Legal double standards are the norm in the U.S. – no jail for law-flouting Wall Street bankers but mass incarceration for average citizens, especially minorities, who get caught up in the prison-industrial-complex, as Michael Brenner describes. Illicit financial behavior has been decriminalized in the United States – for all practical purposes. [...]

Some Democratic leaders are privately scouting around for someone to replace Hillary Clinton if she stumbles again in California and/or the FBI detects a crime in her email scandal, reports Robert Parry. For months now, poll after poll have registered the judgment of the American people that they want neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump as the next President, but the two major parties seem [...]

As the U.S. government ratchets up a new Cold War, Poland is taking hostility toward Russia to the next level, inviting in U.S. military bases and arresting an anti-NATO politician on vague “espionage” charges, writes Gilbert Doctorow. Since Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice Party returned to power last fall, the new government has been cracking down on independent media, reshaping the [...]

America may lag behind the developed world in many categories, but it is No. 1 in the “merchant of death” business, experiencing a boom in the commerce of boom, especially in areas destabilized by U.S. invasions, notes JP Sottile. Who says nothing is made in the USA anymore? Certainly not the well-heeled denizens of the State Department’s diplomatic corps. And they should know. That’s b [...]

With rumors flying that establishment Democrats might hand Hillary Clinton her hat before the Democratic Convention to replace her with Joe Biden, John Kerry or some other grey-suited hand-job for empire and the Chamber of Commerce, the greatness that is the U.S. in 2016 keeps mounting. (Bernie [...]

On June 2, a few days before the California primary, Hillary Clinton gave up trying to compete with Bernie Sanders on domestic policy. Instead, she zeroed in on the soft target of Donald Trump’s most “bizarre rants” in order to present herself as experienced and reasonable. Evidently taking her Democratic Party nomination for granted, she is positioning herself as the perfect candidate for h [...]

Hillary Clinton made a strong case for why handing the nuclear codes over to a President Donald Trump would be a scary idea, but there may be equal or even greater reason to fear turning them over to her. In perhaps the most likely area where nuclear war could break out – along Russia’s borders – Clinton comes across as the more belligerent of the two. [...]

In what supporters described as "a victory for accountability for corporate crimes," a U.S. judge ruled in favor of allowing Colombians to sue former Chiquita Brand International executives for the company's funding of a paramilitary group that murdered plaintiffs' family members. [...]

Progressive groups welcomed President Barack Obama's call to expand Social Security by increasing taxes on the wealthy, praising the effort and crediting it in part to "relentless grassroots activism" and Bernie Sanders' political efforts. [...]

Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are locked in a dead heat in California among registered Democrats, two new polls show.Sanders even beats Clinton by one point when potential Democratic primary voters are surveyed. [...]

Put simply, a "good country" is one "that contributes to the greater good of humanity." Which country is doing the most to serve humankind? Sweden, according to the latest Good Country Index. The biennial index, which ranks 163 nations, [...]

'We need a foreign policy based on building coalitions... [not] perpetual warfare in the Middle East' Bernie Sanders responded to Hillary Clinton's foreign policy speech on Thursday with a hit at her credentials, including her involvement in the Iraq War and so-called "regime change" in Libya. [...]

Four illegal oil production facilities controlled by the terrorist group Daesh, also known as IS/Islamic State, have been destroyed by Russian fighter jets. "Russian air force jets destroyed four targets of illegal oil extraction, located to the northwest of Raqqa and controlled by Daesh militants," Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement. [...]

Late last week in the snazzy lobby of the National Nurses United headquarters, NNU Director Rose Ann DeMoro stood with her senior staff and Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and took stock of the risks they had taken to side with Bernie Sanders for president. The Nurses were the first big national union to endorse Sanders, who surprised everyone in the Democratic Party by coming to a photo-fin [...]

A lawyer's advice on how to assert your rights when it comes to drugs and the police. If you use pot you are a criminal. This is true [according to federal authorities] even in Colorado and Washington, where the feds continue to outlaw cannabis. This is also true in California and other states that provide medical protection. [...]

The average tuition rate for a four-year college in the US is $38,600, and even more for a graduate degree. As a result, students often finish university hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. These grueling statistics have forced some students to seek out unique ways to pay their bills. One such student, Candice Kashani, who was facing an annual $50,000 in tuition and expenses, decided to j [...]

American neoconservatives and Brussels' eurocrats have completely misinterpreted the ideas of liberalism and multiculturalism, labeling those who are advocating protectionist and anti-immigration policies or calling into question the usefulness of NATO as "fascists." There is an abyss between "fascism" and the rise of nation-states reasserting themselves as "the primary vehicle of political lif [...]

Former US senator and co-chairman of a 9/11 inquiry Bob Graham told German television that redacted US documents reveal a network of Saudi support for the al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attack which reaches as far as the Kingdom's government. [...]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Ankara will take retaliatory measures after the German parliament voted to recognize as ‘genocide’ the Armenian massacre of 1915. Turkey has already recalled its ambassador to Germany in protest. [...]

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is joining the RT America team. Author and social critic Chris Hedges will host a weekly interview show called ‘On Contact,’ which will air “dissident voices” currently missing from the mainstream media. [...]

In the U.S. political culture, Memorial Day has become one more chance to glorify American wars and to exploit U.S. soldiers’ deaths to generate sentiment for more wars, a troubling tactic addressed by Gary G. Kohls and S. Brian Willson. One of the many heroes of the peace movement who came [...]

With California and other late primaries in view, Democrats face a fateful choice, whether to plunge ahead with status-quo Hillary Clinton or turn away at the last minute and go with hope-inspiring Bernie Sanders, as Lisa Pease urges in this open letter. Dear Democrats, Please don’t commit suicide by nominating Hillary Clinton. Allow me to explain. I have been a Democrat since birth. [...]