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By Dennis Kucinich
$11.95
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By Ricardo Cortes
$17.95
$17
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todbrilliant.com
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Paul Krugman argues in Friday’s New York Times that if the Democrats win in 2008, it will be because of their big ideas, and for that, Krugman writes, “they’ll have Mr. Edwards to thank.” He’s got a point. Does anyone remember that John Edwards was the first one out of the gate with a bold health care plan that bears a striking resemblance to the bold health care plans that followed?
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By Aaron Glantz — When young American men and women sign up to serve in our military, the government makes them a basic promise: If they are wounded in the line of duty, they will get the care they need. But for far too many, that’s a promise that only exists on paper—even months after the news emerged about American vets’ shameful treatment at U.S. military facilities.
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A commission set up by Congress in 2005 to examine the readiness of National Guard and reserve units has found that they’re simply inadequate to the task of dealing with a major disaster in the United States. The commission blamed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the Pentagon’s assumption that training for those conflicts would somehow prepare troops for disaster relief at home.
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AP photo / Baz Ratner
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By Milton Viorst — Can decent Israelis, caught between complacency and conscience, save their beleaguered country from the corruptions of power, religious fanaticism and crippling hubris?
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With mere days left before Super Tuesday and down to just two candidates, Thursday’s Democratic debate in Los Angeles gave voters a crucial eleventh-hour look at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who kept things friendly enough while staking out their differences on several key issues—health care, the economy and, most importantly, the Iraq war.
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By David Sirota — The eight states between California and Kansas often get written off by political snobs, but the electoral complexities at play there will almost certainly swing the next election.
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By Eugene Robinson — Now that the presidential field has been winnowed to four—barring a miraculous return by one of the contestants recently voted off the island—the new national pastime is gaming the electability factor.
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By Marie Cocco — Bush may be a lame duck, but he’s also a president who has shown an unparalleled capacity to blow it.
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There were some heated exchanges in Wednesday’s debate between the Republican candidates. John McCain and Mitt Romney argued about who wanted to stay in Iraq longer and Ron Paul won a round of applause when he said the front-runners were bickering over “technicalities” while their war bankrupts the country.
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plusnews.fr
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A government probe of Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon has not only found that the war was a blunder but revealed “serious failings” in the political and military leadership of the country. The panel criticized the unnecessary loss of life and found that Israel’s ability to deter its enemies had been seriously damaged. Above, inquiry leader Eliyahu Winograd.
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msnbc.com
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Joe Lieberman, an “Independent Democrat,” staunchly supports the Iraq war, has voted to throw away billions on defense boondoggles, generally gravitates toward all things Republican and has endorsed GOP presidential candidate John McCain, but he draws the line at running alongside McCain as a vice president candidate. Lieberman says that if asked to join a ticket, he would tell McCain, “You can find much better.” For once, Joe, we agree with you.
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George W. Bush, the president who lied America into a war that will end up costing trillions of dollars, scolded the Democratic-controlled Congress in his final State of the Union address on Monday for undermining “the people’s trust in their government” with too many pet projects. Now that’s chutzpah, coming from a man who never met a spending bill he didn’t like unless it had to do with stem cells and sick children.
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He’s not exactly clear on this point, but what Sen. John McCain doesn’t achieve through specificity he drives home through sheer repetition: America can expect “other wars” in the future. In this clip he delivers that warning to his “friends” at a campaign stop in Florida.
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Sometimes it’s useful to let a story’s own lead speak for itself. Take, for example, the doozy of a question that opens Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s New York Times article about Bush’s economic focus in Monday’s State of the Union address: “Will George W. Bush be remembered as the president who lost the economy while trying to win a war?”
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The Mosaic Intelligence Report notes that with tensions inflamed throughout the Middle East, a recent string of violent attacks in Lebanon has gone mostly unnoticed. Combined with reports of increased arms shipments to various factions, does it mean another civil war is in the offing?
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By Chalmers Johnson — A powerful new book by a young South Korean-born economist at Cambridge University provides a compelling critique of the contradictions and hypocrisies of globalization and neoliberalism. The perfect antidote to the nostrums of Thomas Friedman.
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cbsnews.com
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George Piro, the FBI agent who spent nearly seven months interrogating Saddam Hussein, tells “60 Minutes” that the late Iraqi leader didn’t think the U.S. would actually invade and didn’t deny having weapons of mass destruction in order to intimidate Iran. “He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush’s intentions,” Piro revealed in the interview, which airs this Sunday.
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overspun.com
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President Bush’s new budget will not fully fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, the White House plans to ask for “bridge” funds—enough to pay for the wars until the next president takes over. Though no official figure has been given, congressional estimates put the amount at less than half of what we spend on the wars in a year.
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By Amy Goodman — It’s the deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 5 million people have died in the past decade, yet it goes virtually unnoticed and unreported in the United States.
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merip.org
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The Center for Public Integrity has launched a new Web site that documents some of the 935 “false statements” that George W. Bush and his seven hawks made while pushing war with Iraq. The site endeavors to show that this wasn’t a case of just getting it wrong, but “a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — John McCain is feared by Democrats and liked by independents. That, paradoxically, is why he may yet be rejected by Republicans, even though he has bent over backward to satisfy conservative demands.
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AP photo / Haraz N. Ghanbari
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“Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
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AP photo / Khalil Hamra
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By Chris Hedges — The former New York Times Middle East bureau chief warns that the actions that led to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will not bring peace to Israel but will instead create a new generation of Palestinian militants.
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abcnews.com
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Barack Obama has tried to infuse his campaign with a certain loftiness and positivity, but he has grown frustrated by what he describes as “unbelievable falsehoods” coming from Bill and Hillary Clinton. Expect to see a more aggressive candidate who has already promised to “directly confront Bill Clinton when he’s making statements that are not factually accurate.”
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By Amy Goodman — One pundit called the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas “a lovefest.” It may well have been, but only because the corporate sponsor of the debate, General Electric-owned NBC News and its cable news channel MSNBC, rescinded its invitation to candidate Dennis Kucinich.
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politics-now.com
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Roger Morris, who served on the National Security Council staff under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, has written a fascinating history of the United States’ many interventions in Pakistan. It’s the sordid story of “the world’s longest running military despotism, and of America’s most generous and tragic patronage.”
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By Eugene Robinson — In the coming general election campaign, voters will be faced with a clear choice on the major issues. It is the ongoing primaries that force us to figure out not just who the candidates are, but who we are as well.
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By Joe Conason — As America marks the first anniversary of the troop escalation in Iraq, at least one thing has become clear. Although the “surge” is failing as policy, it seems to be succeeding as propaganda.
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rawa.org
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Mark Deli Siljander, a former Republican congressman, has been indicted for allegedly helping an Islamic charity fund Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a vicious Afghan militant leader with ties to al-Qaida. According to the book “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Hekmatyar was the largest recipient of U.S. weapons during the Afghan war with the Soviets.
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AP photo / David Guttenfelder
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By Scott Ritter — Pervez Musharraf’s recent actions remind us, Ritter argues, that America’s special relationship with Pakistan serves neither country’s best interests.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The turmoil in the Republican presidential contest, which seems to produce a new front-runner every month, owes to President Bush’s unpopularity and the fact that even members of his own party want to turn the page on the last seven years.
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By Eugene Robinson — It turns out that Toni Morrison’s famous line about Bill Clinton as “our first black president” was just a bon mot. If the Clintons took it as a sign of African-Americans’ unconditional fealty, they were mistaken.
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AP photo / David Furst, pool
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By Chris Hedges — The Gilbert and Sullivan charade of statesmanship played out by George W. Bush and his enabler, Condoleezza Rice, as they wander the Middle East is a fitting end to seven years of misrule.
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By Andy Borowitz — The humorist looks into his crystal ball and tells us what to expect from the candidates, George W. Bush and even Monica Lewinsky.
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By Doug Henwood — Just how sick is the U.S. economy? Just how deep is the divide between the super-rich and the rest of us? Just how bad would a meltdown of our political economy be? And what, if anything, can be done about it?
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AP photo / Hadi Mizban
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The tragic task of tallying the number of Iraqis who have been killed in the war has been attempted by various parties with vastly different results, largely because of built-in logistical issues, and now the WHO’s health ministry has released its own figures while acknowledging the impossibility of precision.
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Dario Castillejos, Dario La Crisis —
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Hillary isn’t the only Clinton to be rattled by Barack Obama. Bill Clinton describes the Obama campaign and, more specifically, Obama’s opposition to the war, as “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” It’s getting negative out there.
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AP photo / Jim Cole
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By Chris Hedges — Why isn’t Dennis Kucinich treated as a viable candidate? Because, Hedges argues, it’s all too easy for the comfortable to dismiss him.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Chris Hedges — Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges sits down with Dennis Kucinich to get his thoughts on the campaign, corporate America, the state of our democracy and more.
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When asked in a New Hampshire town hall meeting about the possibility of being in Iraq for 50 more years, John McCain says it could be 100 years and that would be “fine with me” so long as American troops aren’t getting killed. Comparing Iraq to South Korea and Japan, McCain suggests it would behoove America to maintain a long-term military presence there.
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By Carol Brightman — Three new memoirs by veterans of the New Left provide nuance and complexity to a tumultuous decade whose political and cultural legacy is still contested. Bonus points to those who can answer the question: Do you still need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows?
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By Eugene Robinson — I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: People in Washington really should get out more.
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By Joe Conason — A presidential run by the New York mayor would be a monument to egotism. Even worse, it might prevent the nation from ridding itself of today’s destructive policies.
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By Amy Goodman — Benazir Bhutto and her supporters who died with her during the suicide attack Dec. 27 are the latest victims of decades of dangerous U.S. support for Pakistan’s military regime.
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AP photo / Dusan Vranic
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By Scott Ritter — From Hillary Clinton to Mitt Romney, the candidates have no shortage of solutions for the Iraq mess, but their shallow rhetoric reveals an ignorance of the increasingly fractured and disastrous reality.
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By Carla Kaplan — A new collection of letters between the fascinating Mitford sisters offers unparalleled insight into one of the 20th century’s most famous families.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Bhutto assassination came as a brutal reminder of the gravity of the decision Iowa’s voters will make Thursday. Its impact may be felt most powerfully by Democrats who have been thinking less about issues than about the candidates’ styles and leadership qualities.
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Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani’s just the guy to come out swinging against “the Muslims,” according to boosters at a New Hampshire love-in shown on this clip from the Guardian. Notes one staunch supporter, “These people are very dedicated ... very smart in their own way,” and it takes America’s Mayor to win what Giuliani calls the “Islamic terrorist war” at hand.
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What Will Tighter Restrictions on Trade in Iran Do?
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