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The author describes how "The New York Review of Books" has become increasingly politicized since the election of President George W. Bush. In the wake of the Vietnam War, the "Review" became a formidable--and, in some sense, unique--journalistic institution. Many of its readers reside in academia, but the paper has a devoted following in the upper reaches of media, politics and philanthropy, which gives it an influence vastly out of proportion to its circulation of 130,000. The publication has always been erudite and authoritative--and because of its analytical rigor and seriousness, frequently essential--but it hasn't always been lively, pungent and readable. But the election of George W. Bush, combined with the furies of 9/11, jolted the editors. Since 2001, the "Review's" temperature has risen and its political outlook has sharpened. In stark contrast to "The New Yorker" or "The New York Times Magazine," the "Review" opposed the Iraq war in a voice that was remarkably consistent and unified. What blew the dust off "The New York Review?" As war drew closer, and the press grew more accommodating and deferential, the "Review's" disgust increased, and the editors fired their heavy weaponry. The fall of Baghdad only deepened the fury of the "Review's" contributors. Judt is not the "Review's" only critical voice on Israel. What accounts for the "Review's" post-9/11 revival? One word that continually tumbles from the lips of seasoned "Review"-watchers is "Vietnam." In the case of Iraq, as with Vietnam, the "Review" saw what many other commentators missed or ignored.

He's not the quickest calf in the pasture, so it took U.S. President George W. Bush, and his White House handlers, a few months to grasp a basic rule of modem American electoral politics: Don't look bad on the environment. After thirty-one years of Earth Days, the environment has become a mom-and-apple-pie issue; 68 percent of Americans say they support the goals of the green movement. Thus it was no surprise to see Bush's poll numbers sliding, even among Republicans, as his Administration abandoned lower limits on arsenic in drinking water, the Kyoto Protocols on climate change and a host of other urgent measures. Bush has a problem. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to release a major study of dioxin's health effects that, if uncensored, will surely increase pressure for dioxin's rapid phase-out. Meanwhile, the chemical, paper and other dioxin-related industries are pressing the U.S. Government to block the study's release. If Bush heeds their call, he shields industry from costly new regulations but reinforces his anti-green reputation.

Conservative House Republican Dan Burton from Indiana is outraged with U.S. President George W. Bush's administration for its obsession with secrecy, with keeping information on a broad range of fronts out of public view. As more and more connections between members of the Bush Administration and Enron Corp. come to light, the press and the public have started believing that a lot is being hidden from them by the administration. Bush is blocking the scheduled release of documents under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which mandates that all but the most highly sensitive documents are to be made public twelve years after a President leaves office. On December 14, Bush invoked executive privilege in refusing to comply with a couple of subpoenas from Burton's panel.

The article discusses the flaws in America's electoral college system for presidential elections. The controversy of the 2004 election between United States President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry is analyzed in regard to the 2006 governor's race in Ohio, which involves Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who ruled in favor of Bush in the 2004 race.

The article focuses on issues related to politics in the United States. News that the United States has been voted off the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN International Drug Monitoring Board has elicited vows of revenge from conservatives in the U.S. Congress. They threaten to withhold payment on the long-unpaid dues owed the UN. At the last session of the commission, the United States stood virtually alone as it opposed resolutions supporting lower-cost access to HIV/AIDS drugs, acknowledging a human right to adequate food and calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, while it continued to resist efforts to ban landmines. U.S. President George W. Bush pledges to leave no child behind even as he touts his tax cut as coming from the surplus funds left after one has met one's needs. But a report released by the Institute for America's Future, joined by Senators Edward Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and Jon Corzine, shows how deceptive Bush's bookkeeping is. One could draw up a ledger to illustrate this. On the left side of the ledger are the disgraceful numbers: One in six children in the United States are raised in poverty.

This article reflects upon a growing trend of complicity between the press and U.S. governmental actions. The author criticizes reputable newspapers for accepting the U.S. President George W. Bush Administration's claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq without question. The author questions why Washington press were not skeptical of the Administration's policies. Media representatives claim that it was due to a competition in ratings.

The author reflects on the current situation of the Israel-Palestine conflict. He says that Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna's suggestion to resume the Camp David talks implies that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has provided no solution to the security and economic situation. He adds that the two-state solution that the Palestinian Authority and Yasir Arafat is promoting has only brought differing views in Israel and Palestine.

On Thanksgiving Day 2001, with the United States in the midst of what polls identify as one of the most popular wars in history and with President George W. Bush's approval ratings hovering around 90 percent, more than 20 million American households opened their daily newspapers to see a little African American kid named Huey Freeman leading the pre-turkey prayer. In the whole of American media that day, Huey's was certainly the most pointed and, no doubt, the most effective dissent from the patriotism that dare not speak its mind. And it was not the only day when the self-proclaimed "radical scholar" skewered George W. Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Defense Department, dithering Democrats, frenzied flag-wavers and caremongering television anchors in what since September 11, 2001 has been the most biting and consistent critique of the war and its discontents in the nation's mass media.

The article looks retrospectively at the Iraq War, on its 10th anniversary. The author argues that the war was disastrous and wrong, and criticizes the rationale for it offered by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, to halt Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear weapons. He says the idea of using military force rather than diplomacy to achieve nonproliferation is at issue in U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran policy.

The author discusses the need for U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to develop a new social contract that considers low income workers and the use of public assets. The article describes U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and the deregulation he supported and the failure of U.S. President George W. Bush's economic plans. The author argues that Obama needs to create a new social contract, raise the minimum wage, enforce labor laws, rebuild infrastructure, and invest in energy alternatives.

The article discusses how the liberal personnel of the U.S. Department of Justice came under siege from conservative members during U.S. President George W. Bush's administration. The author outlines the proposals within John Miller's 2002 "National Review" report which have come to pass, such as that U.S. Republicans should attempt to control the civil rights division of the department, and that Republicans should control the hiring process.

The article offers commentary on the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, the U.S. government, U.S. President George W. Bush, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The author compares conditions of the 2008 financial crisis with those of the 1929 stock market crash that produced the Great Depression, and observes how we have pushed aside the lessons learned from the New Deal program.

The article discusses U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's advances in foreign policy, and how great expectations are for the departure of U.S. President George W. Bush. Obama is expected to draw down Iraq war troops, pick up diplomatic relations with Syria, Iraq, and Cuba, strengthen relations with allies, and to reconsider proposals such as the Kyoto climate change initiative. The outlook for Obama's foreign policy is bright with a multilateral plan that includes widening diplomatic relations.

The article discusses the ways that reason and empirical thought have been downgraded in the United States, and how a religious movement in the Middle East and a fundamentalist reading of an ancient text has led to tribal war, jihad, and the denial of the Holocaust by the president of Iran. The author discusses the ways that U.S. President George W. Bush has set our national education back by creating reasons for entering the Iraq war, and by fostering secret surveillance of U.S. citizens.

This article presents the author's proposals to restore and rebuild American democracy following the administration of George W. Bush. He cites strengthening the rule of law, facilitating voter registration, a more transparent legislative process, and less government secrecy as principles to follow.

This article reports on the policy of U.S. President George W. Bush to hire government workers based on ideology, rather than merit. Many people in the federal government system have been fired, demoted, transferred or have retired out of frustration with the lack of oversight of political appointees. This has left many governmental agencies in danger of being rendered incapable of protecting the people and interests they are supposed to support.

This article reviews the election campaign in Virginia for the United States Senate and the candidates, George Allen and Jim Webb. Allen's campaign has been marred by many misstatements regarding race and religion that have turned voter's off from the politician's stance. Allen has also been a staunch supporter of President George W. Bush's positions on Iraq. Webb suffers from his own past statements about affirmative action being reverse racism and a speech that he made at the National Confederate Memorial in 1990, where he talked about the Southern states fighting for their rights rather than for the right of slavery.

The article focuses on a lawsuit which has been filed against the private North Carolina based security firm Blackwater USA by the families of four men killed in Fallujah, Iraq. The story of one of the men killed, Scott Helvenston, is reported in detail. Actions taken by Blackwater USA which endangered their employees for the sake of their profit margins are discussed. U.S. President George W. Bush has said that he delegates decisions on private security companies to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The article focuses on the debate concerning illegal immigration in the United States. Activist and author David Horowitz wishes to end all immigration from Mexico and protect the border with military force. In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal for immigration reform, that would legalize workers currently residing in America and provide a guest worker program for Mexicans seeking employment in America, was defeated by those on the right.

The article presents the author's views on the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. According to the author, there are no significant legal differences between the investor fraud perpetrated by Enron CEO Kenneth Lay and the prewar intelligence fraud perpetrated by Bush. The author suggests that U.S. citizens must demand that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence complete Phase II of its investigation into prewar intelligence. It is inferred that the government and general public should consider impeachment proceedings for Bush. The author analyzes how intelligence was presented in the lead up to the war in Iraq.

Examines the impact of President George W. Bush's administration on freedom of the press in the U.S. Claim that Bush does not read the work of journalists, and prefers to rely on his staff for current information; View that the Bush administration interferes with the functions of the press by deliberately withholding information or producing false and biased reports; Discussion of a perceived increase in secrecy in the Bush administration following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; Accusation that Bush and members of his administration lie to the press to support their policies; Scandal surrounding the release of biased news reports by the Bush administration; Impact of the Bush administration's treatment of journalists on U.S. political culture.

The article focuses on the civil justice system and "tort reform". The US Chamber of Commerce is urging voters to support lawsuit restrictions endorsed by George W. Bush and opposed by John Kerry. Chamber president Thomas Donohue charged that "lawsuit abuse destroys jobs, drives doctors out of business and forces companies into bankruptcy." Piggybacking on the campaign of an incumbent President--who made lawsuit restrictions a central part of his governorship in Texas--the tort reformers have seized on this election as their defining moment. The Bush campaign has hit hard at the Kerry/Edwards ticket for allegedly being pawns of plaintiff's attorneys. But regardless of whether or not the issue helps Bush get re-elected, its heightened prominence demonstrates the escalation of the stakes in what is now a thirty-year-long war by the ultra-right to disembowel the civil justice system and make America safer for companies to work their unfettered will. In Texas, however, the future is already here, thanks to several generous helpings of "reform." Anyone who wants a glimpse of what's in store for the rest of us would do well to look at Bush's legacy in his home state. In his first months as governor of Texas, a job he won with the help of $1.3 million from the extremist Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Bush declared an "emergency" on "frivolous lawsuits" and rammed through the legislature a series of bills restricting suits. Now Bush has become the first President to make downsizing the civil courts a signature concern of both his Administration and his re-election effort.

The article discusses voter trends in rural America prior to the 2004 presidential elections. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry should be reaping votes in the Upper Midwest. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa rejected President George W. Bush's candidacy in 2000, just as they have every Republican presidential contender since 1988. But Kerry is running into trouble in the Upper Midwest. Even where grassroots activists are ready to save Kerry from himself, they complain that they cannot get the support they need from a campaign that still has a hard time understanding the politics of rural America. Developments in what should be the big issues of this campaign tended to favor Kerry--particularly with regard to the war in Iraq. There is an almost equal level of frustration with the economy. This fall, however, after an ugly August that saw more media attention paid to Kerry's Swift Boat service in Vietnam than to his stands on trade policy and rural healthcare, Kerry backers are not nearly so confident.

The article offers a firsthand look at the attitudes of blue collar workers in the United States as of September 2004. I was there for the steel-mill shutdowns in the late 1970s and later collaborated on "Journey to Nowhere," about ruined steelworkers in Youngstown, Ohio, and the new homeless who were the victims of deindustrialization. A dozen years later, my collaborator, photographer Michael Williamson, and I returned to Youngstown, and traveled again across America. What was different, and startling, was the level of anger that we discovered. Defeat had morphed into wrath. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I found was that anger had now combined with fear, and together they had become a dangerous brew. Fear alone, of another terror attack, is a strong force in American politics. But fear connected with anger is an especially volatile combination. Prick the anger whose surface may be pro-Iraq war and anti-Arab, dismissive of Abu Ghraib, and one hears of ruined 401(k)s, poor or no healthcare, lost work. There are 1 million fewer jobs today than when President George W. Bush took office, and the loss of higher-paid manufacturing jobs has been stunning. This group of Americans harbors deep-seated anger over corporate fraud, their lack of healthcare and good jobs, yet in interview after interview I found they are often the most fervent in their support of Bush and his tough rhetoric.

The author discusses the attitudes of American conservatives towards the policies of President George W. Bush. Most Americans long ago stopped believing that George W. Bush is what he claimed to be during the 2000 presidential campaign: a compassionate conservative. But is George W. Bush a conservative at all? [W]hile few people would confuse George W. Bush for a liberal, whether the policies he's championed qualify as traditionally conservative is by no means clear. "Historically, conservatism in the United States has meant support for small government, balanced budgets, fiscal prudence and great skepticism about overseas adventures," notes Clyde Prestowitz, a former Reagan Administration official. "What I see now is an Administration that's not for any of these things." While there are plenty of Republicans who would take issue with Prestowitz's definition of the term, a growing number of conservative thinkers and policy-makers have begun to echo this view, as thumbing through the pages of the conservative press makes clear. At the root of their discomfort is a feeling not that the Bush Administration is too conservative but that it has forsaken the guiding principles of conservatism--prudence, caution, restraint--to pursue an agenda that is messianic and radical. Conservatives alienated from this expansive vision do not fall into a single ideological camp.

The author comments on the privatization of state agencies in Texas, and asks whether the reforms Texas will serve as model for the United States as a whole. The state legislature passed a bill this past May that will result in the privatization of eligibility determination for TANF (the program that replaced welfare), food stamps and Medicaid--fundamentally transforming the way social services are delivered in Texas. In some ways, the conservative attack on the union and the public sector in Texas today is a microcosm of the assault in the country as a whole. While business organizations and the corporations that stand to benefit lobby successfully for privatization and budget cuts, tens of thousands of state workers lose health insurance, and the social programs that make life bearable for the desperately poor are downsized. But more is at stake than particular programs and specific benefits. The very existence of the public sector--controlled by people who are democratically accountable, run by workers 'who aren't in thrall to the Dow Jones--hangs in the balance. The choice is between charity, with its baseline assumption of unequal power and resources, and the expansive vision of social democracy. The privatization bill that passed the legislature early this past summer will dramatically change the way that social services are delivered in Texas. Since the way that a private company makes money with a state contract is by running the operation for less than the state pays, companies face tremendous incentives to cut wages and benefits. Are today's developments in Texas a forecast for the nation tomorrow?

The author claims that Republicans plan to play upon widespread opposition to gay marriage among Americans to win votes in the 2004 election. As George Bush's poll numbers began seriously dwindling, Karl Rove and the White House political strategists decided to reach into their bag of tricks and come up with a good old staple of reactionary politics: homophobia. The decision to scapegoat gay and lesbian Americans was poll-driven by an antigay backlash that gathered steam in the wake of the Supreme Court's June 26 decision, in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down laws making gay sex between consenting adults illegal -- the so-called sodomy laws. Just two days after Gallup released its poll showing the backlash, Bush unexpectedly used a Rose Garden press conference to announce that he'd assigned lawyers to come up with a plan to stop gay marriage. Since then, the Republicans have ratcheted up their anti-gay marriage crusade. At the state level, too, Republican antigay initiatives are snowballing. With 2004 shaping up as another close election, Rove & Co. want to energize the Christian-right base to which Bush is already so heavily indebted (it motored his 2000 primary victories against John McCain) and insure a maximum turnout among the AWOL evangelicals and other Christian traditionalists.The antigay bias that permeates the Republican Party can be clearly seen in Bush's judicial appointments. Among the unalloyed homophobes Bush has nominated for the federal bench: Jay Bybee, Michael McConnell, Charles Pickering, others. INSET: Judgment Day.

The author reports from Seneca, South Carolina, the hometown of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, on the decline of the Democratic Party in the South. These days, Republicans don't just carry the national elections in places like South Carolina; over the past two decades, they've started to take over everything from the state legislature to the coroner's office, and it just keeps getting tougher to find loyal Democrats who are willing to campaign as sure losers. But the main order of this morning's business is next February's presidential primary, a high-profile event that is supposed to lift the sagging spirits of South Carolina Democrats. So far, the plan looks like a bust. Six months before voting day, none of the candidates have caught the fancy of Democrats here, or anywhere else in the South. Even in a rural county with just 67,000 souls, the candidates and their flacks have become a regular fixture. And more often than not, they tend to say things that show they don't understand the South a whole lot better than the national Democratic Party. Not even Edwards, who seems to carry the South deep in his bones, has figured out a message that might carry a state in Dixie -- this year, or any year in the foreseeable future."He's much too moderate for 2004," says Don Aiesi, who teaches and studies politics at Greenville's Furman University. Edwards is in a mess of trouble, and his campaign's quandary goes straight to the heart of what's killing off the Democratic Party throughout the South--and just might kill off any hope the party has of unseating Bush next year. Can they galvanize their own Southern base--or, perhaps more accurately, rebuild it? The formula is far from complicated: Invigorate black voters sick of the same old rhetoric and same old promises.

The article focuses on the efforts made by Democrat politician Howard Dean to win the party's 2004 U.S. presidential nomination. Dean has recognized that what Democrats want in the elections is a populist who will challenge U.S. President George W. Bush's policies. Dean is working on his platform to attract African American and Latino voters to his campaign. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich did not merely vote against the use-of-force resolution, he played a central role in organizing Congressional opposition to the Iraq war.

The article reveals the political activities of the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). AFL-CIO President John Sweeney declared the federation's support for the war goals of U.S. President George W. Bush. The organization also played a key role in the U.S. campaign to destabilize Chile, led by the administration of former U.S. President Richard Nixon and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Concerns were raised about the organization's current activities abroad in light with its past involvement in political issues.

The article focuses on how European nations perceive the United States and its foreign policies. The author pointed out that Europe is increasingly becoming anti-American. The newspaper "Le Monde," from France has described the Middle East policies of U.S. President George W. Bush as extraordinary, unjust and arrogant, while the British newspaper "Mirror," announced that the United States has become the world's leading rogue state. The 2002 State of the Union address of President Bush, which cited the formulation of a so-called Axis of Evil against which all civilized nations must ally themselves, was heavily criticized by European governments.

The author reflects on U.S. President George W. Bush's anti-environment actions. He says that such actions by the administration have been blatant and relentless that even U.S. television reports it as a simple fact. He adds that no U.S. administration has done more environmental degradation than Bush for 40 years. He argues that the Bush administration has done the damage without having an environmental policy towards it. He claims that these environmental damages have resulted from economic, military and energy policies.

The article discusses some questions about failure of intelligence of the U.S. on September 11, terrorist attacks 2001, in several places of the U.S. The U.S. President George W. Bush is now in the political cross-hairs for the failures of intelligence agencies in identifying and understanding terrorist threats. The trouble is, this failure is too serious to amuse. The ineptitude preceding of September 11, 2004 arguably heightens the gravest, most immediate threat to national security because, while the dangers may lurk in the twilight zone, they can, turn real. Yet this the U.S. is relying on two intelligence agencies that don't even wish to talk to each other and that not only failed to anticipate September 11 attacks but that have also failed to locate Al Qaeda Osama Bin Laden.

The article presents information on the U.S. President George W. Bush's regulations governing the trails of alleged terrorists in military tribunals. The regulations answer some of the criticisms raised against the preliminary order issued by the Bush Administration in November. The government will, for example, permit defendants to have court-appointed military lawyers, defendants will be presumed innocent until proven guilty and death-penalty sentences must now be unanimous. Bush is determined to use military tribunals rather than federal courts to try noncitizen terrorists either in this country or abroad.

This article presents information on various political developments in the U.S. Since the fall of power company Enron Corp., Republicans have been polishing their populist patter. U.S. President George W. Bush cast aside his patron, Enron CEO Ken Lay, and proclaimed himself the champion of executive rectitude. When the Corporate and Auditing Accountability Act passed in the House, Republican Richard Baker crowed, "we have taken action. We have stood up to Wall Street." One year after the story broke that U.S. Navy SEAL team under his command was involved in an atrocity during the Vietnam War, former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey stood before a packed hall in lower Manhattan as the keynote speaker at a three-day conference on human rights. The conference, "International Justice, War Crimes and Terrorism: The U.S. Record," took place at New School University, where Kerrey is president, and grew out of Kerrey's own suggestion that his experience in Vietnam be turned into an "educational moment."

This editorial highlights some political issues in the U.S. and other countries. The ineffable good luck of George W. Bush seems to be faltering at last. The man became President by an electoral accident that resembled theft. His stock was sinking, his agenda stalled, when the tragedy of September 11, 2001 suddenly gave higher purpose to his Administration. A cheerful way to describe this shift in the political zeitgeist is to suggest that Americans are finally getting over the intimidating aftermath of September 11--recognizing that this country doesn't work very well when people expressing diverse views are browbeaten into silence by "patriots." Earthquake. Cataclysm. Electroshock. The 9/11 of French politics. These were the recurring terms that established political leaders of both left and right used to characterize the April 21 presidential elections in France--in which nearly one in five registered voters cast their lot with the two neofascist parties of the extreme right, and racist National Front leader Jean-Marie LePen edged past Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to become the sole candidate against conservative President Jacques Chirac in the May 5 runoff.

This article presents information on various socio-political and administrative developments in the U.S. and from around the world. One of them is the report on the U.S. President George W. Bush's speech on marking the six-month anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In a clear effort to massage the sensibilities of nations worried about escalating U.S. unilateralism, he spoke of the power and vitality of coalition partners against Al Qaeda and singled out for praise nations from Denmark to Uzbekistan. Another being the scandal that rocked companies like Enron Energy Services Inc. in the U.S.

This article focuses on political issues related to the U.S. It's been six months since nineteen fanatics controlled by Al Qaeda seized four airliners and wreaked bloody, fiery havoc on the U.S. In the aftermath, stunned and angry Americans gave the Bush Administration their full-throated support for a war against the perpetrators of the atrocities and those who directed, financed or harbored them. Dennis Kucinich never doubted that millions of Americans had deep concerns about U.S. president George W. Bush's ever-expanding war on ill-defined foes abroad and on civil liberties at home. George W. Bush and Enron Oil and Gas were in business together in 1986, when Ken Lay was head of Enron.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's list concern groups that the government labels foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs, along with funders, supporters and business entities that aid them. The State Department list of FTOs, created by the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and first issued in 1997, currently includes twenty-eight groups. Since September 11, 2001, other lists have proliferated. By executive order, on September 23, U.S. President George W. Bush-in a declaration of "national emergency"-created another list, maintained by the Treasury Department, which now contains 153 "groups, entities and individuals" whose assets are subject to seizure.

The article focuses on several political and social issues in the U.S. One of them is the Enron scandal. The Enron scandal, involving multibusiness company Enron Corp. is a nexus of money and politics in Washington that is revealing the corrupted electoral, legislative and regulatory infrastructure. The President administration is pushing the line that this is a business scandal and not a political one. One can assume that the 150 or so Al Qaeda and Taliban militiamen now occupying those 6-by- 8-foot cages in Guant´namo Bay are not sympathetic characters. It's also reasonable, and important, to say that they are in less danger to life and limb than their comrades handed over by the United States to the Northern Alliance.

The editorial highlights the issue related to economics and political issues in the U.S. There is still a good deal of educational and political value to in-your-face challenges to the mandarins of multinational corporations, such as the January 30 "February 4 rallies, marches and teach-ins organized to coincide with the World Economic Forum's New York sessions. George W. Bush strode into the Capitol for his State of the Union address the most popular President in modern history. He has said repeatedly that he will use the political capital gained in the war on terror, not let it go to waste.

This article presents information on some recent socio-political developments. It is informed that U.S. President, George W. Bush is continuing his policies of economic growth even after the steep resistance the policies met especially after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. September 11 was supposed to change everything, but despite war and recession the President remains wedded to the same reactionary agenda he pushed before the attack. Invoking his wartime popularity and authority, he is driving his old agenda through a reluctant Congress and forcing party-line votes on a range of fundamental issues. It is informed that the terrorist attack revealed glaring domestic security and public health needs and the spreading recession has exposed gaping holes in the safety net for workers and the poor.

The article presents information about various political issues in the United States. U.S. President George W. Bush's European trip came at a time when the U.S. policy-makers, who once dismissed the European Union for its weakness and indecision on the world stage, are worrying about Europe's more assertive foreign policy. Strange as it may seem, Timothy McVeigh and George W. Bush shared the same analysis of McVeigh's execution Monday morning, June 11, 2001, in Terre Haute. Next year's Florida gubernatorial election is developing into the marquee melee of the midterm elections.

The article focuses on the foreign policy of the U.S. with special reference to Israel. The bombing of a Tel Aviv disco, in which twenty Israelis were killed, was an atrocity of such horror that it seemed to shock both sides into taking steps toward installing a very tentative, precarious cease-fire. The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has been following blindly pro-Israel policy of former U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration, since it took office. Ultimately, the U.S. policy must be predicated on the goal of creating a viable, contiguous Palestinian state and, to that end, the abandonment of all the Israeli settlements.

It is no simple matter to take stock of the nuclear predicament in the year 2001. Under the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, the nuclear policies of the United States, and of the world, are in a state of greater confusion than at any time since the weapons were invented. Nuclear danger today has two main sources. The first is the mountain of nuclear arms left over from the cold war. The second is the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new countries. The left-over cold war arsenals are still governed by the policy that prevailed during the cold war, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, which holds that the rival great powers are safest when each has the unchallengeable power to annihilate its rival.

The larger meaning of U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords' defection is that, in a single stroke, he cut through the smoke and spin manufactured by U.S. President George W. Bush's White House to obscure the radical nature of its right-wing agenda and rang the gong on those media suck-ups who compliantly portrayed this new President as the moderate middle. The senator's action even obliquely rebuked Democrats for the limpness of their opposition. Thus, Jeffords effectively resolved the dissonance between the establishment version of business as usual in Washington and what citizens at large are perceiving with growing alarm and anger. People distant from Washington, it turns out, were not wrong about Bush.

The article focuses on several issues related to politics in the United States. The U.S. Senate's passage of McCain-Feingold was welcome if only as a comeuppance to senators Trent Lotts and Mitch McConnells who had arrogantly defied popular sentiment by keeping the bill under wraps for six years. There were several factors that made the time right for McFein, including a strategic calculation by the parties that they had reached soft-money parity, but paramount among them was the prevailing climate of popular disgust with the sale of the government to the highest bidder. The arrest in France of James Kopp, the accused assassin of Buffalo, New York obstetrician Barnett Slepian, could not have come at a more awkward time for the U.S. Government. U.S. President George W. Bush inaugurates himself by blocking aid to international family planning agencies and by nominating antiabortion fanatics to run the U.S. Justice Department. Then fugitive Kopp surfaces to remind the American public of where these bottom-line commitments lead.

The article informs about few political developments that have taken place in the United States under administration of George W. Bush. All signs point to an all-out drive by the Bush Administration to slot judicial conservatives into the eighty-nine current vacancies on the federal bench. The prevailing view of the Bush Administration's expulsion of some fifty Russian diplomats in retaliation for the Robert Hanssen spy scandal has been that it was a throwback to cold war days when the great game of tit for tat was the normal way of doing things. On March 26, PBS carried something that has become increasingly rare in our media, that is, genuine journalism.

This article presents information on some recent socio-political developments. It is informed that the corporate class is flying high in Washington. With George W. Bush, President of the U.S. and the Republicans controlling Congress, the business community has been exploiting its enhanced clout. Workplace safety rules, ten years in the making and designed to prevent a million or so injuries a year, were scrapped in a few hours of Congressional action. But surely the most egregious display of corporate power was Bush's decision to reverse a campaign pledge to seek reductions in the carbon dioxide emissions of the nation's power plants after the coal and oil industries objected. Congressman Henry Waxman rightly called the move a "breathtaking betrayal" of Bush's promise to fight global warming.

This article focuses on the first budget address of the U.S. President George W. Bush. The loudest applause during George W. Bush's first budget address to Congress erupted in response to his first mention of his proposed $1.6 trillion tax cut. The latest Pew Research Center poll finds that only 19 percent of Americans think the current budget surplus should be used for a tax cut, and 79 percent believe the proposed Bush tax cut will most benefit the wealthy. Meanwhile, 60 percent want any surplus used for domestic programs as well as Social Security and Medicare.