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Saddam Hussein may be out of his spider hole, but Washington's real enemy is still at large. His name: 'Howard Dean'--and nobody in America poses a bigger threat to the [...]

The article focuses on the involvement of various foundation associations to books covering political issues. Abigail Thernstrom, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and her husband, Harvard professor Stephan Thernstrom, would like to thank the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Earhart Foundation and the Carthage Foundation for help in funding their anti-affirmative action tome "America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible." Tamar Jacoby, also a Manhattan Institute denizen, is indebted to the John M. Olin Foundation, the Joyce Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation for the financial help they gave her in writing "Someone Else's House: America's Unfulfilled Struggle for Integration."

This article presents information on various socio-political developments in the U.S. With turnout all-important in the fall elections, who wins is largely a matter of who inspires people to vote. In Illinois, it could be Jan Schakowsky, a veteran Citizen Action activist running for the seat vacated by Democrat Sidney Yates. In California, Lois Capps and George Brown, both fending off right-wing challenges to hold on to Democratic seats, and in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, a gay labor supporter facing a bitter fight to replace retiring Republican Scott Kiug. The brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old Wyoming student who was spread-eagled on a fence, bludgeoned and left to die in freezing temperatures, is only the latest and most visible manifestation of the national plague of gay-bashing. Twelve percent of hate crimes reported to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation are antigay, and many more are unreported because of victims' fear and law-enforcement homophobia.

To declare oneself an unapologetic liberal in mainstream political debate these days is to invite abuse. The latest miscreant to step out of line is billionaire George Soros, who, after [...]

Errol Morris: After you left the Johnson Administration, why didn't you speak out against the Vietnam War? Robert McNamara: I'm not going to say any more than I have. These [...]

During the run-up to the Iraq war, it was impossible not to notice that those most gung-ho for the adventure were, by and large, virgins when it came to the […]

Conservatives, and some not so conservatives, are testing out a new thesis in their effort to shut out ideas that make them uncomfortable: Any attempt to analyze the origins of [...]

Even though the Joseph Wilson affair has convulsed the capital for many weeks, much of what makes it important is still ignored. Part of the reason is the insider establishment's [...]

The premature deaths in the past year of Warren Zevon, Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer ought to be enough to make the most pious among us angry at The Man [...]

September 11 is often said to be the defining moment in the Bush presidency, even of modern history. How strange, therefore, that Bush's behavior that morning--along with that of his [...]

One of the problems with the media coverage of this Administration is that it requires bad manners. I don't mean the kind of bad manners usually associated with reporters: shouting [...]

The words 'Al Gore' are properly understood to be synonymous with the words 'cautious politician.' And yet speaking to MoveOn.org at New York University recently, Gore gave voice to some [...]

At some point, something had to give. Yes, much of the mainstream media treated George W. Bush with Lewinsky-like devotion, but could it really go on forever? The Bush people [...]

Where do I begin? In a week when it became increasingly obvious that the President, the Vice President, the Defense Secretary, the Secretary of State and virtually all their underlings [...]

Nothing deepens your cynicism quicker than the power of money in American politics. A new report by the Center for Public Integrity tracks Federal Communications Commission officials receiving nearly $2.8 [...]

So the right-wing journalist John Fund may not be a model citizen, but contrary to the implications of many left journalists and gossip columnists, he's likely not the kind of [...]

Compare the following two statements currently floating 'round the blogosphere: 'I'm saddened, saddened that this President failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war. Saddened that we [...]

One of the many maddening feats of this Administration is that in choosing to fight the war on terror by going to war with Iraq, George W. Bush has inspired [...]

* Eric Alterman writes: For the third week in a row, The Weekly Standard has run the following dishonest advertisement for itself in its own pages: 'Reader for reader, it [...]

C.L. Sulzberger would not have liked this war. Back in 1937, New York Times Washington bureau chief Arthur Krock was hoping to be named editorial page editor. As Gay Talese [...]

Famed Prince of Darkness Richard Perle is a political animal unique to Washington. He has successfully melded personal, ideological and commercial entrepreneurship into a polished package that looks kosher just [...]

This was intended to be a sweet little prewar column about an artist I admire, Rosanne Cash. Still sexy after all these years, she just released her first commercial CD [...]

Like almost everything these days, local TV news is awful and getting worse. The FCC, under free-market ideologue Michael Powell, is preparing to relax ownership limits to allow further concentration [...]

Social scientists talk about 'useful myths,' stories we all know aren't necessarily true, but that we choose to believe anyway because they seem to offer confirmation of what we already […]

I was standing in line for Bowling for Columbine in Brussels not long ago with two writer/editor friends, when a 15-or-so-year-old Belgian boy in front of us turned around and [...]

These are dangerous times. George W. Bush is set to make another State of the Union address. The last one was a doozy. Few speeches in political history have caused [...]

During the 2000 campaign, candidate George W. Bush proclaimed that America must be 'humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course.' But [...]

THE WAR-DRUM BEAT Conservatives define the new 'PC': Patriotic Correctness It is an article of faith among conservatives -- and some not-so conservatives -- that The New York Times under [...]

New York Times executive editor Howell Raines shares, with his fellow liberal Southerner Al Gore, a talent for driving his opponents batty. Conservatives and a few not-so-conservatives have been conducting […]

Investigates the involvement of lieutenant colonel Oliver North of the U.S. who was allowed to be involved in the U.S. foreign policy for last six years despite his erratic judgment, self-delusion and outright lies. Identification of the works of North during his stint with the U.S. foreign policy makers; Background information on North; Observations regarding the inability of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to gather information about the behavior of North.

This article focuses on the U.S. President Bill Clinton's trip to China, which will help ease the Asian nuclear weapons crisis. There's no doubt that China's role as arms merchant helped fuel the India-Pakistan conflict-as did Beijing's years of bluster toward and confrontation with New Delhi. But ever since its 1997 Party Congress, China has played a more responsible regional role. Beijing has put aside its confrontational stance toward Taiwan and toward its Southwest Asian neighbors over disputed China Sea claims.

In this article, authors shares their views regarding various political issues related to different parts of the world. The recent detonation by India of five underground nuclear tests in two days is a world-changing event. And it compels attention to an inescapable question that the nuclear powers have done their best, in the seven years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Excluding Gaza, the Palestinian Authority now controls 3 percent of the West Bank and shares control with Israel of another 24 percent. During the Oslo talks the Palestinian negotiators, according to then, Israeli negotiator Yossi Beilin, asked for an agreement that would turn over 65 percent of the disputed areas before the final-status talks began, while the Israelis preferred to keep the number closer to 50 percent.

The article presents information on various issues related to the U.S. Despite U.S. President Bill Clinton's claims to the contrary, there is as much of a "Scramble for Africa" now as there was during colonial or cold war times. Now, though, the scramble is for Africa's huge undeveloped markets and vast energy reserves rather than for slaves and coffee plantations or military bases and ideological beachheads. The latest statistics on AIDS and black Americans are grim. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, in 1997 African- Americans made up more than half, of all new cases of HIV infection.

The article presents information on political events around the world. There are scandals galore in Washington. On March 20, while much of Washington awaited the latest filing in the Paula Jones case, the Center for Responsive Politics released a report disclosing that special interests are spending the titanic amount of $l.2 billion a year to lobby Congress. The story that appeared almost word-for-word in "The New York Times," the day after the Bertelsmann/Random House merger with one slight difference. It wasn't about books but about bombs. The merger in question was that of weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp.

This article presents information about politics. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has returned from Baghdad, Iraq with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's written commitment to provide immediate unrestricted, unconditional access for the UNSCOM weapons inspectors to all suspect sites in Iraq. U.S. President Bill Clinton and his national security team should be first in line to express their gratitude to Annan. A High Court in the U.S. allowed Paula Jones's civil suit of sexual misconduct against Clinton to proceed rather than grant the delay until the end of his term that the President and his lawyers sought.

This article presents information on the international relations between the U.S. and Russia during the year 1998 as a result of the Gulf War. The Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned that a U.S. attack on Iraq could provoke World War III. The U.S. considered a nuclear attack during the Gulf War as was professed by General George Lee Butler, former Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command. Consideration of the option was a closely held secret at the highest levels of the Pentagon and White House. The U.S. nuclear policy directive reported in December 1998 explicitly allows for a nuclear strike against a so-called rogue state threatening the use of chemical or biological weapons-a significant departure from past policy.

It is informed that nearly eight years have passed since the fall of the Berlin wall and till now the foreign policy establishment is in a funny position. No matter what is being proclaimed by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, foreign policy is going to be driven by a combination of job considerations, bond-market nervousness, global corporate investment policies and racial and ethnic strong-arm lobbying. The lack of attention to foreign policy issues is lamentable. While the traditional issues may have lost their luster, problems of free trade, globalization, environmental desecration and cultural conflict play a key role in determining the quality of life for workers and communities.

The article presents information on various socio-political developments around the world. Only 5 percent of the world's population is affluent enough to travel for pleasure, but tourism is now the world's number-one employer and its first-or second-largest industry. At more than $3.5 trillion a year the tourism industry, if it were a country, would have the second-largest economy on the planet. In another development, U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright got one thing right during her recent trip to the Middle East.

The article presents information on various social and political developments around the world. Washington wrangles over an independent counsel and Senator Fred Thompson's Congressional investigation, but the debate is steeped in cynicism. Republicans favor an independent counsel because that would likely leave the Grand Old Party's own money hustle unscrutinized. Thompson, despite some imbalance in his investigation so far, has at least promised a wide-ranging inquiry into bipartisan campaign finance abuses; but the result has been bipartisan strangulation. On February 22, the cloning of mammals stopped being science fiction and became science. The newspapers that day reported that Ian Wilmut, an embryologist in Edinburgh, had cloned a sheep named Dolly.

The article focuses on issues related to politics in the United States. All things large are small. That's the motto of the U.S. President Bill Clinton. His fifth State of the Union Message was the moment to attach drywall to Clinton's inaugural daydream of a Twenty-First Century United States, a nation where all families enjoy decent livings, where cities are free of crime, and where every child is cared for and well educated. In addition to education, the President had two other hot picks. On campaign finance reform, he challenged the U.S. Congress to pass by July 4, 1997 the problematic but better-than-nothing McCain-Feingold legislation. The right has long viewed an independent public broadcasting service (PBS) as a problem. U.S. President Richard Nixon targeted it in the early seventies, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan significantly reduced its finding. In the 1980's, Congressional funding for public television fell from 26 percent of its overall budget to just 16 percent, while corporate funding increased from less than 11 percent to almost 17 percent at the end of the decade. Still, the conservatism that derived from increased corporate funding failed to mollify the right, and a concerted effort to transform PBS into a right-wing echo chamber began in earnest in 1992.

The editorial highlights some political and economic issues in the U.S. The Congressional results mostly demonstrated the political prowess of the Republicans. The public did not have to repudiate the Gingrich revolution; the Republicans themselves had already done so. It helped that Republicans raised much more money than Democrats. The National Coalition Against 'Legalized Gambling claims victories in at least four of the nine states deciding gambling questions on Election Day, despite the fact that the casino lobby bet an estimated $75 million on its efforts against the coalition's paltry kitty of less than $2 million. But gambling opponents are showing that they can win such mismatches by putting forward credible local spokespersons like ministers and chamber of commerce types and relying on the media to cover their cause.

This article focuses on various political issues around the world. The whole premise for Israel's deal with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, was that the Palestinians would be given territory and autonomy if they could maintain order and safety to Israel's satisfaction. The more they produced of the latter, the more they might get of the former. The political struggle in the South these past couple of weeks was not between Patrick Buchanan and Robert Dole, it was between the corporate leadership of the Republican party and the rank and file of the Christian Coalition. It was a light to determine who was the tail and who was the dog.

This article presents information on various socio-political developments in the U.S. U.S. President Bill Clinton is concocting a way to end the budget standoff by talking with Republican Party leaders. With the paychecks of 40 percent of government workers held for ransom by the Republican ultras, the tawdry spectacle creates pressure on each side for a deal. On December 2 mechanics employed by America West Airlines Inc., the Phoenix, Arizona-based airline, opened their morning newspapers to discover that 500 of them, out of 730, were fired. That day guards barred workers from entering the building, and mechanics had to make appointments to retrieve their tools. The company had decided to shift its major maintenance work to Everett, Washington, a town outside Seattle. The company will save a bundle-$37 million, it claims, over five years.

The article presents information related to several political issues. Ever since the U.S. government launched an inherently doomed crusade seven years ago to transform post-Communist Russia into a replica of the American system, it has been only a matter of time before that missionary arrogance led to disaster and clamorous shouts of "Who lost Russia?" Fifty years ago, American politicians and media asked the same question about China, with malignant consequences. There is little to mourn in U.S. President Bill Clinton's fall from power. From the earliest days of his rise to dominance of the Democratic Party, he has been opportunistically eviscerating its core values and spreading the conservative worldwide of his corporate campaign donors. From the rushed execution of Rickey Ray Rector, to welfare repeal, to NAFTA, to flubbing the healthcare initiative and paving the way for Newt, to the sellout of campaign finance reform, Clinton has been betraying the trust and hopes of those who voted for him.

The article presents information on several socio-political developments from across the world. The young Nigerians who set fire to tires and did battle with police in the slums of Lagos were convinced Moshood Abiola's death just prior to his expected release from prison was no accident. Democracy activists like Wole Soyinka felt the same way. Abiola, who had collapsed during a meeting with a U.S. delegation, was described as having suffered an apparent heart attack--but one of his daughters said he didn't have a heart condition, and no autopsy could dispel suspicions that Nigeria's generals sought to eliminate the threat Abiola posed to their power. Rape is being systematically used by Burma's military as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing, according to interviews with rights workers and exiled pro-democracy officials. Bolstering those contentions are seven recent reports, including one by EarthRights International, a legal rights group, accusing Burma's military of "the savage domination of women outside the scope of acceptable wartime conduct."

The U.S. Supreme Court proved itself in many ways to be the institution right-wingers like Attorney General Edwin Meese hoped for nearly twenty years ago when they set out to remake the federal bench; repressively statist in application of the Bill of Rights, in full retreat from redressing racial injustice, libertarian in economic matters. The Court has been taking fewer cases in recent years, in part because the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund's lawyers settled the Piscataway, New Jersey, affirmative action case rather than run the hostile Supreme Court gantlet.

The article reports on some political developments in different countries during the year 1998. The annual foreign-policy farce called drug certification, in which the U.S. government verifies that a foreign government is cooperating in the fight against drugs, was passed on March 1 with relatively little controversy. Mexico was re-certified for aid, Colombia had its sanctions lifted and a handful of strategically marginal nations like Nigeria and Burma received failing grades. The World Bank still has a vast mandate and considerable influence, even though anti-Communism-the primary geopolitical impulse for U.S. participation-has evaporated, and the bank's net annual lending of $7.4 billion represents only 2 to 3 percent of the total flow of capital to developing countries.

Hard on the heels of Ted Turner's pledge to donate $1 billion to the United Nations over ten years comes financier George Soros' announcement of $500 million in charitable aid to Russia through his Open Society Institute over the next three years, dwarfing U.S. aid programs there. Soros is a complicated figure, at once patron of civil liberties East and West and speculator in Third World currencies. He leaked news of his gift to The New York Times, which ran a hagiographic front-page story complete with a color photo of the financier next to an infant in an incubator. The Russian reporters at Soros' Moscow press conference were less reverent, pelting him with questions about the relationship between his gift and the more than $2.5 billion he has invested in Russia's privatized state enterprises.

The article presents political updates from the world, as of June 23, 1997. "Healing" and "closure" were the two most frequently uttered convictions by a Denver, Colorado, jury of eleven counts of murder and conspiracy for the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. So universal was the desire to find some solace in the McVeigh verdict that practically no mention was made of the political culture that inspired his brutal truck bombing. According to another update, the French people have rejected the ruling conservative coalition, which promised progress but practiced austerity, and have given the personally honest and truthful politician Lionel Jospin a mandate, though not a blank check, for change. Jospin was then asked to form a: government because his Socialist Party, with 246 deputies is by far the biggest in a National Assembly of 577 members.

The article throws light on the U.S.-China relations. It criticizes the American government for ignoring the human rights violation by China against the pro-democracy supporters. The current bonhomie between the two countries is owing to the compulsions of trade lobby. The Gang of Fortune 400 doesn't care if China is a repressive mercantilist state or a global polluter or an agent of deadly technology transfers. It cautions against the meek surrender of the nation's interests for a few hundred multinational corporations.