Think of us as having two presidents.  One, a fellow named Barack Obama, cuts a distinctly Clark Kent-ish figure.  In presiding over domestic policy, he is regularly thwarted in his desires by the Republicans in Congress and couldn’t until recently get his most basic choices for government positions or the judiciary through the Senate.  For the most minimal look of effectiveness, he has to rely on relatively small gestures by executive order.  In the recent history of the American presidency, he is a remarkably powerless figure presiding over what everyone who is a media anyone claims ... Read more »

Harper's magazine's March 2014 cover. (Illustration: Tim Bower)

That’s a pretty pathetic knight up there on the cover of the March issue of Harper’s Magazine. Battered and defeated, his shield in pieces, he’s slumped and saddled backwards on a Democratic donkey that has a distinctly woeful — or bored, maybe — countenance. It’s the magazine’s sardonic way of illustrating a powerful throwing down of the gauntlet by political scientist Adolph Reed, Jr. He has challenged the nation’s progressives with an article in the magazine provocatively titled "Nothing Left: The Long, Slow Surrender of American Liberals.”

His thesis flies in the face of a current spate of articles and op-ed columns ... Read more »

It’s Not Only Conservative Politicians Backing Giant Multinational Corporations Over National Sovereignty

Preface: Liberals might assume that it is Republicans who are cheerleaders for global corporations at the expense of government.  But, as shown below, liberal politicians have been just as bad … or worse.

Matt Stoller – who writes for Salon and has contributed to Politico, Alternet, Salon, The Nation and Reuters – knows his way around Washington.

Stoller – a prominent liberal – has scoured the Congressional Record to unearth hidden historical facts.  For example, Stoller has previously shown that the U.S. government push for a "New World Order” is no wacky conspiracy theory, but extensively documented in the Congressional Record.

Now, Stoller uses the Congressional Record to show that "free trade” pacts were always about weakening nation-states to pr ... Read more »

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and one of the National Security Agency’s biggest champions in government. She is also one of the targets of Tuesday’s day of action, “The Day We Fight Back.”

The activists’ website uses a simple form to connect those opposed to the NSA’s mass surveillance program to their representatives in congress. Type in your phone number, enter your ZIP code, and you get a script to read to your senators and representative in t ... Read more »

Washington’s response has confirmed the authenticity of a YouTube clip of a leaked telephone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that emerged Thursday.

In the call, posted by an anonymous Russian source, Nuland and Pyatt discuss installing a new, pro-US government that will incorporate the fascistic opposition which has been leading street protests against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Even though Washington’s campaign for regime-chan ... Read more »