Daily Articles

Destroying the Young with the Minimum Wage, Part 1

by Gregory Bresiger October 1, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 The minimum wage, a price control as futile as all other government price controls, continues to damage the U.S. economy and much of the world. But the obscene irony of the minimum-wage law is that it hurts some of the very people it is supposedly designed to help — young people seeking employment. The government’s ...

Playthings of the Gods

by Matthew Harwood October 1, 2012

The United States of Fear by Tom Engelhardt (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011); 230 page On  the night of March 11, 2012, Sgt. Robert Bales walked a short distance to two Afghan villages in Kandahar Province from Camp Belambay. Under the cover of darkness the soldier is alleged to have gone house to house shooting and stabbing to death 16 ...

Obama Releases Names of Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners; Now It’s Time to Set Them Free

by Andy Worthington September 28, 2012

On September 21, as part of a court case, the Justice Department released the names of 55 of the 86 prisoners cleared for release from Guantánamo in 2009 by Barack Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force, which consisted of officials from key government departments and the intelligence agencies. The Task Force’s final report was issued in January ...

The Hubris of Romney and Obama

by Sheldon Richman September 27, 2012

Mitt Romney, whose bid to unseat Barack Obama looks more desperate every day, senses he’s found a weakness in his rival. In a foreign-policy speech the other day, he blasted Obama over the upheaval in the Arab world, saying, “This is a time for a president who will shape events in the Middle East.” Romney is making two claims: that ...

Government Dependency and Corporatist America

by Tim Kelly September 26, 2012

Mitt Romney’s comment that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes and therefore are not likely to respond positively to his stated opposition to tax increases has been called a “gaffe.” This reminds me of Michael Kinsley’s quip: “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say.” Romney was only half right, ...

The Problem with Conservative Plans to Save Social Security

by Laurence M. Vance September 24, 2012

The largest expenditure of the federal government is Social Security. According to the most recent annual report of the Social Security Board of Trustees, in 2011 $725 billion in Social Security benefits were paid to 55 million Americans, plus other expenses of $11 billion. The three major entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — account for almost half ...

Why Does the Government So Desperately Want Indefinite Detention for Terror Suspects?

by Andy Worthington September 21, 2012

What is the government doing? Last year, when Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with its contentious passages endorsing the mandatory military detention of terror suspects, there was uproar across the political spectrum from Americans who believed that it would be used on U.S. citizens. In fact, it was unclear whether or not that was ...

Romney, Taxes, and Dependence on Government

by Sheldon Richman September 20, 2012

Mitt Romney isn’t just out of touch; he’s also out of sync with the movement to shrink government. In an interview clarifying his now-infamous speech to donors, captured on clandestine video, Romney said, “I think people would like to be paying taxes.” Come again? He also said, “The good news is if you are doing well enough financially that you ...

A Militarist Foreign Policy Means More Death and Destruction

by Gregory Bresiger September 19, 2012

“A feeling has been growing for a long time — even before Viet Nam — that the presidency was somehow out of hand. The White House has been building to some kind of smash.” — George Reedy, former aide to President Lyndon Johnson “More and more it appears that the art of governing is the art of deceiving on ...

Republicans Just Don’t Get It

by Laurence M. Vance September 18, 2012

Not without some controversy, the Democrats and Republicans have issued their new party platforms for 2012. It was predictable, in the case of the Republicans, and surprising, in the case of the Democrats, that “civil liberties” are mentioned only one time in each platform. However, the term is not defined and no examples are given. The Democrats do ...

Deeper in the Afghan Quagmire

by Sheldon Richman September 14, 2012

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has designated the Haqqani network a terrorist organization. What is the Haqqani network? Wikipedia says that it is an insurgent group using asymmetric warfare to fight against US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan. Originating in Afghanistan during the mid-1970s, it was nurtured by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan’s Inter-Services ...

Obama, the Courts, and Congress Are All Responsible for the Latest Death at Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington September 14, 2012

I felt sick when I heard that the man who died at Guantánamo this past weekend was Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni. I had been aware of his case for six years and had followed it closely. He had been cleared for release under George W. Bush (in December 2006) and under Barack Obama (as a result of the ...