Crossposted from TomDispatchOn January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects. His is just the latest prosecution in an unprecedented assault on government whistleblowers and leakers of every sort. Kiriakou’s plight ...
Mike & Friends Blog
The Battle for Vermont's Health -- And Why It Matters for the Rest of the Country
You can't see them. They're hidden from view and probably always will be. But the health insurance industry's big guns are in place and pointed directly at the citizens of Vermont. Health insurers were not able to stop the state's drive last year toward a single-payer health care system, which ...
Iran and the Not-So-Great Game
Stop the Russians from spreading south. This was a primary objective of the Great Game of the 19th century that centered on Central Asia and particularly Afghanistan. The empires of the time – British, Russian, French, Chinese, Ottoman – expended much wealth and endured considerable human suffering during the course ...
What the Koch brothers say online but won’t say under oath
Why will Charles and David Koch produce a video about their position on the Keystone XL oil pipeline and not testify before Congress about it? The Koch brothers have refused to answer questions about how they stand to profit from the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile long boondoggle that would ...
Obama’s Super-Bowl Fumble on Iran
Before President Barack Obama’s interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably hoped that, if Obama discussed Iran, he would give him the strong backing that Israeli leaders crave, freeing them to lash out at Iran — militarily, if they ...
Crossposted from TomDispatchIf we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet -- as we shall ...
Why the Right May Be Right to Be Offended by Chrysler's Clint Eastwood Super Bowl Ad
This year’s commercial | Last year's commerical For two straight years, Chrysler has won the Super Bowl advertising competition, both times with a two-minute commercial. This year’s effort combined impressively artistic visual elements with a serious socio-political message rarely available on commercial television. Last year, it was a Detroit-focused mini-movie ...
Crossposted from TomDispatchMake no mistake: we’re entering a new world of military planning. Admittedly, the latest proposed Pentagon budget manages to preserve just about every costly toy-cum-boondoggle from the good old days when MiGs still roamed the skies, including an uncut nuclear arsenal. Eternally over-budget items like the F-35 Joint ...
Why Protests Should Be a Part of Super Bowl Sunday
Crossposted from The NationThis Sunday, the greatest multitude in the history of the United States will be tuning into the same television show at the same time. The 2012 Super Bowl, to be played between two major media markets, the New England Patriots and New York Giants, kicks off at ...
Auction 2012: Greedy Bastards and Student Debt
Imagine a product so irresistible that most Americans thought they couldn't live without it. Every President talked of its importance, and it was perceived of as the key to you or your child's future. There was a limited supply, and prices kept going up. The best business to be in ...
A Competitive Dollar: The Missing Link in President Obama's Manufacturing Agenda
In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama announced a renewed commitment to manufacturing in the United States. While the commitment to rebuilding the country's manufacturing base is welcome -- manufacturing has historically been a source of good-paying jobs for workers without college degrees -- he unfortunately ...
Paying For Cancer Treatment for Children in America With a Car Wash, Bake Sale and Fish Fry
"It shouldn't be this way," read the subject line of an email I received Friday morning from a conservative friend and fellow Southerner. "People shouldn't have to beg for money to pay for medical care." At first, I thought he was referring to my column last week in which I ...
Four Reasons to Watch the Super Bowl
Crossposted from TomDispatchMost Americans won’t need a justification to watch Sunday’s game, but if you’re a TomDispatch.com reader you might think, even in passing, that celebrating the holiest day of violence, consumerism, and class warfare on your couch is a betrayal of your values or a waste of your time. ...
"Best practices" and "exemplar communities": Ivory tower housing solutions for Haiti
In a 2011 Forum on the Crisis of Housing in Haiti, a group of camp residents and advocates asked “grassroots organizations and all other movements to mobilize with us on the housing issue so that we can achieve this dream of justice and liberty.” Today, with more than 500,000 people ...
Watching top U.S. intelligence officials present the annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” before the Senate Intelligence Committee, I found myself wondering if they would depart from the key (if politically delicate) consensus judgment that Iran is NOT working on a nuclear weapon. In last year’s briefing, Director of National Intelligence James ...
A Crazy Republican Attack That Obama Himself Agrees With
Imagine if a bunch of the craziest war-hungry Republicans in the House filmed themselves in a nutty bat-guano video packed with lies addressed to the President of the United States. And then imagine President Barack Obama almost immediately agreeing with them. I can think of two ways in which such ...
Lenin graces the cover of a recent issue of The Economist. The Financial Times is running an entire series on the “crisis in capitalism.” Francis Fukuyama, a recovering neoconservative, makes a plea in Foreign Affairs for the left to get its intellectual act together. And that noted class warrior Newt ...
Crossposted from TomDispatchEver since December 27th, war clouds have been gathering over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water connecting the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean and the seas beyond. On that day, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi warned that Tehran would block the strait and ...
Canada’s Labor Movement Digs in for ‘PATCO Equivalent,’ as Lockouts Drag On
Crossposted from the In These Times Working blog It's usually difficult to get more than a few hundred union activists to show up to a rally in support of a small workforce facing steep concessions. But on January 21, more than 15,000 people showed up to a rally in support of 420 ...
Hauling the Koch brothers into Congress
Imagine Charles and David Koch testifying, under oath, in Congress. Even though the billionaire oil industry brothers continue trying to dodge accountability, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) invited the Koch brothers to testify and answer a few simple questions about how the Kochs are positioned to gain financially by the Keystone ...
Iranian Aircraft Carriers in the Gulf of Mexico
Crossposted from TomDispatch Exclusive: New Iranian Commando Team Operating Near U.S. (Tehran, FNA) The Fars News Agency has confirmed with the Republican Guard’s North American Operations Command that a new elite Iranian commando team is operating in the U.S.-Mexican border region. The primary day-to-day mission of the team, known as ...
Social Justice Quiz 2012: Thirteen Questions
Written with Sam SchmittQuestion One. The combined pay of the 299 highest paid CEOs in the US is enough to support how many median salary jobs? 45,000? 83,000? 102,325? Two. The median net worth of black households in the US is $2,200. What is the median net worth of white ...
A Call For Mass Action Against The Suppression of The Occupy Movement
SIGN THIS CALL TO ACTION These past several months have witnessed something very different in the U.S. People from many different walks of life came together to occupy public space in nearly 1,000 cities in the U.S. They stood up to vicious police violence, they broke through the confines of ...
The Oppressive Nature of "Small Government"
Rand Paul isn’t a libertarian, he just plays one on TV.The spat Kentucky’s junior US senator had with the TSA this week ignited a flurry of <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71818.html" target="_hplink">news coverage</a> on his supposed refusal of a full pat-down and subsequent confrontation with law enforcement. Paul’s spokesperson said he was “detained.” ...
Panetta: Military Spending Is Going Up
On Thursday, Leon Panetta held a press conference announcing what he called "cuts" to military spending. The first question following his remarks pointed out that the "cuts" are to dream budgets, while the actual spending will be increased over Panetta's 10-year plan. Is there any year, the reporter asked, out ...
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Mike's Blog
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January 17th, 2012
STOP SOPA: Why MichaelMoore.com Will Be Blacked Out Wednesday, January 18th
My websites MichaelMoore.com and Mike's High School Newspaper will both be going dark for 24 hours starting at midnight tonight in protest of the Stop ...
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December 30th, 2011
75 Years Ago Today, the First Occupy
On this day, December 30th, in 1936 -- 75 years ago today -- hundreds of workers at the General Motors factories in Flint, Michigan, took ...
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December 28th, 2011
Click here to donate to the congressional campaign of Flint's own Dan Kildee I have many things I'm planning to do in the New Year ...
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December 24th, 2011
A Little Christmas Gift for You to Download
Thanks for all the wonderful comments regarding the short story about my mom from HERE COMES TROUBLE that I sent you a few days ago. ...
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December 20th, 2011
Here's a New Free Chapter from HERE COMES TROUBLE
Thank you to the tens of thousands of you who have read HERE COMES TROUBLE and helped to make it a New York Times bestseller ...
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December 18th, 2011
LAST CALL: Signed First Editions Will Be Gone by Tomorrow! ORDER TODAY, RECEIVE BY XMAS
My publisher has informed me that they are down to their last crate of the first printing/first editions of HERE COMES TROUBLE -- the ones ...
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December 17th, 2011
A Man in Tunisia, a Movement on Wall Street, and the Soldier Who Ignited the Fuse
It's Saturday night and I didn't want the day to end before I sent out this note to you. One year ago today (December 17th), ...
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September 11th, 2010
If the 'Mosque' Isn't Built, This Is No Longer America
OpenMike 9/11/10 Michael Moore's daily blog I am opposed to the building of the "mosque" two blocks from Ground Zero. I want it built on ...
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December 14th, 2010
Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that ...
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May 12th, 2011
Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden
"The Nazis killed tens of MILLIONS. They got a trial. Why? Because we're not like them. We're Americans. We roll different." – Michael Moore in ...
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November 22nd, 2011
Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here?
This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and ...
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September 22nd, 2011
A STATEMENT FROM MICHAEL MOORE ON THE EXECUTION OF TROY DAVIS
I encourage everyone I know to never travel to Georgia, never buy anything made in Georgia, to never do business in Georgia. I will ask ...
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December 16th, 2010
Dear Swedish Government: Hi there -- or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your country. Your ...
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November 2nd, 2010
This letter contains (almost) no criticisms of how the Democrats have brought this day of reckoning upon themselves. That -- and where to go from ...
