Archive for August, 2009

Among the thousands of contributions to his country that Edward Kennedy made throughout the course of his 46-year career in the United States Senate one episode that stands out to me is his role in exposing the human costs of the American war in Vietnam. In early January 1968, just prior to the Tet Offensive,… »

First let me state the obvious: the May 7, 2004 “Special Review” on interrogations from the Central Intelligence Agency’s Inspector General is a heavily redacted document. Pages and pages of the report, titled “Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001-October 2003),” are either completely blackened out or mostly so. As a historian with a lot… »

There’s an ancient saying that we do not inherit our society from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children. On July 21, the California State University Board of Trustees approved a fee increase requiring undergraduate students this fall to pay $4,026 a year, an increase of about $1,000 over the previous year, (and this… »

In Sacramento yesterday, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, with grace and clarity, laid out his vision for California and the reasons why he is running for governor. To a packed town hall meeting at the city’s main library filled with people of all ages and backgrounds, Newsom gave a masterful performance similar in style and… »

In the sluggish news month of August we’ve been bombarded with endless tape loops of indistinguishable white men and women yelling at the top of their lungs, red faced and panting, at Democratic town halls across the country. The corporate media gobble up the spectacle because they love atmospherics and dumbed-down political food fights. But… »

Health care reform was the single biggest issue in the 2008 campaign. Everywhere any of the candidates went, especially town hall meetings, they were peppered with the question: “What are you going to do about the dismal state of our nation’s health care system?” There weren’t any Tea Baggers descending on these places demanding the… »

According to Brian Stelter, writing in the New York Times business section, it was FOX News director Roger Ailes who cooked up the original scheme to blunt Keith Olbermann’s withering criticism of Bill O’Reilly. The plan entailed O’Reilly and Glen Beck aiming their barbs, not at Olbermann or his show Countdown on MSNBC, but at… »

In 1994, Senator Edward Kennedy was in a tough fight for reelection against a well-financed Republican opponent named Mitt Romney. There was a debate between Kennedy and Romney at Faneuil Hall and before the candidates arrived a large crowd of boisterous Romney supporters dominated the gathering. The place was a sea of Romney signs with… »

Finally, at long last, we have an extreme right-wing personality making the rounds in the corporate media who tears down the facade of “legitimacy” and “respectability” the Far Right bestows upon its craziest enthusiasts. Orly Taitz, the Czarina of the “Birther” Movement, is not saying anything zanier than what we’ve grown accustomed to hearing from… »