Norman Solomon – WPost Won’t Retract McCarthyistic Smear

We still don’t have any sort of apology or retraction from the Washington Post for promoting “The List” — the highly dangerous blacklist that got a huge boost from the newspaper’s fawning coverage on Nov. 24. The project of smearing 200 websites with one broad brush wouldn’t have gotten far without the avid complicity of high-profile media outlets, starting with the Post. On …

Robert Parry – Clinton’s ‘Russia Did It’ Cop-out

The Clinton machine – running on fumes after Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid – is pulling out all remaining stops to block Donald Trump’s inauguration, even sinking into a new McCarthyism. In joining a recount effort with slim hopes of reversing the election results, Clinton campaign counsel Marc Elias cited a scurrilous Washington Post article that relied on a shadowy …

Todd E. Pierce – How ‘Think Tanks’ Generate Endless War

The New York Times took notice recently of the role that so-called “think tanks” play in corrupting U.S. government policy. Their review of think tanks “identified dozens of examples of scholars conducting research at think tanks while corporations were paying them to help shape government policy.” Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, while the Times investigation demonstrates well that the U.S. is …

Global spending on health is expected to increase to $18.28 trillion worldwide by 2040

Global inequities in health spending are expected to persist and intensify over the next 25 years, according to a new study that estimates total health financing in countries around the world. Published in The Lancet on April 13, 2016 “National spending on health by source for 184 countriesbetween 2013 and 2040” draws from a joint research collaboration between the World Bank Group …

Helena Norberg-Hodge – Globalization and Terror

For people in the modern world, there may be nothing more difficult to comprehend than the group calling itself the Islamic State, or ISIS. The beheadings, rapes, and other acts of cruelty seem beyond understanding, as does the wanton destruction of priceless ancient monuments. Perhaps most mystifying of all is the way ISIS has been able to recruit young men …

Dylan Charles – The 10 Most Critical Things to Consider When Consuming Mainstream News

It’s no secret that 90% of American media is owned by just 6 corporate conglomerates, and it’s also no secret that the media is used by political and corporate propagandists as a tool to reach deep into the hearts and minds of the masses.Mainstream newscasts are a staged version of reality, and as world events continue to rise in pitch and …

Stephen Lendman – Hillary At Brookings

Clinton is one of many hardcore/hawkish neocons infesting America – a recklessly dangerous presidential aspirant deploring peace and stability, addicted to endless wars, mass slaughter and destruction. On September 9, she delivered a foreign policy address at Washington’s Brookings Institution – a notorious corporate financed pro-war think tank, supporting wealth, power and privilege, an establishment organization representing America’s dark side. …

Glenn Greenwald – Hillary Clinton Goes to Militaristic, Hawkish Think Tank, Gives Militaristic, Hawkish Speech

Leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton this morning delivered a foreign policy speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington. By itself, the choice of the venue was revealing. Brookings served as Ground Zero for centrist think tank advocacy of the Iraq War, which Clinton (along with potential rival Joe Biden) notoriously and vehemently advocated. Brookings’ two leading “scholar”-stars — Kenneth Pollack …

Alan Nasser – The Myth of the Middle Class: Have Most Americans Always Been Poor?

One of the most firmly entrenched myths of the American Ideology is that the U.S. is a “middle class society,” a “land of opportunity” where anyone who works hard has the opportunity to achieve the standard of living which has made America “the envy of the world.” A common, and spot on, rejoinder has been to remind us that America …

Paul Rogat Loeb – Youth Vote at Record Low — Here’s How to Reverse the Trend

The numbers are dismaying. According to a new US Census report, only 20% of eligible 18-29-year-olds voted in 2014. It was the lowest turnout in 40 years, below even 2010’s doleful 24%. Mid-term youth turnout is always low. But these numbers suggest a generation profoundly disconnected from the electoral choices that will help shape their world. Yet the decline need not …