George W. Bush

The GOP’s Obstructionist Tactics Against the Obama Administration Escalate

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Obama’s vow to wield the executive pen whenever and wherever he thinks he must amounts to a frontal challenge to the GOP to cease its relentless, dogged, and destructive campaign of dither, delay, denial, and obstructionism to anything that has the White House stamp on it. The GOP knows this but that won’t stop it from eagerly spinning its politically self-serving line of Obama the dictator. 

Syria and the Neoconservative Agenda

William O. Beeman

There is great division of opinion regarding potential U.S. military action in Syria. However, one group is ecstatic over President Obama’s endorsement of a military attack on Damascus. These are the neconservatives who dominated the George W. Bush administration, and who still hold tremendous influence in Washington. An attack on Syria would be one step in fulfilling “stage two” of a longstanding neoconservative plan to bring about regime change throughout the Middle East in three stages: Iraq, Syria and finally Iran. 

Filmmaker Matt Kohn Reflects on the 2000 Election Debacle and Problems with the Electoral College

Christopher Karr

"Sometimes I'm a journalist," Matt Kohn told me the day after the 2012 presidential election. "But I consider myself a filmmaker telling stories who uses journalism." The story Kohn tells in his documentary, Call It Democracy, is a sobering one. It's a narrative that meticulously examines the problems that were -- and are -- posed by the Electoral College. The film, which aired on the Documentary Channel last November, focuses primarily on the 2000 election debacle, and chronicles the measures that have been taken to prevent those problems from happening again. 

The Trillion Dollar Fail: How the War on Drugs Was Lost

Gabrielle Acierno

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, The War on Drugs costs the federal government approximately $15-20 billion per year, and with negligible success in lowering the supply of drugs or drug abuse rates, politicians and experts on all points of the political spectrum have deemed the War on Drugs an objective failure. With particular emphasis on cutting off the supply of narcotics, the United States drug policy has been predicated on the theory that eradication of an unwanted external malefactor can only be achieved through persecution of the malefactor and its backers. 

Democrat v. Republican: What’s the Difference, Really?

David Barwinski

But it’s clear that most members of Congress are not really loyal to their party ideologies the way their constituents who voted them into office are.  They are loyal primarily to political expediency, which for them really means, “How will this vote affect my political career/ability to get re-elected?”   Since 2008, there has been a slight shift in voter registration as 2.5 million people have left the Democratic and Republican parties, while the ranks of the Independents has seen a modest increase. And what about when the POTUS  gets into office?  How many of his campaign promises does he actually keep?

The Bush Tax Cuts: Bad Yesterday, Bad Today, and Bad Tomorrow

Matthew Rudow

While it’s difficult to calculate the overall impact of the Bush tax cuts, the Great Recession might actually have made them less detrimental to America’s finances. Because the economic slowdown drastically reduced government revenues, gross domestic product was well below projections, and the loss of revenue was actually somewhat lower than the Congressional Budget Office initially projected. Nevertheless, the Bush tax cuts left America in a much weaker position to cope with the 2008 crash.

Surveillance, Domestic Spying and Invasion of Privacy in Post-Sept. 11 America

Samantha Laura Kelley

In the past few months, a mounting number of small but substantial protests have taken place within the United States. They have emerged in opposition to various legislative and governmental efforts to obtain ex-post facto permissions to engage in expansive domestic spying and employ unfettered authority of detention, search, and extraordinary rendition against U.S. citizens. In particular, political dissidents, activists, whistleblowers, and otherwise “threatening” entities have been the focus of these initiatives, as well as the loudest voices of protest against these punitive forces. 

Jesse Ventura on Politics, Keith Richards, and Why He’s an Atheist

Christopher Karr

Jese Ventura’s no fool when it comes to performance. He’s more than a TV personality. Before he was elected the governor of Minnesota in 1999, he was a professional wrestler, and before that, a Navy SEAL-turned-member of an outlaw motorcycle club in San Diego.  He’s appeared in a number of movies and TV shows, and has lectured at Harvard University. When I mention to Ventura that he taught one of the most popular courses at Harvard, he quickly cuts in to correct me: “It was the most popular. My class was the biggest class in Harvard history.”  Read Christopher Karr's interview with Jesse Ventura. 

John Howard Sanden and the Lost Art of Portraiture

Eric Russ

Even today, within a culture that is entrenched so fully in the lessons of modernism, it feels appropriate to commission a realist painter to render the presidential portrait. On May 31, the White House held an unveiling ceremony for the latest addition to its time-honored tradition of oil portraits – George W. Bush. The 43rd president, who has been conspicuously absent from the public eye since finishing his second term, was in good spirits for the festivities. 

Ethnic Media Offer Sober Look at U.S. War in Iraq

New America Media Staff

In the wake of the end of the Iraq war, U.S. ethnic media are taking a sober look at the last nine years of American military intervention in Iraq, and the meaning of the war in each of their communities. The Iraq war will be remembered as "an incomprehensible war whose repercussions will continue for a long time," according an editorial in Los Angeles-based Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, looking back at the eight-and-a-half years of U.S. military intervention in Iraq that ended last week.

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