News & Comment
Blogs and Opinion
Foreign Policy Really Is Foreign to Mitt Romney by John Nichols, The Nation | October 23, 2012
Mitt Romney’s just not that into foreign policy. Again and again, Romney agreed with Obama’s approaches to international issues. Sometimes, he did so explicitly. Sometimes, he simply restated Obama administration policies as if he had developed them himself. In case anyone missed the point, the president was at the ready with lines like: “I’m glad that Governor Romney agrees with the steps that we’re taking” and “I’m pleased that you are now endorsing our policy…” But Obama was not satisfied to rest on the laurels from Romney. The Democratic president knew he needed as strong showing in the last of a cycle of debates that began with an Obama performance so weak that it renewed Romney’s run. And Obama got it. read more »Final Presidential Debate Exposes The Real Mitt Romney by Joy-Ann Reid, thegrio.com | October 23, 2012
Throughout much of the campaign season, political analysts have asked variations on the question, “who is Mitt Romney?” During last night’s third and final presidential debate, which was as tonally different, at least on Romney’s part, from the first debate as night is from day, I think we found out. Mitt Romney is exactly who he has always said he is: a businessman. Before now, we just didn’t know what business he was in. Now we do, and it’s door-to-door sales. And since his the product he’s currently hawking in America’s neighborhoods is President Romney — a product with few defining features other than tremendous wealth and invisible tax returns — Mitt is engaged in a rather cynical, but also very simple, marketing campaign. read more »Nothing Is Foreign to the Liar Willard Romney Anymore: A Report from the Flippy-Floppy Final Debate of 2012 by Charles P. Pierce, esquire.com | October 23, 2012
It was early in the proceedings here on Monday night when I was struck with a horrible vision. It may have been right about that moment in the final presidential debate when Willard Romney — who, for most of the past two years, has been the most bellicose Mormon since they disbanded the Nauvoo Legion — looked deeply into the camera's eye and, inches from actual sincerity, said, "We can't kill our way out of this mess." It was the horrible vision of John Bolton in four-point restraints.You have to give Romney and his campaign credit. They said they were going to do it. They telegraphed the punch five months ago. They told us he would renege on his previous positions, and he has. They told us he would reverse his field over and over again, and he has. They told us that the only real principle to which the man will ever hold firm is that he will be utterly unprincipled. read more »Obama Fires And Romney Falters But Third Debate Fails To Find A Flourish by Gary Younge, The Guardian | October 23, 2012
If the world could vote on 6 November, Barack Obama would win by a landslide. A global poll for the BBC World Service revealed that 20 out of 21 countries preferred the president to his challenger. But when you watched the presidential debate on foreign policy on Monday night you had to wonder why. Not because Mitt Romney was better, but because on matters of policy, Obama was almost as bad. It takes a friend to reveal the harsh truth to the global community, so here it is: "Obama's just not that into you." read more »Obama Schools Romney by David Corn, Mother Jones | October 23, 2012
The final presidential debate did not resolve much, but it showed, yet again, that Mitt Romney will say just about anything to win the White House. The current president had two tasks to accomplish at Debate 3: Foreign Policy Edition. First, Barack Obama had to tout his overseas achievements and beat back the right-wing attack that he is weak and feckless. Second, he had to knock Romney on the defensive and, once again, raise overarching questions about the Republican candidate's credibility and capabilities. Romney's mission was more simple: look reasonable and commander-in-chief-ish. A high-school debate coach would probably award the match on points to Obama, who was commanding and vigorously described his national security actions. Both candidates met their key goals, but Obama more so than Romney, who accomplished his mission by repeatedly ducking confrontations and often endorsing the president's own actions—even if that meant Romney was jettisoning his previous stances. read more »Dry Well of the Benghazi ‘Cover-up’ by William Boardman, consortiumnews.com | October 22, 2012
News bubbles are essentially the same as housing bubbles, stock bubbles or tulip bubbles – the longer they last, the more detached they become from recognizable reality. Like any other bubble, the current Benghazi news bubble started growing when a few people with a self-serving agenda decided to inflate the importance of something that does not have anything like the value that they claim it has. For instance, former Bush White House aide Ron Christie went on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” on Oct. 18 and said, “I think this is a cover-up, I think this is more significant than Watergate – no one died at Watergate.” On June 17, 1972, the first day of Watergate, the issue was clear. By comparison, the Benghazi bubble is political fast food, all over-heated conclusion without any of the intellectual nutrition of logic, honesty, basic facts, or good-faith arguments. read more »The Real Story Of Libya: They Don't Hate Us by Bill Scher, OurFuture.org | October 22, 2012
Mitt Romney's Foreign Policy Follies by Jon Perr, dailykos.com | October 22, 2012
As the presidential candidates prepare for their third and final debate on Monday, recent polling suggests Mitt Romney has cut into President Barack Obama's sizable lead on foreign policy issues. But if his demagoguery on China (where he apparently still profits from his portfolio of Bain investments) and Libya (where he accused the president of "empathizing" with the attackers) has fueled that uptick, Romney's laughably long list of foreign policy flip-fops, flubs and follies may come back to bite him. As it turns out, the man who got a "Four Pinocchio" rating for his repeated claims that Obama apologizes for America has a lot to apologize for. read more »Conservative Spending Hypocrisy: Frozen Pay For Federal Workers, Exorbitant Pay For Contractors by Isaiah J. Poole, OurFuture.org | October 22, 2012
The upcoming presidential debate on foreign policy will undoubtedly feature warnings from Republican candidate Mitt Romney that defense spending cuts from the Obama administration will compromise the nation's ability to defend itself. read more »Watching a Sham US Democracy by Philip Palij, OurFuture.org | October 18, 2012
I care about the environment deeply - though not necessarily agreeing with all the policies of America's Green party or anywhere else for that matter. That said, in making Green Party Presidential candidates Jill Stein and Vice-Presidential candidate Cheri Honkala available to 85% of the US population they deserve to be heard by the electorate they seek to serve. read more »
The Latest
Frank Lindh: America's barbaric treatment of my son John Walker Lindh, The Guardian | July 10, 2011
U.S. Expands Its Drone War Into Somalia, The New York Times | July 2, 2011
WASHINGTON — The clandestine American military campaign to combat Al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen is expanding to fight the Islamist militancy in Somalia, as new evidence indicates that insurgents in the two countries are forging closer ties and possibly plotting attacks against the United States, American officials say. more »
Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium, telegraph.co.uk | June 22, 2011
US technological lead abandoned in the sixties because it didn't produce enough plutonium for nuclear bombs.
A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium. more »
Buying and Operating Cost Of 2,443 F35s is estimated to be $1.3 trillion, nextbigfuture.com | May 21, 2011
The words Millions and Billions and Trillions are bandied around by office bound politicians and media commentators with such an abstract detachment the sheer scale and meaning of what they say is easily lost on ordinary people who budget in more »What are the Guantánamo Bay files? Understanding the prisoner dossiers, The Guardian | April 26, 2011
Guantanamo represents the chasm opened up between the American dream of happiness, freedom and justice under the law and the reality of parallel political and judicial systems of government operating in the same land at the same time.
The military has carved out the Guantanamo Nation, Wall St has established an absence of law in a financial, cuckoo nation. more »
Bradley Manning: The Animals Have Taken Over The Zoo - Scholars Protest, commondreams.org | April 16, 2011
The Real (Defunct Constitution) America
By Ed Pilkington more »Indybay Reporter Files Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit Against UC Police, indybay.org | March 5, 2011
The FBI Has Been Violating Your Liberties in Ways That May Shock You, alternet.org | February 7, 2011
Bringing the 'Bush Six' to justice, The Guardian | January 7, 2011
Today, the Centre for Constitutional Rights filed papers encouraging Judge Eloy Velasco and the Spanish national court to do what the United States will not: prosecute the "Bush Six". more »
Daniel Ellsberg Among Anti-War Protesters Arrested At The White House, npr.org | December 17, 2010
