Archives for January 2005

Whom to believe, Seymour Hersh or the Bush regime? Given the regime’s track record, can there be any doubt? The comprehensive report that found no WMD in Iraq — which contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by the regime’s top officials — ought to make clear that the regime can’t be believed. And […]

When The Minor Fall, The Major Lift expired last September, TMFTML wrote, “This blog has sucked lately, and our heart hasn’t been in it.” He was right. We’d had enough of it, too. Somehow the sauciness had palled. But now the blog is back, and it seems fresh again. It returned two weeks ago, so […]

Today’s national holiday marks the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., who would have been 76 on Saturday. King’s legacy more than three decades after his assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39, lives on despite the contempt shown by a majority of American voters in electing a right-wing […]

Roger Ebert begins his review of “In Good Company” this way: Corporations have replaced Nazis as the politically correct villains of the age — and just in time, because it was getting increasingly difficult to produce Nazis who survived into the 21st century.” With young Prince Harry doing his thing, Roger, you might want reconsider […]

Verse from Straight Up’s poet laureate Leon Freilich comes in handy at the end of the week. In re: “Some Now Question Cost of Inauguration.” AFTER THE BALL IS OVER What will be left after the waltzingAnd Bush has had his inauguration?When forty million has been splashed,What will be the mood of the nation? With […]

Besides Doug Ireland, more reasons for an alternative press: A brief history of consortiumnews.com and an interview with John Perkins about his recently published “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.” EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Overnight notices are now showing up regularly in the print edition of The New York Times on the inside pages of the Metro section, per the paper’s effort to perk up its arts coverage, as reported earlier. John Rockwell’s dance review this morning on page B2, “Through a Dada Forest …,” is only the latest. […]

Here’s why we need an alternative press: Compare Doug Ireland’s piece today in the L.A. Weekly, “Mike Chertoff’s Dirty Little Secrets,” about the nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security — as well as Ireland and Elaine Cassel’s comments about Chertoff in interviews this morning on Democracy Now! — with Eric Lichtblau’s piece on Chertoff in […]

More pious words about accountability from the Bush regime, this time from Colin Powell on Kofi Annan and the oil-for-food scandal: “The [U.N.] secretary general will have to be accountable for those management problems,” Powell said yesterday, according to Reuters. Powell did not say whether he himself should be held accountable for telling the U.N. […]

Now that the inquiry into CBS’s faulty reporting on Georgie Boy’s National Guard service has resulted in the dismissal of four top news executives, the Bush regime suddenly values the principle of accountability. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, without the slightest irony, “CBS has taken steps to hold people accountable, and we appreciate […]

Busy day ahead of me, so I’m signing off for the nonce with a link to “The Salvador Option,” which ought to start your week off with plenty to think about. For more on the subject, go to Democracy Now!, which did a segment about it and will be posting it later this morning. Postscript: […]

In the rush to leave 2004 behind, I never got around to posting the conclusion of a small debate that erupted about Bill Moyers. It began with a farewell to Moyers that praised him — he was retiring from broadcast journalism — and continued with reader Larry Lippman’s negative response, which attacked Moyers for being […]

The front-page headline says: “Gonzales Speaks Against Torture During Hearing.” Well, as Rummy Boy might say, golly gee willikers. How noble of Mr. Gonzales. Give that man a medal. Better yet, make that man attorney general. After all, he says he understands the difference between being White House counsel, his current job, and being the […]

Alberto Gonzales has added softspeak, a modification of newspeak, to the Orwellian lexicon, although Sen. Joe Biden had another term for it: “Pure malarkey!” That’s how Biden, fed up with Gonzales’s lack of candor, characterized the Attorney General nominee’s testimony in this morning’s Senate hearing. (A big tip of the hat, too, to Sen. Ted […]

The U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General begins this morning. Watch the Webcast on C-Span. It begins at 9:30 a.m. ET. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Two essays — one by Kurt Vonnegut, the other by Studs Terkel — appeared on New Year’s day in The Guardian in London. They’re both about Nelson Algren, who was, it is no exaggeration to say, one of the great American authors of the 20th century, and among the most neglected. “Like James Joyce,” Vonnegut […]

Secretary of State Colin Powell is everywhere these days. He ushered in the New Year from Times Square with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Today he’s off to survey the tsunami damage with Florida Governor Jeb Bush. On top of that, he’s leaving politics, but he’s not retiring. Powell says he expects to serve the […]