If it seems like only months ago that America’s warmongers were claiming there would be no need for US boots on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State (IS), that’s because it was. When the politicians initially decided to promote IS to the position of threat du jour, they promised that threat could be eliminated without sacrifice of American…

The US Congress approved construction of the Keystone XL pipeline’s fourth phase on February 11, with the bill scheduled to land on president Barack Obama’s desk for a likely veto sometime after the “President’s Day” recess. Near-unanimous support for Keystone from self-proclaimed “conservatives” and “libertarians” is disappointing but unsurprising. This government land grab is just…

Of all the complex environmental problems the world faces today, the elephant in the room is climate change. If current predictions are correct, our posterity faces famine and drought, land loss, natural disasters, political instability and (if the hippies at the Pentagon are correct) increased warfare as resources are strained. So, how do we address the…

Watching Fox News’s recent coverage of the Islamic State’s Twitter-hack left me shaking my head in disbelief, as usual. The latest act alleged to have been carried out by IS is the group’s takeover of several Twitter accounts belonging to the wives of US military servicemen. Among the threatening tweets issued by IS through the hacked…

“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen,” Adam Smith noted in The Wealth of Nations, “its counsellors are always the masters.” US president Barack Obama reaffirms this insight with his intervention in the dispute between shipping industry employers and longshore workers on the west coast. That intervention comes at the behest of…

“Hardline House GOP conservatives aren’t worried about a looming Department of Homeland Security shutdown,” reports Cristina Marcos at The Hill. They’d rather let DHS’s funding lapse than give up a provision in its new appropriation reversing president Barack Obama’s recent executive orders on immigration. Is it just me, or does this sound more like the promise of ice…

How to write an Alternet criticism of libertarianism: 1) Cite an unpleasant aspect of Ayn Rand’s philosophy; 2) use the news topic of the day as an exemplar of that unpleasantness; and 3) treat it as somehow symbolic of the fundamental nature of the entire libertarian movement. In this case, I’m not so much interested in…

“The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),” writes US president Barack Obama in his letter to Congress of February 11, “poses a threat to the people and stability of Iraq, Syria, and the broader Middle East, and to U.S. national security.” Therefore, Obama requests that Congress pass an “Authorization for the Use of…

The future of energy in the United States is a testy topic these days. Politicians, industry officials and special interests are fighting over partisan policy proposals. All actors are fully engaged in the art of hyperbolic mouth breathing — depraved political theater at its finest. The Obama administration wants to build a legacy of environmental stewardship and energy…

On January 20, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced the Apollo 1201 project, an effort to eradicate digital rights management (DRM) schemes from the world of Internet commerce. Led by well-known activist Cory Doctorow, the project aims to “accelerate the movement to repeal laws protecting DRM” and “kick-start a vibrant market in viable, legal alternatives to…

1971, the story of the whistleblowing Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI which raided files from a regional FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, made its theatrical debut at New York City’s Cinema Village on January 6. The documentary should spark a rediscovery of the seminal but unrecognized group dedicated to exposing the FBI’s disruption of the anti-Vietnam War and civil…

On December 3, 2014 the New York Daily News reported that a “… hulking brute grabbed a 28-year-old MTA employee up in a bear hug at a Bronx train station, shoved her onto the platform and began choking her in an unprovoked attack — then ran away smiling …” (emphasis added). Curiously, only a day later they reported that, “Police…

The prospect of compulsory vaccination (“Should Obama make vaccines mandatory for all children,” Dr. Manny Alvarez, Fox News, January 30) should trouble even those who think the practice can be defended in principle as a kind of self-defense. The burgeoning women’s liberation movement of the 1960s emphasized a theme with a prominent American pedigree, powerfully expressed…

For the last twelve years, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has publicly recounted the story of a harrowing 2003 helicopter flight in Iraq. Covering the war on the first day of the American invasion, Williams traveled with the US Army’s 159th Aviation Regiment. According to Williams, an Iraqi RPG struck his helicopter, forcing it to make a dangerous emergency landing. Williams…

It’s frustrating to hear US president Barack Obama receive kudos from the beer community simply because of his fondness for the beverage. Between his 2009 Beer Summit, his occasional beer in public, and his recent quip that he’s the first president to brew beer at the White House since George Washington, Obama has successfully cultivated a…

On February 4, American media trumpeted the expected, “dog bites man” headline: “Ross Ulbricht Convicted” of being Dread Pirate Roberts, operator of the online Silk Road marketplace. Few expected an acquittal. From the moment US Attorney Preet Bharara announced Ulbricht’s indictment on seven charges, ranging from “money laundering” to “drug trafficking,” the prosecution ran on rails. A…

New corporate enclosures, looting and monopolies are springing up all over the place these days. Watching the news is a lot like watching Robocop or Blade Runner, what with stuff like Detroit’s “Emergency Manager” auctioning off local assets to corporate cronies the same way Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority did in Iraq. Given all that,…

On January 30, two-time Republican Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney nixed a third go-around, telling supporters via teleconference that he can better serve America by supporting whomever the party chooses as its 2016 presidential nominee. Hallelujah. A third Romney candidacy would have been difficult to stomach. Romney had floated a trial balloon of making “helping the poor”…

After years of subsidizing power consumption, something that curiously benefits capital-intensive manufacturing, Brazil’s government has decided to raise electrical bills by 30% in 2015. Indeed, 30% is Mines and Energy minister Eduardo Braga’s most optimistic projection. Hikes will more likely average 40%. Braga, however, as has become standard procedure for the Dilma administration, prefers to navigate…

On November 20, 2014, president Barack Obama announced a series of executive orders reforming the US immigration system. His plan of action consists not so much of improvements as of acceptance of the system’s failures and a doubling down on those failures. The plan’s key elements include increasing border security, deporting felons (“instead of families,” notes whitehouse.gov), criminal…