Alexander Cockburn skewers Democrats for failing to support John Murtha's call for a rapid pullout from Iraq, Jonathan Schell examines the Republican Party's failed and fraudulent empire and Stuart Klawans reviews Syriana, The Boys of Baraka and Punishment Park.

Articles

  • The Real McCain

    Ari Berman : John McCain is a war hero, a sometime Democratic ally, a crusader for campaign finance reform. But the centrist maverick will most likely take a turn to the right if he wants to get to the White House.

  • Mismanaged Care

    Trudy Lieberman : Tennessee once had a visionary health care plan for that left only 14 percent of residents uninsured. But with federal cuts and a governor's misguided attempt to privatize Medicaid, Tennessee is just another state unable to protect its citizens.

  • Dictionary of Republicanisms

    Katrina vanden Heuvel : Compassionate conservativism n. An expensively cultivated phrase created by a decades-old and well-funded Radical Right program of Orwellian doublespeak.

Letters

Editorials & Comment

  • The Murtha Moment

    : John Murtha is right: The American public has turned against the war. Democrats and Republicans must put aside politics and work together to bring the troops home quickly and focus on the real work to stabilize Iraq.

  • Alito's CAP Connection

    Eyal Press : Samuel Alito once boasted he was a member of Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which opposed bemoaned the impact of co-education and affirmative action. What does this say about his character and the kind of place he would like America to be?

  • Waist Deep in Big Oil

    Mark LeVine : While political pressure is mounting for a pullout from Iraq, the subject of total withdrawal remains unbroachable within the political establishment. Control of the Iraq's oil reserves, from the beginning, was the Bush Administration's real reason for this war. Subscribe

  • Undermining Haiti

    Mark Weisbrot : Democracy is being destroyed in Haiti, openly and with the support of the United States and United Nations. If the farce election set for December 27 by unelected government takes place, it will be a huge step backward. Subscribe

  • In Fact...

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  • Minority/Majority

    Minority/Majority

    David Sirota : While Steny Hoyer seeks to "make himself the first contact for K Street," Nancy Pelosi and George Miller are pressing forward with their crackdown on lobbying and ethics abuses.

  • Letter From Ground Zero

    The Fall of the One-Party Empire

    Jonathan Schell : Jonathan Schell writes that unmaking the fraudulent empire that the GOP has created will not be done quickly and the outcome is unclear. But historians may one day write that the fake American empire was the Achilles' heel of the one-party state the Bush Administration failed to build.

Reviews

  • book

    Marxism and Form

    Stefan Collini : Perry Anderson's Spectrum journeys through the abstract worlds of conservative and liberal intellectual thought, and leaves in its trail insights on the substance and style of ideas.

  • film

    The Best Intentions

    Stuart Klawans : Syriana disappoints; The Boys of Baraka documents the lives of inner-city kids transported to the wild beauty of Africa; and Punishment Park zeroes in on injustice in America.

Columns

Web

  • TruthDig

    Bush's Iraq Outdoes Saddam

    Robert Scheer : Ethnic cleansing, chemical weapons, self-appointed executioners: Sound familiar? The US occupation in Iraq has created conditions just as bad--if not worse--than Saddam Hussein's ruthless regime. And the increasingly isolated George W. Bush insists on staying the course.

  • The Fight to Save Stanley Tookie Williams

    Dave Zirin : As the clock ticks down to former gang leader Stanley Tookie Williiams's scheduled execution on December 13, football great Jim Brown is helping lead the fight to convince Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency.

  • Eggs vs Ethics in Stem Cell Debate

    Emily Galpern & Marcy Darnovsky : Reports of ethical breaches in the harvesting of human eggs for stem cell research in Korea has focused attention on the need to protect the health and welfare of women who might be pressured into becoming donors.

  • Did Bush Really Want to Bomb Al Jazeera?

    Jeremy Scahill : Given the Administration's record of attacking Al Jazeera verbally and militarily, is it conceivable that President Bush tried to convince Tony Blair to bomb its international headquarters? Only publication of an explosive memo will prove it.

  • TruthDig

    Cheney's Trouble with the Truth

    Robert Scheer : No other modern politician has come so close as Dick Cheney has to perfecting the theater of the absurd. Even as he protests his innocence of lying about matters of state, he lies about matters of state.

  • In Praise of John Murtha

    Nicholas von Hoffman : With 457 blunt-spoken words, John Murtha broke the spell that had held the country captive to the misguided adventure in Iraq. It suddenly became respectable to talk of a pullout. It was his finest moment: For the first time, there is hope this war may end.

December 12, 2005 Cover Cover art by Steve Brodner, cover design by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels

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