On July 27, 2004, when he made one of the most memorable speeches in the history of our political parties, at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Barack Obama began to click with American voters as they watched him on TV. In Illinois, helped by his reputation as a state senator and a African-American statesman, […]

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For several decades, Neal Peirce has been a national journalist in Washington, but with a sharp eye focused also on the state and local scenes. He is the author of the newspaper column “Citistates Reports” (formerly called the “Peirce Reports”), which concentrates on strategic issues for many regional newspapers. The country’s first national newspaper column […]

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Corruption at Public Broadcasting—The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is the administrative funnel through which congressional appropriations are doled out to PBS, the Public Broadcasting System’s television outlet, and NPR, National Public Radio. The CPB received about $378 million from Congress for the 2004 fiscal year, representing about 15 percent of public broadcasting’s revenues. Some […]

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He’s never encouraged Washington’s payment of United Nations dues, supported American participation in the International Criminal Court or suggested the strengthening of international disarmament treaties. So it was no surprise when President George W. Bush nominated Undersecretary of State John Bolton to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. If John Bolton, a […]

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Whole Hog—The Washington watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste keeps a sharp eye on the under-reported phenomenon of pork barrel politics. That’s the antiquated system used by members of Congress to invisibly slip a total of billions of taxpayer dollars into legislation that steers big chunks of cash back to projects in their states and […]

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