Articles by Thomas Sbrega

National Public Radio receives over $400 million per year from U.S. taxpayers.  While this sounds like a lot, a FTC “staff discussion draft,”  entitled “Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism” states that, through various subsidies, such as “postal subsidies; journalist tax credits; News AmeriCorps; student media; public media; and especially Citizenship News Vouchers,” the taxpayers' bill “could run as high as $35 billion annually” in the near future. Glenn ...

Wall Street reform passed the Senate last night 59 – 39, with four Republicans voting across party lines, including the newest member of the chamber, Scott Brown (MA).  The reasons necessitating the reform ought to be obvious by now.  Our economic recession has headlined news outlets for nearly two years. At first, the housing crisis was blamed (particularly, the subprime market, which defaulted at only $1.3 trillion… read on for clarification of “only”).  Recipients of risky loans were actuall...

Iraqi election (March 7th) results are still uncertain.  Prime Minister incumbent, Nouri al-Maliki, is challenging American favorite Ayad Allawi, who is said to have won the election.  As they battle for the most powerful position in Iraq, the fact remains that Maliki is currently commander-in-chief of Iraqi armed forces. Although both are Shiite, Allawi secured millions of Sunni votes, and ran strong in Kirkuk.  This northeastern province, i.e. Kurdish, rests upon billions of barrels of oil.  ...

In January 2002, detentions at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan began.  With a reputation worse than Guantanamo Bay, President Obama continues to oversee its operations.  Today, the number of detainees at Bagram has climbed to 800, a number greater than its better known Cuba counterpart at its height.  The fact is, while the number at Guantanamo diminishes slowly, the number of detainees held at other “black sites” increases, most notably at Bagram. In 2005, the Washington Post reported th...

There are over 242,000 Defense Department contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This at times exceeds the amount of troops we have officially deployed.  The cost is well over $100 billion to American taxpayers. The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee met a few weeks ago to address the acts of Blackwater in Afghanistan, "accusing them of ignoring regulations and threatening the American mission there."  (Due to many questionable acts leading to unnecessary civilian casualties, Blackwater recent...

Recently  America has witnessed two notable acts of— what some are calling—  domestic terrorism.  Most recent was the Pentagon  shooter.  John Patrick Bedell drove from California to Washington DC  in order to open fire on the Pentagon with two 9mm handguns and a trunk  full of ammunition.  He injured two officers before being shot down  himself, on March 4th.  Exactly two weeks earlier (Feb 18th), Andrew Joseph Stack III flew  his plane into an Austin (TX) IRS building.  Both had left  behind m...

In light of  China increasing its defense spending 7.5% this year, the Wall Street Journal conducted a poll entitled “Is China a  military threat to the U.S.?”  As of this writing, 151 online visitors  have answered the poll, with 61% answering “no,” China is not a military  threat. The percentage  increase was actually lower than expected— under double  digits for the first time in two decades—still, the  Pentagon believes this is an understated figure.  Last year, they estimated  China spe...

Last December, when several provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire, Congress instead extended the sunset clause to the end of February.  With this extension, as with any extension, one would assume that further debate was their primary motive.  As with previous extensions of the Act, serious debate addressing public grievances was never undertaken. Wednesday evening, the Senate passed a one year extension of the Patriot Act.  Similar to the initial passing of the Act, there was no d...

Our current healthcare system costs about twice per capita compared to other industrialized countries, with drug prices two to three times as high.  Prices have risen exponentially, much faster than the rate of inflation.  Not to mention that 40 – 50 million Americans have no healthcare insurance coverage whatsoever, many of whom are children.  For decades, this issue has been a major concern for many American citizens. At a time when our country is engaged in a war on two fronts and legislati...