Sorry to make this a short week publishing as we make final preparations for the arrival of Hurricane Irma. Continue reading
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This Sinclair-Tribune merger is a rotten deal for America
What’s to be done about ‘the most dangerous company most Americans haven’t heard of?’
Gather around, everyone, and let me tell you a story about rules. And greed and hypocrisy. Continue reading
What country is this? Forced blood draws, cavity searches and colonoscopies
Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—are being choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, shoot, spy on, probe, pat down, Taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation. Continue reading
Google, Trump, and the arrogance of power
Google’s search engine runs two-thirds of all searches in the United States and 90 percent in Europe. Continue reading
Closing Russian mission in San Francisco slaps a rich cultural history
The decision by the Trump administration to order the Russian Consulate-General closed within 48-hours is not only a violation of the 1964 Soviet-American Consular Convention but a slap at the rich Russian cultural history of San Francisco and northern California. For the Trump administration to boot a fully-functioning consulate-general, busy issuing Russian visas to U.S. citizens and permanent residents and renewing Russian passports of Russian citizen permanent residents and dual citizens in the United States, is as much an act of a tin pot dictatorship as was the U.S. visa ban imposed against seven predominantly Muslim nations and the decision to deport from the United States some 850,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) registrants after they were promised a road to permanent residency and citizenship. Continue reading
Republican push for multi-front war = 20 million initial American deaths
The continuing infestation of America’s body politic by neoconservatives is resulting in some noted war hawks taking full advantage of President Donald Trump’s lack of a clear-cut US foreign policy to push for something the neocons and their Israeli puppet masters have long desired: a two-front war against North Korea and Iran. Continue reading
Mad dog Trump threatens use of nuclear weapons against North Korea
Mattis isn’t the only mad dog in Washington, a city infested with them, waging permanent wars against one country after another, threatening more mass slaughter and destruction. Continue reading
Do only Western lives matter?
Many decades ago, I had lunch with the news editor of a prominent right-wing British newspaper with a view to being appointed one of the paper’s Middle East stringers. He confirmed what I already suspected. My reports must be supportive of Israel as opposed to the Arab world, he said in all seriousness. He later joked about headlines on disaster reports focusing on the plight of a single white person rather than tens of thousands of non-Caucasians. I did not accept the job. Continue reading
‘We are killing terrorists’ and ‘attack we will’—Trump’s most vicious racist rant
On Monday, August 21, President Donald Trump delivered a prime-time speech almost shocking in its ordinariness. It was such an address as either of his immediate predecessors, George W. Bush or Barack Obama, could easily have given over the previous decade and a half. While hinting at nebulous new strategies and ill-defined new metrics to measure success, President Trump announced that the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan will go on pretty much as it has. And the establishment breathed a sigh of relief. Continue reading
Hurricane wars
This writer lived through a major hurricane assault, when Mathew trampled through Port Orange, Florida on October 7 of last year. We were lucky while being the unlucky neighbors in our 50-unit sub community. Continue reading
Add Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations to Trump syndicate’s rap sheet
Add another violation of federal law to the growing potential rap sheet that may be brought against Donald Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and other members of the Trump and Kushner business organizations: violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. There is a growing mountain of evidence that Trump, Kushner, and their associates may have offered rewards, including Oval Office access to potential foreign investors in Trump and Kushner properties. Continue reading
Jeff Sessions is bringing back civil forfeiture with a bang
Here's how the police can take your assets even if you haven't been convicted of a crime.
In mid-July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a policy rollback that’s getting criticism from both sides of the aisle, and the center, too. As The Washington Post notes undoing this Obama-administration policy is a big deal—and means big money. Continue reading
Media largely ‘blind’ to Harvey’s devastating impact on poor communities
Texas’s minority and low-income communities have been disproportionately harmed by Hurricane Harvey, but you wouldn’t know it from following the coverage of America’s mainstream media outlets. Continue reading
We are our own worst enemy
During and after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, last January, thousands of people took to the streets refusing to accept the openly racist, misogynist, anti-immigrant, and insulting Trump as their president. Continue reading
Russia protests US search of its diplomatic facilities
The Trump administration ordered the closure of Russia’s San Francisco consulate, a chancery annex in Washington, and a New York consular annex—effective September 2. Continue reading
The American military empire: Is Trump its would-be emperor?
By now, most observers have finally realized who President Donald Trump really is. After close to eight months in the White House, Trump has clearly demonstrated that he has serious character defects in his public role as an American “showman” president. His behavior, so far, has been more than bizarre. It has been clearly aberrant and frightening. Continue reading
Where have all those great infrastructure jobs gone?
The Trump administration has scrapped an Obama-era local hiring plan for public works.
Remember back in the heady days of the campaign when then-candidate Donald Trump promised to create 25 million jobs with his economic plan? Many of these jobs were to come from a massive reboot to American infrastructure. He promised a 10-year, trillion-dollar program that would solve many of America’s aging infrastructure woes as well as add new, better jobs for millions of American workers. The promise actually had some bipartisan appeal—both sides of the aisle acknowledge the poor state of our roads, bridges and rails and obviously support job creation. But, of course, any plan does require congressional backing. Trump soon created a White House advisory group, the Council on Infrastructure, populated with both practiced politicians and industry bigwigs to help with the initiative. Continue reading
Arkema’s Crosby, Texas, plant containers explode
On August 31, two explosions rocked the plant, causing toxic chemical fires, contaminating air and water. Continue reading
When Big Money buys off criticism of Big Money
Since its founding in 1999, the New America Foundation—an important voice in policy debates on the American left—has received more than $21 million from Google, from its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, and from his family’s foundation. Continue reading
Marseille, peak travel and peak immigration
Born in Nghe An, he quit school after the 9th grade to start working full time at 15-years-old. He got a job in Saigon, then Phu Quoc Island, the southernmost part of Vietnam. He visited Hanoi and remote Dien Bien Phu, right on the Laotian border. Continue reading
The Trump/Kushner ‘Trojan horse’ inside the CIA has agency on alert
The Central Intelligence Agency is no stranger to “moles” feeding highly-classified intelligence to outside parties. The Cold War and subsequent years saw moles within the CIA being ferreted out by U.S. counter-intelligence officers. However, what is unprecedented is the fact that the current CIA director, former Kansas Tea Party Republican Representative Mike Pompeo, is suspected by CIA counter-intelligence officials of conveying critical intelligence on certain key CIA operations to Donald Trump and his close associates, including Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. It is well known that Kushner and his ex-con father, Charles Kushner, enjoy close relations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Mossad. Continue reading
Netanyahu now intends to assassinate Assad; will U.S. allow it?
On the basis of reports in Jerusalem Post, Wall Street Journal, and other sources, the Zero Hedge news site not only documents and headlines on August 29 “Israel Threatens To Bomb Assad’s Presidential Palace”, but makes clear that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of this intention during his meeting with Putin in Sochi on August 23, and that Netanyahu said there that Israel will do this unless Putin stops Iran and Shiites generally from defeating Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other Sunni fundamentalist organizations who are trying to take over Syria. Continue reading
Better than statins and only $200,000 a year, says new drug hype
It is no secret that the pill profit party is over for drug companies. Best-selling pills like Lipitor, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Singular, Concerta, Cymbalta and Abilify have gone off patent and Wall Street is moving on to industries that offer better returns. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: Joe Arpaio is no aberration
Even most leftish white Americans like to think that their country is good and its institutions are fair and equitable. According to this wishful thinking human rights abuses only happen in faraway places and injustices here are resolved by reining in a few bad apples. The facts say otherwise and prove that the United States is consistently one of the worst human rights violators in the world. The cruelty of its prison system extends far beyond headlines of a few well known villains like David Clarke and Joe Arpaio. Continue reading
The terror next time: The Daesh story is not ending
Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, has been reduced to rubble. It has been finally conquered, snatched back from the notorious group, Daesh, after months of merciless bombardment by the US-led war coalition, and a massive ground war. Continue reading
Will Trump’s ‘troop surge’ in Afghanistan bleed over into Indian stand-off with China?
There are intelligence indications and warnings that President Trump’s “troop surge” in Afghanistan may also include the deployment of U.S. special warfare troops to the Indian side of the Chinese border. Currently, Indian and Chinese troops are facing off in a dangerous game of brinkmanship in three regions of the Himalayan range: the tri-border Dokalam Pass between China, the Indian state of Sikkim, and Bhutan; the Lipulekh Pass between the Indian state of Uttarakhand, Nepal, and China; and the Pangong Lake area of Ladakh in the territory of Kashmir, sovereignty over which is disputed between India, China, and Pakistan. The Pangong Lake stand-off resulted in a rock throwing spree between Chinese and Indian border troops last week. Continue reading
Harvey triggers ‘unbearable’ pollution as refineries spew cancer-causing chemicals
‘Air pollution is one of the unseen dangers of the storm.’
As the catastrophic flooding brought about by Hurricane Harvey continues to devastate Texas, reports of “unbearable” smells are beginning to emerge from the state, sparking growing concerns of the long-term health effects that could result from toxic waste and fumes being spewed from temporarily closed oil refineries. Continue reading
Battlefield America is the new normal: We’re not in Mayberry anymore
America, you’ve been fooled again. Continue reading
Haley to replace Tillerson?
Say it isn’t so. A war goddess Hillary clone, Nikki Haley’s extremism makes her unqualified for any public position—a shameful UN envoy choice, a disastrous one as Washington’s chief diplomat. Continue reading
Trump’s Labor Day
This will be the first Labor Day of the presidency of Donald J. Trump, who came to office riding a wave of anti-establishment anger from average working people. No one can say they didn’t see it coming. Continue reading
Politicizing disasters: it’s an old Republican tactic
The modern Republican Party can always be counted upon to inject its brand of racist politics into any natural disaster. Hurricane Harvey, which has brought about a 1,000-year epic flood in northeast Texas, is no exception. No sooner had pictures emerged from the Houston area of flooded homes and stranded residents on rooftops, the GOP spin machine, egged on by conspiracy hate monger websites, the most prominent being located in Texas, began laying blame on elected and appointed Democratic officials. Continue reading
Kenya’s ‘null and void’ election
Posted on September 7, 2017 by Thomas C. Mountain
It seemed as though last month’s election in Kenya would be, as always, stolen fair and square. Instead a Supreme Court hand-picked by the Kenyatta Royal Family revolted and for the first time in African history declared the election “null and void” and ordered a re-vote. Continue reading →