America’s Empire of Bases by Chalmers Johnson April 1, 2004 As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize or do not want to recognize that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a ...
Book Review: Drug War Heresies by Paul Armentano April 1, 2004 Drug War Heresies by Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); 479 pages; $28.00. In the ongoing debate over drug policy, professors Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter are betwixt and between. On the one hand, government officials have assailed their empirical data documenting prohibition’s negligible impact on both drug use and perceived harm because it undermines ...
President Bush Owes Martha Stewart a Pardon by Jacob G. Hornberger March 31, 2004 In my March 24 article, “I Don’t Remember,” I pointed out that President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had to be lying when they said that they could not remember the September 12, 2001, meeting with former U.S. Counterterrorism Chief Richard A. Clarke. Recall that ...
No Wonder People Feel Disfranchised by Sheldon Richman March 29, 2004 In a recent poll of cable-television viewers, only 20 percent said the general public has much say in what the government does. Maybe people are finally catching on. It’s about time. The poll by Peter D. Hart can’t be pleasing to those who make a holy shrine of the ballot ...
“I Don’t Remember” by Jacob G. Hornberger March 24, 2004 Former U.S. Counterterrorism Chief Richard A. Clarke states that after he told President Bush at a meeting the day after 9/11 that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks, Bush responded, “I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.” ...
Health-Care Hilarity by Scott McPherson March 22, 2004 Massachusetts’s U.S. senator and likely Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, is being criticized for boasting of foreign political endorsements he might not be able to substantiate. Hoping to paint Kerry as dishonest on this issue, Secretary of State Colin Powell even went on the Fox News Channel to demand ...
Iraq: One Year Later by Sheldon Richman March 19, 2004 Islamist terrorism, the eradication of which President Bush listed among his reasons for invading Iraq, has now made its way to Spain. Good show, Mr. Bush. When he says the world is safer one year after the war, one must wonder which world he means. The Spanish are being slandered ...
Warning: Obesity (and Lying about It) Could be Hazardous to Your Health by Jacob G. Hornberger March 15, 2004 Lest anyone have any doubts that our federal daddy is carefully watching over his adult-children, the Food and Drug Administration has formally announced a campaign against obesity among Americans. You remember the FDA, right? That’s the federal bureaucratic agency that wrongfully leaked the information that ultimately led to the conviction of ...
Martha Down Under: Kangaroos in the Courtroom by Candice E. Jackson March 15, 2004 For all of the supposed high drama the Martha Stewart case produced, in the end, it was all quite anticlimactic. According to Time Magazine’s version of the trial and verdict : Stewart was caught in a simple lie, the evidence so compelling ...
Martha Stewart Case: Where’s the Victim? by Sheldon Richman March 10, 2004 We live in a topsy-turvy world. People may ask politicians to give them some of the loot taken from the taxpayers — and no one is even suspected of wrongdoing. Yet if someone’s stock sale piques the curiosity of government investigators armed with vague legal concepts such as insider ...
The Wrongful Conviction of Martha Stewart by Jacob G. Hornberger March 10, 2004 So what’s wrong with the criminal conviction of Martha Stewart? She lied to federal officials, right? And it’s against the law to lie to federal officials, right? So what’s the problem? From the standpoint of the U.S. Justice Department, there is, of course, no problem at all. The law ...
Stay Out of Haiti by Sheldon Richman March 5, 2004 Let’s just get it over with. Let’s make Haiti the 51st state and pump billions of dollars of welfare into it. Then at least the insertion of U.S. troops there, the third time in almost a century, won’t be an unconstitutional act of foreign intervention. But seriously, what the heck ...