Peter Van Buren

July 29, 2016

I always found myself giggling during the Democratic debates when Hillary would ask Bernie how he was going to pay for things like healthcare or college tuition, and then Bernie stammering to find an answer. They both knew the secret but neither would say it – there’s plenty of money, we just don’t want to […]

Daniel McAdams

July 28, 2016

As many neocons shift over to support Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, there are appearing a few bumps in the road. Last night at the convention, for example, former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta found himself drowned out by chants of “no more war!” as he touted Hillary’s hawkishness. There are insurgent […]

Peter Van Buren

July 28, 2016

The bones of our democracy – the core elements that separate that way of life from others – lie in the First Amendment to the Constitution, specifically the rights to free speech and a free press. Without the ability to speak freely, and to have things about our government reported equally freely to us, most […]

Sheldon Richman

July 28, 2016

If you want to understand the context in which the US demonization of Russia and Vladimir Putin is occurring, read Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson’s excellent piece in the Los Angeles Times, “Russia’s got a point: The U.S. broke a NATO promise.” In summary, US presidents, Democratic and Republican, broke a 1990 promise to Russia not to extend […]

Andrew P. Napolitano

July 27, 2016

This summer, we have all witnessed the heavy hand of government intervening in the freedom of speech, as the behavior of the Secret Service at both the Republican convention in Cleveland and the Democratic convention in Philadelphia was troubling and unconstitutional. Though the First Amendment was originally written only to restrain Congress ("Congress shall make […]

Peter Van Buren

July 26, 2016

Short answer: nobody knows, but the media is treating it as a fact based primarily on a single technical source employed by the Democratic National Committee. I read the source’s publicly available explanation. Here’s what I found. A Quick Taste of Media Conclusions Despite a line in paragraph five saying “Proving the source of a […]

Daniel McAdams

July 25, 2016

The US-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq has dropped its 50,000th bomb recently, yet the end of the two-year effort is nowhere in sight. Meanwhile civilians are being killed by the hundreds by US bombs on Syria. Is that not also a form of terrorism and is it not generating blowback against Europe […]

Daniel McAdams

July 25, 2016

Why does the US spend more on its military than the next largest several countries combined? One reason is that the military budget has far less to do with protecting the United States than it does to further enriching well-connected military contractors. Politicians are under pressure to push weapons systems, that in turn produce “jobs” […]

Peter Van Buren

July 25, 2016

As terrorism struck again in Nice and Germany and… Donald Trump outlined his policy against Islamic State: as president, he will seek a full declaration of war from Congress, the first such formal invocation since Pearl Harbor. Trump was short on specifics but very clear he would take the strategies of the post-9/11 era into […]

Peter Van Buren

July 23, 2016

Syria passed a grim milestone this week. The country now has more displaced people/refugees without homes than people still living in their homes. The only significant response to this humanitarian crisis, a slow motion genocide, from the West has been more war, both from foreign aircraft and special forces directly, and via more support for […]