I was on Fox News this morning about what the Biden VP nomination means. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2U62uk5cZs If you don’t want to watch the clip, let me summarize my thoughts with a quick rundown of the good, bad and ugly of Biden’s nomination. The Good: As the Drum Major Institute shows, Biden has a fairly [...]

DENVER — And the winner is: Joe Biden. It did not take a newfangled text message, just an old-fashioned leak, to identify Barack Obama’s running mate. Word of the Biden selection spread late Friday night, barely twelve hours before the event in Springfield, Illinois, at which the presumptive Democratic nominee for president was set to introduce the [...]

You’ve probably seen the T-shirt around. On the front, in huge capital letters, are the words ‘Bush Lied.’ And on the back, also huge, the words, “They Died.” In tiny type, on both sides, are the names of all of the U.S. soldiers who have fallen in Iraq. Dan Frazier of Flagstaff is the maker of the shirts, [...]

Lame-duck administrations with abysmal poll ratings and no legislative agenda attract little attention. But to ignore the Bush Administration at this point is perilous: in its waning days, the Administration is turning the Federal Bureau of Investigation into a domestic intelligence agency with sweeping powers to profile and spy on law-abiding Americans. In July, the [...]

This morning I am sorry to find myself back on dry land in Cyprus, separated from my fellow sailors who are now completing the final leg of their trip to Gaza. They are carrying humanitarian and medical aid to a people now suffering both an international boycott and the illegal Israeli occupation. On board the [...]

All persons born . . . in the United States . . . are citizens of the United States. . . . - Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States August 2008 was a banner month for passports. They played a significant role in world events that garnered them rare publicity. Two of the [...]

As the hawkish debate on the “Iran Question” continues to possess Washington, most Americans’ exposure to the country is limited to photos of a bespectacled, bearded Supreme Leader and an unshaven, uncouth firebrand of a President. But one American, Tom Loughlin, is adamant that the next President of American knows that Iran is a vibrant [...]

The Washington Post’s White House reporter, Michael Abramowitz, was asked yesterday during a chat to name some of his “favorite people who work at the White House but who are not in the spotlight,” and Abramowitz happily and easily offered a long list: I like your question. One of the things you find in covering the [...]

Most of the fawning corporate media (FCM) coverage of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation Monday was even more bereft of context than usual. It was as if Musharraf looked out the window and said, “It’s a beautiful day. I think I’ll resign and go fishing.” Thus, the lead in Tuesday’s editorial in the New [...]

The crisis in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia eerily recalls a tragedy of the Cold War, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. That year, after revolutionaries challenged Soviet control of this satellite state, Russian tanks and troops rolled into Hungary. They crushed the revolt at a cost of some 2,500 Hungarian lives. As in this [...]

I am not prone to tirades or radical behavior. I have never participated in a public protest and refuse to sign most petitions. In the classroom I offer both sides of an issue. I have a stable job and hope to someday spend the money collecting in my retirement account. In British America in 1775 [...]

You know you’re addicted to a drug when you need it just to feel normal. By that standard, African Americans have been addicted to hope for a long, long time. Nothing wrong with that. As Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, from whom the title of this piece is borrowed points out, hope is [...]

The world according to John McCain is one in which America is triumphant at home and abroad thanks to the Bush legacy, rolling to victory internationally and mastering its domestic economic problems. If daily news, like reports of the 10 French soldiers killed by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and the U.S. government’s imminent nationalization [...]

As I wrote last week, the Georgian-Russian conflict has led to a humanitarian tragedy in the region that demands a careful and calibrated response–not a reaction that heightens existing geopolitical tensions. But the latter is exactly what we have seen. The conflict has morphed into a justification for a renewed cold war by the [...]

If you want proof the world has a water problem you’re better treading the damp summer pavements of the City than the parched bed of the Aral Sea. Goldman Sachs says water is the next oil and has bullish investment trends to prove it. For the rest of us a water boom spells trouble: investors can [...]

The morning of June 20, 2006, an email message circulated amongst U.S. Defense Department officials. “Jed Babbin, one of our military analysts, is hosting the Michael Medved nationally syndicated radio show this afternoon. He would like to see if General [George W.] Casey would be available for a phone interview,” the Pentagon staffer wrote. “This would [...]

Dear Caroline, We’ve never met, so I hope you don’t find this letter too presumptuous or inappropriate. As its contents involve the public’s business, I am sending this to you via the public on the Internet. I knew your brother John. He was a great guy, and I know he would’ve had a ball during this [...]

As a young Palestinian from Gaza, I had been eagerly anticipating the opportunity to study at the University of California San Diego on a Fulbright scholarship. The chance to escape Gaza’s confines and immerse myself in an American education was deeply thrilling. With Israel controlling Gaza’s border exits, air space and sea access — notwithstanding [...]

In the last election, the Republicans invented their brilliant Swift boat strategy to get George W. Bush back in the White House. Challenged by a decorated Vietnam War veteran, President Bush, who couldn’t be bothered in serve in a war that he supported, took the offensive. He enlisted a group of right-wingers to invent stories [...]

Maher Arar, the Canadian software engineer who was mistakenly expelled by the United States and imprisoned in Syria, may yet have his day in court. A federal appeals court in New York has scheduled a new hearing on whether Arar can sue U.S. officials who participated in one of the worst injustices of the so-called [...]