Daily Articles

Terrorism, Habeas Corpus, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals

by Andy Worthington November 8, 2010

In the struggle in the U.S. courts to establish who can be detained at Guantánamo, and on what basis, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, in June 2008, that the Guantánamo prisoners have constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights, there are three main players: the District Court judges, who, in 57 cases over the last two years, ...

NPR Flap Shows True Nature of Conservatives

by Laurence M. Vance November 3, 2010

Although it isn’t often that conservatives and Fox News come to the defense of a liberal journalist, I come not to congratulate them, but to condemn them. Award-winning liberal journalist Juan Williams was fired by NPR on October 20 for politically incorrect remarks he made about Muslims on The O’Reilly Factor. Fox News then granted him a $2 million, three-year ...

Today’s Election: Progressive Socialists vs. Conservative Con Men

by Scott McPherson November 2, 2010

Before nagging your neighbor about his yard, it’s not a bad idea to take a look at your own first. It’s like making sure you’re not in a glass house before throwing a rock. But these pearls of wisdom aren’t of much interest to a lot of people calling themselves “conservatives” these days. Whether it’s Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Newt ...

U.S. Covert War Provokes Terrorism in Yemen

by Sheldon Richman November 2, 2010

The U.S. government and mainstream media continue to play dumb about threats to Americans from the Muslim world. After two Chicago-bound packages of explosive materials originating in Yemen were found in England and Dubai, White House homeland security and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said, “We are trying to understand who is behind it....” President Obama added, “We will continue to ...

Is There No End to Republicans’ Abuse of Guantánamo Prisoners?

by Andy Worthington November 1, 2010

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 wrong place at the ...

Natural Rights, the Declaration, and the Constitution, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Throughout most of history, it was a given that government had the legitimate authority to wield omnipotent power over its citizenry. If the king wanted a person’s land, he took it. If he wanted a share of its produce, he confiscated it. If he wanted to punish people for worshiping ...

Park51 and Collective Guilt

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2010

If a YMCA or a YMHA were planned for 51 Park Place in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from the Twin Towers’ former site, who would have noticed? Instead, the equivalent of a Muslim Y (without the implied male exclusivity) is to be built there. What’s the big deal? I can think of only one answer: Consciously or not, a majority of ...

Obama Advisor Sunstein’s Peril to Freedom

by James Bovard November 1, 2010

Cass Sunstein is the chief of the Obama administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. As Salon’s Glenn Greenwald noted earlier this year, Sunstein “has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants.” His values are probably guiding the Obama administration far more than most Americans realize. Sunstein, formerly a law professor at the University of Chicago, has long spearheaded ...

Regulation and Union Corruption

by Jim Powell November 1, 2010

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has been a hotbed of violence and corruption ever since it started in 1903. Cornelius Shea was the Detroit-based union’s first president, and he constantly battled rivals. He was charged with graft, criminal libel, and mail fraud, and was indicted for conspiracy to restrain trade, commit violence, and prevent nonunion people from working. During ...

Lessons from a Bloated Budget

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2010

President Obama has just sent to Congress the largest federal budget ever in U.S. history. His $3.518 trillion budget is also the most unbalanced in history, with a built-in deficit of $1.413 trillion. The United States has rarely in its history had a balance of receipts and outlays. Deficit spending has been the norm, with the last real budget surplus ...

Nullifying Tyranny

by George Leef November 1, 2010

Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Regnery, 2010); 309 pages. One of the big mistakes made by the drafters of the Constitution was their omission of any provision that says what is to be done if the Congress or president acts unconstitutionally. Although the Constitution places limits on their authority, nowhere does ...

Have Republicans Finally Seen the Light?

by Laurence M. Vance October 29, 2010

How many Republicans does it take to screw up a light bulb? If you said ninety-five then you must be familiar with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that mandates the phase-out of incandescent light bulbs. Although it is true that Republicans never reverse the legislative damage done by Democrats, sometimes they do make a lame, half-hearted attempt ...