The 2012 March 4-6 AIPAC annual conference was attended by hundreds of congressional leaders; President Obama addressed the conference, as did Republican presidential candidates by video.

In 2001, Fortune magazine ranked AIPAC the fourth most powerful lobby in Washington. AIPAC lobbyists urge our government to support Israel's hawkish policies...

It costs approximately $130,000 to keep one teenager in a Pennsylvania juvenile detention center for one year. It would cost less than $200 per child per year to fund Educating Children for Parenting (ECP), a violence prevention program started in Philadelphia in 1979. The ECP program adopted in...

In 1934, General Smedley D. Butler testified to the Congressional McCormack-Dickstein Committee -- formed to investigate Fascist and Communist activities -- concerning a plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler stated that Gerald C. MacGuire, representing some of the wealthiest Americans including the DuPont family, and leaders of...

It was the mid- nineties; I was a panelist at a State University of New York, Old Westbury conference, speaking on research on the effects of violent entertainment on children. Afterwards, at lunch, I sat with a professor and an administrator at the university. They spent the hour telling me...

In his recent book, After Shock, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich argues that the economic downward mobility of American workers, has "to do with power...income and wealth in fewer hands." Apparently, many working class Americans want to keep it that way. A recent SEIU poll reveals that, 38 percent...

The large poster on the U.C.L.A. campus read "Israel: the Politics of Genocide," and featured a picture of a young woman, scarf on her head, holding a shotgun, with the caption: The Right of Return, Free Palestine. The poster was part of Palestine Awareness Week sponsored at universities around the...

Memorial Day is upon us and Corporal Pat Tillman, killed in 2004 in Afghanistan, is among those who will be honored. When in 2002, football star Tillman gave up his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the army, his decision made headlines and was toasted as the ultimate in...

Memorial Day is upon us and Corporal Pat Tillman, killed in 2004 in Afghanistan, is among those who will be honored. When in 2002 football star Tillman gave up his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the army, his decision made headlines and was toasted as the ultimate in...

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" -- the celebrated mantra of the 1976 film, Network, kept going through my mind as I read about New York congressman Eric Massa's announcement that he would not run for reelection, followed by his decision to...

In 2009, an Afghan-American defense contractor, Hamed Wardak, hired Patton Boggs, a blue chip lobbying firm to push for an extended U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The lobbying firm in turn set up a nonprofit front group -- the Campaign for a U.S. Afghanistan Partnership -- on Wardak's behalf to act...

Back when Senator Obama started his campaign for the Democratic nomination, I was as thrilled as any left wing democrat, with his brilliant, inspiring speeches filled with promises to do just about everything we thought needed to be done. The man seemed almost too good to be true. Since previous...

The concern with the "sanctity of life" is apparently so great among some members of Congress that the health care bill passed by the House includes the Stupak Amendment which prohibits funding for abortions. The prohibition applies not only to the public option, but also to private insurance companies that...

In his recently published novel, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us, which he describes as a "speculative utopia," Ralph Nader has seventeen real life billionaires and multi-millionaires -- Warren Buffett, Ted Turner. George Soros, and Bill Gates Sr. among them -- getting together to form an organization focused on...

"It's déjà vu all over again" Yogi Berra once famously said. Exactly my thought as I contemplate my father's life and then look around at what's happening in the world today.

Born in 1901 in Poland, my father died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home at age...

Dear Professor Glendon,

You were recently awarded Notre Dame University's Laetere Medal, to be given to you at the university's upcoming commencement at which you were to speak. You decided not to accept the award because President Obama who supports women's right to abortion would be giving...

In a few days, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our 44th president. Some see this as a vindication of our electoral system and American democracy -- "conspiracy theorists" who warned that Republicans would very likely attempt to steal the election were proven wrong. We should all be grateful...

In introducing Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate, Barack Obama described Biden as "the kind of fighter I want by my side in the months and years to come." While Candidate Obama is dealing with big picture issues--the economy, Iraq, health care, global warming -- he would do...

New York City Republican Congressman Vito Fossella has announced that he will not run for a sixth congressional term this November. The odds that voters would re-elect him are close to nil. The recent revelation that Fossella, married with children, has a three year old child with his mistress of...

Reports indicate that, in light of recent attacks by Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and his supporters are about to sharpen their critique. If so, there is one line of attack which I urge them to drop for it flies in the face of what historians tell us as well as...

For children across the country, its back to school this week, and many of them will be attending schools in systems run by corporate executives. At the forefront of this initiative is Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation via its training program for school management. Broad's web site states, "Wanted: The Nation's...