Daily Articles

Prosecuting the Bush Administration’s Torturers

by Andy Worthington March 23, 2009

Its a sign of how much the Bush administration skewed Americas moral compass that we are currently facing the possibility that the only way to bring the torturers to account is through a Nonpartisan Commission Of Inquiry essentially, a toothless truth and reconciliation commission of the type proposed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ...

Drug-War Idiocy in Federal Court

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 20, 2009

A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, Leonie M. Brinkema, recently sentenced four young people to terms in the penitentiary ranging from 46 months to 20 years. The four, whose ages ranged from 19 to 21, were convicted of drug-war crimes relating to the possession and distribution of heroin. Faced with what the Washington Post described ...

From the Trenches of the Drug War: A Street Cops Perspective

by Howard J. Wooldridge March 18, 2009

The nine-year-old boys eyes went as big as saucers, as my 40-caliber Glock came into view and paused for a split second on his chest. Being the fourth officer through the door of the townhouse meant the woman and her three kids were already in a state of shock. We spent ...

How FDR Promoted Racial Segregation

by Jim Powell March 17, 2009

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a reputation as a friend of black people, yet he signed laws that promoted racial segregation throughout the United States. The laws were supposed to promote “affordable housing.” Until the 1930s, buying a home required making a down payment equal to a quarter or a third of ...

The Nobodies Known as Former Enemy Combatants

by Andy Worthington March 16, 2009

Changing the names of things was a ploy that was used by the Bush administration in an attempt to justify some of its least palatable activities. In response to the 9/11 attacks, for instance, the nation was not involved in a limited pursuit of a group of criminals responsible for the attacks, but instead embarked on an open-ended “war ...

FDR, the Great Court-Packer

by Jim Powell March 10, 2009

FDR won the 1936 presidential election with more than 27 million votes, compared to 16 million for his Republican opponent Alf Landon. FDR won the Electoral College vote by an even bigger margin — 523 to 8. He concluded that he could do anything, and he over-reached, triggering a harsh reaction ...

Why the U.S. Under Obama Is Still a Dictatorship?

by Andy Worthington March 9, 2009

Two weeks ago, when the Obama administration announced that it was bringing to an end the disturbing isolation endured by Ali al-Marri, a U.S. resident who has been held without charge or trial for seven years and two months — and who, most worryingly, has spent the last five years and nine months as an “enemy combatant” in ...

The Cruel Isolation of America’s “Enemy Combatant”

by Andy Worthington March 2, 2009

Last Thursday, U.S. resident Ali al-Marri, the last “enemy combatant” on the U.S. mainland, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Peoria, Illinois, for providing material support for terrorism, bringing to an end the Qatari national’s disturbing imprisonment for five years and eight months without charge or trial in a state of solitary confinement that is unprecedented in ...

Spending Our Way to Wealth and Prosperity

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2009

One of the most ludicrous policy prescriptions issued by federal officials is the one that exhorts the citizenry to spend more money to get the nation out of a recession. That’s the key to national economic prosperity, government officials exclaim. “Go to the mall and shop,” they tell people. If people will just spend, spend, and spend some more, ...

The Madoff Scandal Exposes Government Failure

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 2009

A rule we can rely on to be unfailingly applied is this: No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom that remains. This of course is evidence of a rigged game. The government can’t possibly monitor and regulate absolutely every transaction that ...

Boundless Ignorance versus Self-Government

by James Bovard March 1, 2009

Modern democracy is based on faith that the people can control what they do not understand. As government has grown by leaps and bounds, “government by the people” has become one of the great fairy tales of our times. As the Founding Fathers feared, citizen ignorance often brings out the worst in their rulers. Contemporary ...

The Fallacies of Another New Deal, Part 1

by William L. Anderson March 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 As the financial panics on Wall Street seem to be never-ending, a lot of commentators are openly asking whether the United States will slide into something akin to the Great Depression of nearly 80 years ago. Certainly, there is real fear in the air, and at this writing, the current ...