The Republican plan to overhaul the US healthcare system is “far worse” than Obamacare, according to Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, and represents a disgraceful effort to “give massive tax breaks” to the wealthy. Last week, the Republican Party released new healthcare legislation aimed at dismantling the “skyrocketing costs” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law by B [...]

Washington has boosted its military presence in Syria to ostensibly help local forces fight against Daesh, but former US diplomat and Senate adviser James Jatras told Radio Sputnik that the Pentagon's latest deployment could see the United States get bogged down in Syria. "Frankly, I don't like it. I don't think it's a good idea. As much as anybody else I would like to see Daesh and other te [...]

When the global military empire takes money from programs that poor people depend on and gives it to rich military contractors - it is a theft and looting of the national budget, says Brian Becker, the National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition. [...]

Beijing has called on the US to stop its hacking practices against China and other countries, following a WikiLeaks release which reportedly exposes the CIA’s extensive hacking capabilities and lists Chinese routers as targets. [...]

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has promised to press Washington loosen its economic restrictions on Iran, as it promised to do as part of last year’s nuclear deal. During a public speech during a landmark two-day economic cooperation visit to Tehran, Gabriel said Germany intends to "remind the United States of the commitment to get to an effective dismantling of sanctions." [...]

As Democrats compete to become the new War Party – pushing for a dangerous confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia – some constituents are objecting, as Mike Madden did in a letter to Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Dear Senator Klobuchar, I write with concern over statements you have made recently regarding Russia. These statements have been made both at home and abroad, and they involve two issues; t [...]

Solving the ISIS problem must involve a whole lot less US activity in the Middle East, not a whole lot more. Just over a week into the Trump Administration, the President issued an Executive Order giving Defense Secretary James Mattis 30 days to come up with a plan to defeat ISIS. [...]

“Putin’s a killer.” This was the claim made by Fox News ‘journalist’ Bill O’Reilly during his recent interview with Donald Trump. Trump’s reply came in the form of a simple question. “What, you think our country’s so innocent?” It was a reply that succeeded in puncturing the bubble of exceptionalism in which Mr O’Reilly and those like him have long chosen to cocoon themselves [...]

US President Trump has yet to articulate his foreign strategy, Russian political analyst Alexei Martynov said, commenting on the White House's "mixed signals" on Crimea. Apparently therefore new UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's statement on the peninsula's status was rather ambiguous. [...]

Russia will not be talked to from a position of strength, only as an equal partner, the Russian defense minister said, commenting on the latest remark by his US counterpart. It comes as senior military commanders of the two nations are about to meet. [...]

The White House will make 'a tragic mistake' if it rejects Russia's reported offer to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), former US Secretary of Defense William Perry said in an interview on Friday.   [...]

Recent U.S. foreign policy – driven by neocons and liberal hawks – has spread chaos and death around the globe. But can “crazy” Donald Trump bring sanity to how the U.S. approaches the world, asks Robert Parry. If you wanted to bring sanity to a U.S. foreign policy that has spun crazily out of control, there would be some immediate steps that you – or, say, Secretary of State Rex Till [...]

The US bipartisan initiative to launch information warfare against Russia has George Soros's fingerprints all over it, Pamela Geller, US journalist and President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative told Radio Sputnik. According to Geller, Soros wants to prevent a rapprochement between Russia and the US. [...]

A bipartisan group of US senators led by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Ben Cardin introduced a legislation granting Congress a veto right over any decision by President Donald Trump’s administration to lift anti-Russian sanctions. [...]

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly took the blame for the poor rollout of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning nationals from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US, but said there was a need for speed in doing so. [...]

President Trump’s “Great Wall” ignores a key reason why desperate Mexicans and Central Americans flee north – the history of U.S. military and economic intervention that has created poverty and repression, notes William Blum. Instead of building a “Great Wall” on the Mexican border, President Trump might find it so much cheaper, so much easier, so much more humane, so much more popu [...]

While 2016 showed some promise that global politics in 2017 can improve, much will depend on the first steps of the US' new administration, according to the Head of the Russian Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev, who spoke to RIA Novosti about two possible models of global development in 2017. [...]

US military hardware, including M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, have arrived in the northern Estonian town of Tapa as part of continued US efforts to counter the alleged Russian threat.   [...]

Leading scholar on US-Russia relations addresses the claim being trumpeted by politicians and media on both sides of the political spectrum that Russia is now the "number one" threat to the United States. Given the proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, Dr. Cohen tells host Abby Martin that the real alarming danger today is "a new, multi-front Cuban missile crisis." Dr. Stephen Cohen is Professor Eme [...]