Daily Articles

Is Free Trade Obsolete? Part 1

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 In the last several decades, areas of the developing world, particularly Asia, have become politically more stable and free, more open to foreign investment. The populations there are better educated and have access to modern technology, including the Internet. They are thus more productive. This sounds like something to be welcomed, not only in a ...

The Neocon War on Peace and Freedom, Part 1

by James Bovard April 1, 2004

Part 1 | Part 2 The main problem with Bush’s war on terrorism is that he has not attacked enough foreign regimes and not sufficiently trampled the privacy of the American people. Such is the thesis of David Frum, former speechwriter for President Bush, and Richard Perle, currently on the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Board, co-authors of the new book ...

April 19: Freedom’s Birthday

by Scott McPherson April 1, 2004

Americans revere a great number of dates that hold special significance for their culture and history. The Fourth of July, Veterans Day, the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a quick glance through any calendar provides numerous other examples. Yet the one day of most importance, to both the nation and its culture, is the one that is conspicuously absent ...

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 ...