Federal subsidy renovates luxury hotel in Chicago

The landmark Blackstone Hotel in downtown Chicago, which has hosted 12 U.S. presidents, opened in 2008 after a two-year, $116 million renovation. Inside the Beaux Arts structure, buffed marble staircases greet guests spending up to $699 a night for rooms with views of Lake Michigan. What’s surprising isn’t the opulent makeover: It’s how the project […]

American taxpayers ask where in the world is Osama bin Laden?

American taxpayers have forked over around half a trillion dollars to U.S. intelligence services since the 9/11 attacks, yet nearly a decade after al Qaeda assaults on New York and Washington, the American intelligence community still cannot answer the most basic of questions: Where is Osama bin Laden? Where is his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri? […]

What President Obama could say about the true cost of wars

Veterans For Peace drafted a speech that the President could read, which would go something like this: “Fellow Americans, let us begin a new era of candor and honesty about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Specifically, I’m referring to the true costs of war. You have seen that the cost to taxpayers of these […]

U.S. Embassy in Pakistan to mirror the massive monstrosity in Iraq

The extent of the massive waste and abuse surrounding the construction of the monstrous US embassy in Baghdad continues to expand. The State Department has just released another audit of the embassy’s construction and suggests that the Kuwaiti contractor hired by the Bush administration to do most of the construction work may have to repay […]

On US Taxpayers bearing the cost of Israel

[You may be aware] that “Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.” That’s true. But additionally Israel receives at least another $525.8 million from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So [even back] in fiscal 1997 the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to […]

Blackwater looting our nation and pauperizing U.S. citizens

To fatten profit margins, contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan like Blackwater (now called Xe) and KBR cheat U.S. taxpayers and underpay their help in the process. According to the book “Blackwater” by Jeremy Scahill, by late 2007 Blackwater had been paid more than $750 million. Scahill reports an audit charged that Blackwater included profit in […]