Category: Politics
When Venomous Speech Provokes Physical Violence
by Chip Berlet | Jan 17, 2020 | Culture, PoliticsWhen a well-known person denounces a specific group of people—claiming for instance they don’t deserve full citizenship, or they are a threat to the nation—the result can be a violent act against any person perceived to be in the targeted group. How do we know this? Sadly, the answer emerges from the horrific mass murders […]
Demographics and Republican Critics Pose Challenges to Social Security; Program Needs Revenue Plan Now
by Steven Pressman | Jan 4, 2020 | PoliticsAfter World War II, the American dream became a reality. A large fraction of the U.S. population enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle while working, followed by a secure retirement with virtually no change in their standard of living. This dream, especially its second part, slowly died over the past 40 years. Americans increasingly worry about retirement. […]
With the Amazon on Fire, an Early Visitor Recalls the Scorched Acreage That Was Once Earth’s Greatest Forest
by John Perkins | Dec 14, 2019 | Climate, PoliticsAn abridged version of this article appears in the December print edition of The Washington Spectator. Wildfires raging in the Amazon . . . deliberately set by farmers illegally deforesting land for cattle ranching . . . have hit a record number this year. . . . The surge marks an 83 percent increase over the same period of 2018 . . . and is the highest since […]
Impeachment’s Legal Battle Beneath The Televised Food Fight
by Richard L. Brodsky | Nov 22, 2019 | Legal Affairs, PoliticsThere’s a rich menu of political and gotcha goodies to choose from if you watch the impeachment hearings as entertainment. If you watch as a lawyer there are emerging battles that are more consequential. It isn’t yet clear how the varying legal positions of Democrats and Republicans will affect the practical results. But both the […]
Another Presidential Phone Call and the Gravity of Impeachment
by WS Editors | Nov 2, 2019 | PoliticsYou could be forgiven, over the past few weeks, for momentarily overlooking the impeachment process, especially after the president’s stunning announcement that he was ordering U.S. troops out of Syria. The news came after another of Trump’s fateful calls with foreign leaders, this one with Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Immediate effects included the shameful betrayal […]