Roundup: Media's Take

Paul Rogat Loeb: Letter to Hillary ... Remember When John McCain Slimed Your Daughter

[Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe pa

Paul Rogat: Hillary Clinton and the Politics of Disappointment

[Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe

Michael Parenti: Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints

[Michael Parenti’s recent publications include: Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (City Lights, 2007); Democracy for the Few, 8th ed. (Wadsworth, 2007); The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories, 2006). For further information visit his website: www.MichaelParenti.org.]During his 26-year papacy, John Paul II elevated 483 individuals to sainthood, reportedly more saints than any previous pope. One personage he beatified but did not

Norman Solomon: From the Grave, a Senator Exposes Bloody Hands on Capitol Hill

[The new documentary film “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” is based on Norman Solomon’s book of the same title. Grassroots groups have begun to show the DVD around the country. For information about the full-length movie, produced by the Media Education Foundation and narrated by Sean Penn, go to: www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie] It was a chilling moment on a split-screen of history. While the Senate deba

Paul Rogat Loeb: The haircut that won't die

[Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org <http://www.paulloeb.org/> To receive his monthly articles email

Ken Shear: Cut and Run -- the Prequel

[Mr. Shear is a Seattle attorney and a lover of history.] Not so very long ago -- America and its allies sent a peacekeeping force to a Middle Eastern country to support a pluralistic, multi-ethnic government, under attack from hate-mongering militants and neighboring dictatorships. It was a dangerous mission. A terrorist suicide bomber killed over 200 American servicemen. It was the deadliest attack on American troops since World War II -- more casualties than any single incide

Paul Rogat Loeb: The Fugitive Girl Act

[Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award for the best book on social change, and Soul of a Citizen See www.paulloeb.org. To get his articles roughly once a month, email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles.] Do you remember the Fugitive Slave Act? It criminalized not only slaves who'd escaped to non-slave states, but also anyone who he

James Castagnera: Lessons from the British Empire About Keeping Cool

[Mr. Castagnera, a Philadelphia journalist and attorney, is the Associate Provost at Rider University and author of the weekly newspaper column ìAttorney at Large.]If the summer of 2006 is typical of times to come, we need to learn more about maintaining our cool. Summertime 2006 will be remembered as a season of record-setting heat waves.  In the U.S., Nevada broke an 81-year record high; South Dakota tied its 70-year-old record; New Hampshire surpassed the record set in 196

Paul Rogat Loeb: Joe Lieberman's Loyalties

This isn't the first time Joe Lieberman's placed loyalty to his career above all other allegiances. Afraid that Connecticut's Democratic voters will reject him in the primary, he's now hedging his bets by planning to run as an independent if he loses. "I have loyalties that are greater than those to my party," he says, and tries to make this sound noble. Lieberman made a similar choice in the 2000 election. He hedged his bets then as well, by running for reelection as Conn

Michael Parenti: Still Soft on (Corporate) Crime

[Michael Parenti's recent books include The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), Superpatriotism (City Lights), and The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press). For more information visit: www.michaelparenti.org.] A half century ago, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black reminded us in Griffin v. Illinois (1956) that there “can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.” The corporate exe

Jacob Laksin: New Report Debunks Politically Motivated Attack on David Horowitz’s book, The Professors

[Jacob Laksin is a senior editor at FrontPageMagazine.com. He is available for interviews. Contact Elizabeth@cspc.org] In a detailed report released today called “Discounting Facts,” Jacob Laksin refutes the allegations of a union-sponsored coalition calling itself “Free Exchange on Campus,” which has repeatedly and maliciously attacked the Academic Bill of Rights

Greg Palast: They Got Him

[Greg Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse out this week from Penguin Dutton, from which this is adapted. Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.] They got him -- the big, bad, beheading berserker in Iraq. But, something's gone unreported in all the glee over getting Zarqawi … who invited him into Iraq in the first place? If you

David Corn: The Death of Zarqawi

It's good news that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead. Any member of the civilized world ought to cheer the demise of a terrorist who killed civilians with bombings and beheadings. But his death--brought about by a US air strike that was apparently ordered after a captured Zarqawi lieutenant disclosed Zarqawi's favorite hiding places--may not mean much in terms of bringing peace, democracy and stability to Iraq. His al Qaeda in Iraq--which was estimated to number no more than several hu

David Swansn: Let's Stay in Iraq Until it's Peaceful or We're Sane, Whichever Comes First

Have you ever heard someone try to argue that the Iraq War was a mistake but that now the proper course is to continue the mistake a bit longer or to carefully end it in a long and complicated way that could take months or years? Have you ever wondered how such a position, if examined in detail, could possibly make any sense? Wonder no more. Such a position, in various forms, actually makes no sense. In fact, such a position requires a stunning degree of illogic. T

Greg Palast: How They Stole Ohio ... And the GOP 4-step Recipe to 'Blackwell' the USA in 2008

[BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast is author of ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, The Scheme to Steal 'O8, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War -- out Tuesday.] This is a fact: On November 2, 2004, in the State of Ohio, 239,127 votes for President of the United States were dumped, rejected, blocked, lost and left to rot uncounted. And not just anyone's vote. Dive into the electoral dumpster and these "

Michael Parenti: The Hidden Politics of Deficit Spending

[Michael Parenti's recent books include Superpatriotism (City Lights), The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), and most recently, The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press). For more information visit: www.michaelparenti.org.] When government expends more than it collects in revenues, this is known as deficit spending. To meet its yearly deficits, it borrows from wealthy individuals and financial institutions in the United States

Stan Winer: Abu Ghraib ... Tortured fragments of history (The view from South Africa)

[South African-based writer Stan Winer is author of the book Between the Lies: Rise of the media-military-industrial complex, (London: Southern Universities Press, 2004)] In April 2004, the world was momentarily shocked by televised photographs from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison showing hooded Iraqis stripped naked, posed in contorted positions, and visibly suffering humiliating abuse while amused American soldiers stood by. Responsibility for these acts has largely been confined to the

James Ottavio Castagnera: The More Things Change: Iraq Sounds an Awful Lot Like ...

[Jim Castagnera is a Philadelphia attorney, author and educator, who writes the weekly newspaper column “Attorney at Large.”] The first president for whom my granddad ever voted was Teddy Roosevelt. Reelected by a landslide in 1904, TR became president in September 1901 as the result of a terrorist attack. An anarchist shot President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York. Anarchism was the international terrorist movement of its time. In the two decades between 1894 and 1914, adherents to

Paul Rogat Loeb: Dying for Nixon, Dying for Bush

[Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association, and winner of the Nautilus Award for best social change book of the year. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org.] "I didn't want to die for Nixon," said a man I met recently in a Seattle park. He'd served on

James Ottavio Castagnera: Insults, 101

[Jim Castagnera is a Philadelphia attorney and author, who writes a weekly newspaper column, “Attorney at Large.”] Last week center-left rival Romano Prodi squeaked out a narrow win over incumbent Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Their election race was even closer in the insult category. Personally I think Prodi narrowly won there, too, when he remarked, “The prime minister clings to data the way a drunkard clings to lamp posts, not for illumination but to keep him st