Daily Articles

The Drug War Is Expanding

by Laurence M. Vance February 8, 2011

There is no question that the war on drugs is a failure. In spite of decades of prohibition laws, threats of fines and/or imprisonments, and massive propaganda campaigns, drugs are available and affordable. The Mental Health Services Administration — a government agency — has reported that marijuana, ecstasy, and methamphetamine use has recently increased. The government’s GAO has even ...

Good for the ATF

by Laurence M. Vance February 4, 2011

The recent shooting in Tucson and the continuing allegations that U.S. guns are fueling the increasingly violent Mexican drug wars have once again brought the ATF into the news. It turns out that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has been without a permanent director since Carl Truscott was replaced in 2006 by the first of four ...

The Unraveling of U.S. Mideast Policy

by Sheldon Richman February 3, 2011

The blow to U.S. foreign policy by the popular uprising in Egypt cannot be overstated. The Egyptians’ demand that Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt with an iron hand and billions of American taxpayer dollars, step down is unquestionably a major setback to the U.S. governing class and its plans for the Middle East. Since the end of World ...

Revolution in Egypt and Hypocrisy in the U.S.

by Andy Worthington January 31, 2011

For the United States and other Western countries, the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (which threaten to spread to other countries, including Yemen and Algeria) are something of a nightmare. Just as the authorities in these countries are struggling — and failing — to cope with popular uprisings, so too the United States and other Western countries are ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show: The Income Tax Root of Evil

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 28, 2011

The Jacob Hornberger Show broadcasts live Saturday nights at 7pm EST. Visit FFF's Ustream Channel to watch the show live. //

Ron Paul and Ralph Nader on Corporatism and War

by Sheldon Richman January 28, 2011

What is American politics coming to? I just watched a joint interview with Ralph Nader and Rep. Ron Paul — and they were mostly on the same side! Nader has spent his life promoting government intervention in the economy. Paul has spent his life promoting the free market and minimal government. For the two of them to discuss making ...

The Gambling Question

by Laurence M. Vance January 26, 2011

My state of Florida, like many other states, is facing a budget shortfall. Although our new Republican governor, Rick Scott, maintains that the budget gap is “nothing” compared with other large states, $3.6 billion is still a lot of money. Although some states are turning to tax increases to make up their budget deficits — like Illinois, which just raised ...

Obama’s Collapse: The Return of the Military Commissions

by Andy Worthington January 25, 2011

For T.S. Eliot, April was the cruelest month, but for the prisoners at Guantánamo it is January — from the dashed hopes of January 2009, when President Obama swept into office issuing an executive order in which he promised to close the prison within a year, to January 2010, when, having failed to do so, he ...

Obama Has Nothing to Teach China’s Hu

by Sheldon Richman January 24, 2011

“President Obama ... gently but pointedly prodded China to make progress on human rights,” reports the New York Times. The irony should not escape us. The head of the U.S. empire, which for years has committed a variety of atrocities abroad and widespread surveillance at home, lectured President Hu Jintao of China about human rights. You can’t make this stuff ...

The Nanny State and Baby Cribs

by Laurence M. Vance January 19, 2011

The federal government is routinely condemned for being cruel, inept, paternalistic, evil, inefficient, and intrusive — except when it comes to the subject of child safety. Indeed, in the name of child safety the most flagrant violations of civil liberties, private property, and the Constitution are routinely accepted by those who might ordinarily have nothing but condemnation for the ...

Pentagon Propaganda on Gitmo Prisoners Releases

by Andy Worthington January 18, 2011

For several years now, one organization in the U.S. government has persistently undermined attempts to have a grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantánamo, and the need to bear security concerns in mind whilst also trying to empty the prison and to bring to an end this particularly malign icon of the Bush administration's ill-conceived response ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show: The Evils of the Drug War

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 15, 2011

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