By Nick Schwellenbach, crossposted with POGO Rolling Stone’s Michael Hastings has written another article that’s gone viral. Here’s how it opens: The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned—and when an officer [...]

If Harry S. Truman were with us today, would his opinions of commentators such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh be printable? I was led to wonder about that on reading a letter he sent to his good friend Dean Acheson, the former Secretary of State, after leaving the White House. “Well, I have the [...]

House Speaker John Boehner last week sent President Obama a  statement signed by 150 self-described economists (most of whom you’ve never heard of) calling for immediate spending cuts in the name of job creation. “To support real economic growth and support the creation of private-sector jobs, immediate action is needed to rein in federal spending,” [...]

Common Cause has undertaken the monumental task of undoing the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the ruling that gives corporations and the wealthy unprecedented clout in U.S. elections. The self-described people’s lobby is zeroing in on two high court justices in the majority, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and [...]

I was preparing to put Peter Turnley’s celebratory photos of Tahrir Square on this site when word came that Lara Logan of CBS had been brutally assaulted even as he was taking the pictures. The photos are ones of marvelous triumph. A 2001 Nieman Fellow, Turnley is an expert at this kind of thing: when [...]

I don’t like to criticize any Nieman Fellows but one of them, Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, a 1988 Fellow, is just asking for it. In an open letter to Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, Gene said he supports Snyder fully in a suit he filed against the Washingon City Paper. [...]