and the neocon “group think” about “Russian aggression” have fueled a reckless drive to move NATO forces up to Russia’s border, thus heightening risks of nuclear war and not serving real U.S. national interests, writes Jonathan Marshall.
Americans perceive what has happened to their democratic Republic only dimly, tricked by rightists who call all collective government actions bad and by neoliberals who make “markets” a new-age god. But ex-congressional budget official Mike Lofgren shows how this “Deep State” really works, writes Chuck Spinney.
Neocon-dominated Official Washington is in freak-out mode about the success of the Russian-backed Syrian army around Aleppo, reviving long-discredited claims about “moderate” rebels and ignoring Al Qaeda’s key presence. This neocon frenzy also demands a new Cold War, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
Ignoring Israel’s founding ideals about justice and compassion, Prime Minister Netanyahu and other leaders are guiding the nation into the inevitable direction of a racist apartheid state, building walls against the Arab “wild beasts,” a tragedy that Alon Ben-Meir examines.
Whatever one thinks about Hillary Clinton’s sincerity when she professes progressive values, the undeniable reality is that she has immersed herself for decades in the corrupting sludge of Official Washington and its sleazy pay-for-play schemes with Wall Street and other power centers, as JP Sottile explains.
Hillary Clinton won endorsements from Congressional Black Caucus members while civil rights legend Harry Belafonte came out for Bernie Sanders. But another question is who would Martin Luther King Jr. have supported since he – like Sanders – advocated for “democratic socialism,” as Jeff Cohen recalls.
Believing their own propaganda about “Russian aggression,” Western leaders are building up NATO forces in the Baltic states, which treat ethnic Russians as second-class citizens, possibly provoking a nuclear showdown that no one wants and that a searing BBC documentary imagines, writes Gilbert Doctorow.
Two years ago, the Maidan uprising ousted Ukraine’s elected president, prompting resistance in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, with Crimeans voting overwhelmingly to reunify with Russia, a move that then sparked a new cold war. As propaganda enveloped this issue, Natylie Baldwin went to see for herself last fall.
Exclusive: NATO keeps backing Turkey, one of its members, despite its aid to the Islamic State and other jihadists fighting Syria’s secular government — and even though Turkey’s erratic President Erdogan may be leading NATO into a risky showdown with Syria’s Russian allies, writes Jonathan Marshall.
Exclusive: Syrian rebels, including dominant jihadist elements, torpedoed Geneva peace talks by setting preconditions to come to the table. But the maneuver also renewed pressure on President Obama to commit to a “regime-change” invasion of Syria alongside Saudi and other Sunni armies, as Joe Lauria explains.
Exclusive: The magnitude of Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire drubbing has establishment Democrats wringing their hands as it dawns on them that no candidate in modern U.S. political history has bounced back from a 22-point loss in that first-in-the-nation primary to win the White House, reports Robert Parry.
For decades, the Koch Brothers have funded a massive propaganda operation to disparage what democracy can do when a society pulls together and to glorify a “greed is good” narrative promising great benefits if capitalism reigns free. But the results have been good only for a privileged few, as Michael Winship describes.
Some of our special stories in January focused on the worsening crisis in relations between the United States and Russia, the danger of a wider war around Syria, the triumph of propaganda over reason in American foreign policy, and developments in Campaign 2016.
The twin explosions of post-9/11 national security extravagance and Citizens United political spending bonanza have reshaped Washington — not only in its political outlook but physically, with this New Class preferring lavish McMansions to show off their newfound wealth, as Mike Lofgren describes.
What is most startling about the excited response to Sen. Sanders’s campaign is that millions of Americans seem to be saying that free-market capitalism is failing them and that there must be something better than accepting vast income inequality, as economist Richard Wolff explained to Dennis J Bernstein.
Since Ronald Reagan, the Republicans have rallied many Americans around the notion that “government is the problem.” And, despite disasters for the middle and working classes, right-wing intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer continue to sell the same message, as Lawrence Davidson describes.
Sen. Ted Cruz – known for his brash, boastful and brutal proclamations – is remaking himself in the image of the Lord Savior as he appeals to the Republican Religious Right to pave his way to the GOP nomination and the White House, as Bill Moyers and Gail Ablow describe.
Exclusive: Americans have been carefully shielded from the ugly underbelly of Ukraine’s Maidan uprising in 2014 that overthrew the elected president and installed a U.S.-backed, fiercely anti-Russian regime which has unleashed armed neo-Nazis. But a French documentary has dared to expose this grim reality, as Gilbert Doctorow describes.
Since Israel and the influential U.S. neocons never wanted the Iranian nuclear deal, many U.S. politicians – including presidential candidates – are lining up to sabotage the agreement by finding new excuses to sanction Iran. This trick is a dangerous game, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Exclusive: After Saudi-backed Syrian rebels balked at peace talks and the Russian-backed Syrian army cut off Turkish supply lines to jihadists and other Syrian rebels, the U.S. and its Mideast Sunni “allies” appear poised to invade Syria and force “regime change” even at the risk of fighting Russia, a gamble with nuclear war, writes Joe Lauria.
Exclusive: One fallout from the Hillary Clinton-led “regime change” in Libya – after Muammar Gaddafi gave up his WMD deterrence – is that North Korea keeps building up its nuclear-weapon program. Its leaders don’t want to suffer Gaddafi’s grisly fate, another case of how war can exacerbate other tensions, notes Jonathan Marshall.
Exclusive: What the next U.S. president can do to bring endless warfare to an end is one of the most important issues of Campaign 2016, but it is getting only a cursory treatment in debates as politicians seem to fear neocon wrath if they seek peace, writes Robert Parry.
The Republican Establishment, led by powerful media boss Fox News’ Roger Ailes, undercut Donald Trump’s anti-Establishment campaign with some last-minute maneuvers in Iowa, including baiting Trump to boycott a Fox debate, as JP Sottile explains.
Official Washington hails Robert Gates as one of its Wise Men – and the former CIA director and defense secretary clearly concurs as he shows in his new book – but the reality is far less complimentary, as ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman describes.
Desperate to blunt Bernie Sanders’s surge of support especially among young Democrats, Hillary Clinton is pitching herself as a “progressive,” but many of her policies were anything but – from supporting military coups to favoring corporate interests, writes Jeff Cohen.
By demanding a “revolution” to shift power away from Wall Street, Sen. Sanders is attracting millions of young Americans who want fundamental change. He’s also upsetting the Democratic establishment which favors only incremental “reforms” acceptable to corporate interests, as Norman Solomon notes.
The neocons who dominate Official Washington speak most loudly through their flagship newspaper, The Washington Post, almost always seeking confrontation rather than cooperation in addressing the world’s problems, such as Cold War-era hostility toward Cuba, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.