"Wall Street bankers and retired hedge fund billionaires have been talking about fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, preparing the masses for austerity measures and cuts in social services—which we are told are regrettable, of course, but necessary nonetheless. Well, here is the perfect welfare program for the bailout queens to show off their fiscally conservative chops: Let’s see them cut federal farm subsidies, which funnel billions of dollars to the richest Americans, including notables like Ted Turner, ..."

"There was a strange moment last week during President Obama’s speech at Cooper Union. There he was, groveling before a cast of Wall Street villains including Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein, begging them to “Look into your heart!” like John Turturro’s character in Miller’s Crossing…when out of the blue, the POTUS dropped this bombshell: “The only people who ought to fear the kind of oversight and transparency that we’re proposing are those whose conduct will fail this scrutiny.” The Big Secret, of course, is..."

"The United States is engaging in a bloody occupation in Iraq; it overthrew the democratically elected government in Haiti, enforced by the Marines; it sowed already devastated Afghanistan with cluster bombs and replaced the Taliban with warlords; it is engaging in ongoing efforts to oust Cuban and Venezuelan governments; it is supporting repression in Colombia; it is constantly threatening Iran, Syria, and North Korea; it offers unconditional support to Israel's bloody occupation of Palestine. These actions are ..."

"A Chinese activist who has spoken out about the country's "black jails" said Saturday that he was being held against his will in one of the unofficial detention centers used to discourage people from complaining to the central government. Zheng Dajing stood behind a locked metal door, whose screen window was covered with semi-opaque plastic, and answered questions from The Associated Press. The location was a two-story building in the dim courtyard of an alleyside hotel in west Beijing. The stocky 48-year-old rec..."

"In 1980, Hinckley Sr. was a Texas oilman who, the records show, strove mightily to get fellow Texas oilman George H.W. Bush the Republican nomination for president. The Bushes and the Hinckleys were frequent dinner companions. But far beyond their social connection, neither Bush nor Hinckley wanted Ronald Reagan to become president, because Reagan was opposed to tax breaks for the oil industry to which Bush, Hinckley and other Texans were highly dependent. The effort to make Bush Sr. president in 1980 f..."

"With Operation Just Cause, (President Bush) restored democracy to Panama by capturing and bringing to justice dictator Manuel Noriega for international drug trafficking." -- from a Bush-Quayle campaign '92 pamphlet. More than three years have passed since the United States sent the Marines to "liberate" Panama. The national media heralded the event as embodying our "good neighbor policy" towards Latin America, and Bush's popularity soared as he demonstrated his toughness in international affairs. However, the..."

"The savings and loan scandal of the 1980s has been depicted in a myriad of ways. To some, it is "the greatest ... scandal in American history" (Thomas, 1991: 30). To others it is the single greatest case of fraud in the history of crime (Seattle Times, June 11, 1991). Some analysts see it as the natural result of the ethos of greed promulgated by the Reagan administration (Simon and Eitzen, 1993: 50). And to some it was a premeditated conspiracy to move covert funds out of the country for use by the U.S. Intelligen..."