democracy

Melinda Haring and Michael Cecire write: The fate of the “color revolutions” — the symbolically-named series of peaceful uprisings in the former Soviet Union — have been terribly disappointing. In Georgia (“Rose,” 2003), Ukraine (“Orange,” 2004), and Kyrgyzstan (“Tulip,” 2005), popular uprisings against entrenched leaders brought to power reform-minded politicians who pledged to transform post-Soviet [...]

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write: In all the hullabaloo over the Supreme Court’s decision on health care, another of its rulings quickly fell off the public radar. Before deciding the fate of the Affordable Care Act, the Court announced it would not reconsider Citizens United, the odious 5-4 decision two years ago that opened [...]

John Wonderlich describes how the new cybersecurity bill, CISPA, or HR 3523, is terrible on transparency: it dismisses the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FOIA is, in many ways, the fundamental safeguard for public oversight of government’s activities. CISPA dismisses it entirely, for the core activities of the newly proposed powers under the bill. [...]

Steven Pearlstein writes: Who says government can’t get anything right? It was just two years ago that the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, scraped away decades of barnacled case law obscuring our beloved Constitution and unequivocally established the right of corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to spend as much money as they want to [...]