Janet Allon – Latest Poll: Sanders Handily Trounces All Top Republicans—Yeah, Including Trump

Nothing seems to touch Donald Trump, it seems, whose lead in the Republican race for president has stayed solid and even grown as Ben Carson fades. Nothing except possibly the “Bern” man. According to a new Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday [3], both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton handily beat any top Republican candidates. Here are Sanders’ latest numbers: Topping Trump …

Marian Wright Edelman – Who Put the NRA in Charge of Our National Security?

“I have supported legislation in the past which would place reasonable and careful restrictions on the use of firearms, and I am co-sponsoring S.1… I believe this bill would impose necessary controls without unduly curtailing the use of firearms for legitimate sport shooting or hunting, and without curtailing the lawful activity of sport gun clubs. Basically this legislation would only …

SIGNS — AMAZING, AMUSING, ALARMING — OF THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE APOCALYPSE

When it comes to the influence of the unspeakably rich in politics, things are even worse than we thought. Seemingly dire predictions of what would follow the controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case turn out to have actuallyunderestimated the damage to our electoral process. The decision struck down limitations on corporations’ donations to political campaigns. At the time, many  …

BILL SCHER – The World-Changing Choice Between Sanders and Clinton On The Climate

We’re close to an international climate agreement that most agree will be both a major step forward and insufficient to avert a catastrophe. Energy will quickly turn to what should be our next steps. The rival Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns lay out two possible paths: continued incremental advancement versus ambitious goals and sweeping agendas. The pragmatic vs. idealistic …

Robert Parry – Cruz Threatens to Nuke ISIS Targets

As Republican presidential candidates lined up to one-up each other about how they would fight Islamic terrorism, many mainstream pundits questioned the hysteria and took particular aim at billionaire Donald Trump for seeking a moratorium on admitting Muslims to the United States, but Trump’s proposal was far from the most outrageous. Getting much less attention was a statement by Sen. …

Larry Schwartz – 5 Outrageously Expensive and Useless Defense Projects You and I Are Paying for

Republican candidates for president have all sang out in less-than-beautiful harmony about cutting taxes for the very rich and miraculously balancing the budget at the same time. They have also sworn they will increase military spending. Many of them are urging a full-scale war on ISIS and Donald Trump is even ready to commit war crimes in order to defeat them. …

Henry A. Giroux – Fascism in Donald Trump’s United States

Donald Trump’s blatant appeal to fascist ideology and policy considerations took a more barefaced and dangerous turn this week when he released a statement calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Trump qualified this racist appeal to voters’ fears about Muslims by stating that such a ban is necessary “until our country’s representatives can …

Pam Martens and Russ Martens: What Hillary Clinton Didn’t Tell You in Her New York Times OpEd

Yesterday, the New York Times gave Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a free infomercial (a/k/a OpEd) to spin her toothless plan “to rein in Wall Street.” Hillary begins by telling us this: “Seven years ago, the financial crisis sent our economy into a tailspin. Over five million people lost their homes. Nearly nine million lost their jobs. Nearly $13 trillion in …

Peter van Buren – Guns and Deaths: We Really Don’t Care, Do We?

More than one a day. That is how often mass shootings (four or more people wounded or dead) occurred in the United States this year. Including the worst shooting of the year (so far), which unfolded only yesterday in San Bernardino, a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such attacks these past eleven months. …

Michael Krieger – A Look Inside Saudi Arabia’s Elaborate U.S. Propaganda Machine

Elements of the charm offensive include the launch of a pro-Saudi Arabia media portal operated by high-profile Republican campaign consultants; a special English-language website devoted to putting a positive spin on the latest developments in the Yemen war; glitzy dinners with American political and business elites; and a non-stop push to sway reporters and policymakers. That has been accompanied by a …