Joe Conason from Creators Syndicate

On Civil Liberties, Comparing Obama With Bush Is Easy -- and Mostly Wrong for 06/14/2013

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Nearly a dozen years after the passage of the Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, informed debate over the balance between liberty and security is long overdue. That includes a public examination of how widely and deeply the National Security Agency (and other elements of the "intelligence community") may monitor Americans' telecommunication ...

Updated: Fri Jun 14, 2013

Watergate Amnesia, the 'Nixonian Slur and Other Big Lies for 05/31/2013

Fri, 31 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Let's state this very simply, so everybody will understand. The notion that Barack Obama is "Nixonian" — or that his administration's recent troubles bear any resemblance to "Watergate" — is the biggest media lie since the phony "Whitewater scandal" crested during the Clinton presidency.

Fraudulent as it is, we have listened repeatedly to version ...

Updated: Fri May 31, 2013

Benghazi Interview: Pickering Dissects Congressional Follies, Media Coverage and 'Cover-Up' Charges for 05/23/2013

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

No doubt the degraded quality of congressional oversight astonishes Thomas Pickering, the distinguished American diplomat who oversaw the State Department's Benghazi review board — although he tries not to say so too directly. For his demanding and difficult effort — only the most recent in a long history of public service under both Republican and Democratic administrations — ...

Updated: Thu May 23, 2013

The Newsmaker Memo: an Interview With Ron Wyden, the Senate's Powerful Policy Wonk for 05/16/2013

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Having served in Congress for more than three decades — and in the upper chamber since 1996 — Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden has established a reputation as one of the Senate's more serious and diligent members. Over the years on Capitol Hill, he has watched the Republican Party veer constantly further rightward, and yet he continues to believe against all evidence that bipartisan legisl ...

Updated: Thu May 16, 2013

Watergate Revenge: Republicans Yearning to Impeach Obama Over Benghazi 'Cover-Up' for 05/09/2013

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Less than four months after Barack Obama's inauguration, the right-wing propaganda machine is already promoting the only imaginable conclusion to a Democratic administration that dares to achieve a second term: impeachment. Once confined to the ranks of the birthers, the fantasy of removing President Obama from office is starting to fester in supposedly saner minds.

Certainly impeachment ...

Updated: Thu May 09, 2013

Overdue Questions: What Might Be Missing From Bush's Presidential Library for 05/02/2013

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Like all such monuments that former presidents construct to edify the public, the George W. Bush Presidential Center — opened with great ceremony in Texas last week — is mounted from its subject's point of view.

My own invitation to the festivities must have been lost in the mail, so I have yet to view the super-cool interactive exhibitions that reportedly allow visitors to b ...

Updated: Thu May 02, 2013

The Newsmaker Memo: An Interview With Pioneering Climate Scientist James Hansen for 04/25/2013

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Having directed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies for most of the past four decades, Dr. James E. Hansen retired this month to devote himself to the scientific activism that has brought both awards and catcalls during his long and distinguished career. On April 24, he will receive the Ridenhour Courage Prize in Washington, D.C., for "bravely and urgently telling the truth about cl ...

Updated: Thu Apr 25, 2013

Soft on Crime: Protecting the 'Second Amendment Rights' of Thugs and Terrorists for 04/19/2013

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

What can Americans learn from the bitter debate over the gun reform bill?

Perhaps the most obvious lesson is that the leadership of the National Rifle Association, the Gun Owners of America and their tame Republican politicians have all earned an epithet of derision they used to hurl regularly at liberals.

Yes, the gun lobby and its legislative servants are "soft on crime&quo ...

Updated: Fri Apr 19, 2013

Her Tea Party: What Margaret Thatcher Really Meant to England and the World for 04/11/2013

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Amid all the suffocating claptrap celebrating Margaret Thatcher in the media, only the British themselves seem able to provide a refreshing hit of brisk reality. Over here, she is the paragon of principle known as the "Iron Lady," devoted to freedom, democracy and traditional values who bolstered the West against encroaching darkness. Over there, she is seen clearly as a class warrior ...

Updated: Thu Apr 11, 2013

Long Before Hillary Decides for 2016, Scandal Trolls Are Coming Back for 04/04/2013

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

By all accounts, Hillary Rodham Clinton has not yet decided whether to seek the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. But the prospect of her candidacy, combined with her undeniable popularity, is agitating certain commentators so deeply that they simply cannot withhold their bile.

Consider the reaction of David Frum, a former Bush White House aide who often writes for the Daily Beast ...

Updated: Thu Apr 04, 2013

Without Fear or Favor: the Heresies and Vindications of Anthony Lewis, 1927 to 2013 for 03/28/2013

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times reporter and columnist who died Monday at the age of 86, shaped the American conscience on a broad range of issues, from civil liberties and civil rights to war and diplomacy, for almost 50 years. During his long career, Lewis won numerous awards and published several important books. Unlike many men of his generation who rose to high positions in journa ...

Updated: Thu Mar 28, 2013

The Newsmaker Memo: an Interview With AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka for 03/21/2013

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, recently spoke with The National Memo about the sequester's automatic budget cuts, the danger of cuts to Social Security, the Keystone XL pipeline, immigration reform, President Obama and how to defend labor in an era of attacks on the right to organize.

The 64 year-old Trumka worked his way through college and law school in Pennsylvania's coalfi ...

Updated: Thu Mar 21, 2013

Ryan's Blurred Vision: What the 'New' Republican Budget Reveals (and Conceals) for 03/14/2013

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Someone needs to tell Paul Ryan that his party — and the economic platform of austerity and plutocracy he crafted for it — lost a national election last year. Someone also needs to tell the Wisconsin Republican that he still chairs the House Budget Committee mainly thanks to gerrymandered redistricting.

Someone clearly needs to remind him of those realities because the " ...

Updated: Thu Mar 14, 2013

Eventually Sequester Will Cause Real Pain -- And Among First to Suffer Will Be Hungry Children for 03/07/2013

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The difference between a natural disaster and a disaster caused by politicians is that the latter will almost always hit the poor and the obscure most heavily, while a hurricane or a flood will at least sometimes spread the suffering more evenly.

As the "sequester" unfolds in Washington, we see this same old pattern holding firm: Republican leaders, now hustling to shirk respon ...

Updated: Thu Mar 07, 2013

While Republicans Warn Against 'Greece,' That Is Exactly Where Austerity Budgeting Will Lead U.S. for 02/28/2013

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Indebted America is in danger of turning into destitute Greece, or so congressional Republicans and conservative commentators have been warning us for years now. For many reasons, this is an absurd comparison — but it may not always be quite so ridiculous if Washington's advocates of austerity get their way

The Republicans actually want to impose Greek-style budget slashing on the ...

Updated: Thu Feb 28, 2013

Staying Stupid: Why the 'Hip' Young Republicans Can't Change Their Party (or Themselves) for 02/21/2013

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Savvy Republicans know that something is deeply wrong with the GOP — frequently mocked these days by Republicans themselves as "the stupid party" — which has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Some have noticed as well that their congressional majority is so widely despised — its main achievement being historically low public appro ...

Updated: Thu Feb 21, 2013

Dismal Indeed: Why Dick Cheney Disdains The 'Second-Rate' Obama Team for 02/14/2013

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

No doubt President Obama was deeply stung over the weekend to hear Dick Cheney criticize his new national security team. At a Wyoming Republican Party dinner, the former vice president briskly dismissed Obama's choices as "dismal," saying that America needs "good people" rather than the "second-rate" figures selected by the president, particularly Vietnam veteran a ...

Updated: Thu Feb 14, 2013

After 20 Years, Success of Family and Medical Leave Act Should Humble the Far Right for 02/07/2013

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

When Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act on Feb. 5, 1993 almost exactly 20 years ago as the first legislative act of his presidency, its establishment as law marked a progressive victory after nearly a decade of ferocious opposition by corporate lobbyists, Republican legislators, conservative media and right-wing pundits.

Leading the opposition was the U.S. Chamber of Co ...

Updated: Thu Feb 07, 2013

Benghazi Hearings: Capitol Hill's Angry Little Men Keep Making Hillary Bigger for 01/31/2013

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Anyone truly concerned about the safety of U.S. diplomatic personnel abroad — and that should include every American — has fresh reason for fury over last September's disaster in Benghazi and its aftermath. But the target of public anger should not be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose conduct has been exemplary ever since the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three of his brave c ...

Updated: Thu Jan 31, 2013

Echoes of FDR: Obama's Inspiring Address Links Freedom With Security and Dignity for 01/24/2013

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

So much for the "Grand Bargain" — or at least for the not-so-grand gutting of Social Security and Medicare that the "very serious" thought-leaders of Washington political and media circles have always found so appealing. Whatever President Obama may have contemplated up until now, his second inaugural address, delivered yesterday on the steps of the Capitol, bluntly re ...

Updated: Thu Jan 24, 2013