US elections, despite all the media hype and endless rhetoric about 'democracy in action,' are in fact little more than manufactured political theater. The country that ceaselessly trumpets democratic values and transparency practices neither when it comes to its own elections. As New Yorkers go to the polls in Democratic and Republican primaries this week, it is critical to once again highligh [...]

With the battle for the hearts and minds of the Democratic Party entering the eleventh hour, the biggest question for non-Americans observing the election cycle is: 'What will candidate x do when it comes to policy toward my country?' In Hillary Clinton's case, the answer, for anyone outside [...]

Barack Obama once called Hillary Clinton “likable enough,” but a new poll raises doubts about that, as the Democratic front-runner’s net-negative has nearly doubled to 24 points, reports Robert Parry. As Democratic-insider “super-delegates” give Hillary Clinton a seemingly insurmountable lead for the presidential nomination, the former Secretary of State’s negative ratings continue [...]

Trump and Clinton may be the two most hated front runners in history, dueling symbols of a duopoly in decay. To paraphrase a great American poet of the 1980s, this is not our beautiful house. We get a tiny breather in the political calendar this week, and it’s a useful moment to take half a step back from the most chaotic and disordered presidential campaign in living memory [...]

Latest NBC/WSJ poll shows Clinton holds just 2-point advantage. Though all political eyes in the U.S. are now focused like a laser beam on Tuesday's New York primary, the national trends remain startling when it comes to the intense competition between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. [...]

Don’t try to praise bestselling author, Peter Schiff, for accurately predicting the 2008/2009 crash. That is, because in his opinion, the financial crisis wasn’t the REAL crash… It was only a tremor before the big one hits. “Armageddon is inevitable,” says Peter. So will 2015 be the year when we finally run out of fools willing to lend to us? [...]

Bernie Sanders is not only taking on the Washington establishment in his campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, he is also challenging many of the received truths that make up the ideological foundations upon which its power rests. Of those received truths one of the most sacrosanct is America’s unconditional support for the state of Israel, with the penalty for anyone in [...]

The first arrests have been made at the Democracy Awakens protest at the US Capitol. Police had made at least two warnings before detaining demonstrators, who are calling on Congress to get money out of politics and restore the Voting Rights Act. [...]

Four years ago, if you had asked me who I would vote for in this presidential election, I would have said Hillary Clinton. However, in the last four years, my views of Hillary have changed and as I dig into her past and notice inconsistencies. She has been flip-flopping her whole life, and while changing opinions isn’t a crime, someone who is running for the presidency should have unwavering con [...]

Hundreds of voters in New York are expected to file a lawsuit against the state Monday claiming their party affiliation was changed without their consent and they cannot vote in Tuesday’s hotly-contested primary. The lawsuit, which is being filed by Election Justice USA, calls for New York to switch to an open system allowing anyone to vote in the primaries, regardless of their party affiliat [...]

Secretary of State Clinton was harsh on subordinates who were careless with classified information, but those rules apparently weren’t for her, a troubling double standard, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern. “Enough of the emails,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders in Brooklyn-ese, while turning to Secretary Hillary Clinton during their first debate on Oct. 13, 2015. Sanders won loud applause for w [...]

The Saudi Arabian government has threatened to sell of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets should Congress pass a bi-partisan bill led by US Senator Chuck Schumer that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The New York Times reported Friday. [...]

The argument over whether Hillary Clinton is a neocon may have been settled by her hawkish debate performance on Thursday, which followed her Israel-pandering speech before AIPAC, reports Robert Parry. If there were any doubts that Hillary Clinton favors a neoconservative foreign policy, her performance at Thursday’s debate should have laid them to rest. In every meaningful sense, she is a ne [...]

The dark times that haunt the current age are epitomized in the monsters that have come to rule the United States and who now dominate the major political parties and other commanding political and economic institutions. Their nightmarish reign of misery, violence, and disposability is also evident in their dominance of a formative culture and its attendant cultural apparatuses that produce a v [...]

Pope Francis met with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the Vatican on Saturday morning and the two discussed the need for morality in the world economy.Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs said that the meeting took place in Domus Santa Marta, the pope’s residence, where Sanders had [...]

On the surface, the new California Field Poll really wasn’t bad for Hillary Clinton. Yes, her one-time 63 point lead had shrunken to six, but it was still a lead, and at this point the Clinton campaign reckons that it won enough delegates in the South on Super Tuesday to hold on even if Sanders were to continue his winning streak – so long as their campaign manages not to implode. [...]

To answer the dilemma whether “Panama papers” are part of the informational war, we need to look at the list of directly or indirectly mentioned persons. Who is and who is not mentioned in the papers? And who was financially assisted this operation? Because, “Consortium of Investigative Journalism” does not work for free? Or it just works for the ideals of the world freed of tax havens and [...]

At the Vatican on Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders railed against everything from environmental destruction and the weakening of the rights of workers to widespread financial criminality on Wall Street and unregulated globalization.   [...]

The reason you and I will never see the transcripts of Hillary Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street fat-cats — and the reason she’s established a nonsensical condition for their release, that being an agreement by members of another party, involved in a separate primary, to do the same — is that if she were ever to release those transcripts, it could end her candidacy for president.Please don [...]

The Obama administration protects its “credibility” by refusing to budge on its claims about the 2013 Syria-sarin case or the 2014 plane shoot-down in eastern Ukraine even as the evidence shifts, writes Robert Parry. What surprised me most about the Iraq War wasn’t how wrong the expectation of happy Iraqis showering American troops with flowers was or even how badly the war would turn out [...]

Everybody knows what the pro-Hillary line this electoral season is; it is the same old story, modified to meet the challenge of the Sanders campaign. It comes down to this: because she is more “moderate” than Bernie, she is more electable; and because she is a levelheaded “progressive” who knows how to get things done – unlike Bernie [...]

The US Central Intelligence Agency has become increasingly focused on monitoring social media, according to a document obtained by The Intercept; the intelligence agency is pouring money in start-ups mining tweets, Instagram photos and Facebook posts. Every time you post a message on Facebook or share a photo on Instagram, remember this: Big Brother is watching you. [...]