It did not take long for Donald Trump to transform the US government into a mob operation, where administration officials use the threat of US travel bans, asset freezes and forfeitures, and punishing trade tariffs to bring other nations and their leaders to heel. Continue reading
Zionist zealot Kenneth Marcus heads the Trump regime’s Education Department Office of Civil Rights (OCR). Continue reading
The Washington Post has a regular “fact checker,” Glenn Kessler, who checks the accuracy of statements made by politicians and other public figures. On September 3, he announced that President Trump’s first 592 days in office had produced 4,713 false or misleading claims; that’s about 8 per day. Continue reading
September 11 is already an annual day of mourning. But while the nation grieved over victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency announced a plan future generations may well grieve as a tragedy in its own right. Continue reading
Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s dubious nominee for the Supreme Court, not only faces questions about his views on a woman’s right to choose her own health decisions and his own questionable past treatment of women, but his elite high school. Georgetown Preparatory High School in North Bethesda, Maryland has been a hotbed for Roman Catholic sex abuse of minors. As a member of the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh would become the court’s fifth Catholic judge. His decisions on cases involving the cover-up of child sex abuse by religious organizations and politically powerful individuals could dictate for decades to come how the nation deals with the issue of sex abuse of minors. Continue reading
Call me a sentimental fool (pipe down out there) but I keep waiting for the big Frank Capra moment that, rationally, I know may never come—you know, like the climax of Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington when the corrupt, patrician senator played by Claude Rains, finally undone by the truth told by Senator Jefferson Smith (earnestly played by Jimmy Stewart), tries to shoot himself. Continue reading
The world will long remember the present immigrant crisis in Europe, which has negatively affected countless people there, and almost all countries. History will certainly record it as a major tragedy. Could it have been averted? Or kept within much more reasonable humane bounds? Continue reading
The danger is indisputable. Independent scientific studies exposed the hazards long ago—suppressed by Washington and US media, supporting corporate profits over human health. Continue reading
In Corporate World, when trouble pops up and things get sticky, CEOs don’t wring their hands and try to dodge the issue. Continue reading
We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document. Continue reading
With wealthy corporations, state legislatures, and the federal government finding new ways to challenge Americans’ right to protest, several nonprofit groups have banded together to fight back on behalf of those facing legal jeopardy for peacefully blocking pipelines or using civil disobedience to resist other fossil projects and destructive policies. Continue reading
The United States is politically fragmenting. It would seem that the various cultural and ideological stresses impacting the nation are destabilizing the country’s two traditional political parties. Continue reading
Like vultures, Israeli soldiers descended on Khan Al-Ahmar, on Sep. 14, recreating a menacing scene with which the residents of this small Palestinian village, located East of Jerusalem, are all-too familiar. Continue reading
This past weekend over 1,500 Oromo freedom fighters made a triumphant return to Addis Ababa from many decades of exile in Eritrea to a jubiulant rally of over 100,000 where a giant photo of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki graced the stage. That’s right, not the Oromo Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Dr. Ahmed Abi, no sir, Isaias picture was front and center at this victory celebration, for the Oromos, like the Amhara leadership two days earlier, know full well who made Ethiopia’s Peaceful Revolution possible. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s order to declassify cherry-picked classified documents, including the 2015 secret court order that authorized U.S. intelligence surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, will enable Russian and other Eastern European and Eurasian organized crime syndicates to understand how they are targeted by the FBI, National Security Agency, and the CIA. Continue reading
On Monday, Trump announced 10% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products. Continue reading
When Christine Blasey Ford came forward to report that President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, sexually assaulted her in 1982, you could cue the response: Why didn’t she speak out then? Why didn’t she go to the police? Continue reading
Ten years ago, after making piles of money gambling with other people’s money, Wall Street nearly imploded, and the outgoing George W. Bush and incoming Obama administrations bailed out the bankers. Continue reading
America is a country in which dollars count far more than voters do, and that’s what all of the data shows. And that’s a dictatorship by the richest. Continue reading
As dead marine animals continue to wash up on Florida’s coasts, a campaign event for the state’s term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Scott—who is attempting to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson—was “besieged” by a crowd of protesters angry about his role in exacerbating the ongoing red tide crisis by systematically attacking the state’s environmental protection laws. Continue reading
Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed his fear that the Senate is in play in this year’s mid-term elections. Although Democrats are defending 10 Senate seats in states that Donald Trump won, a combination of events, including a conviction and cooperation deal with Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; the sleaze factor surrounding Trump and members of his administration; and farmers and livestock growers devastated by retaliatory moves by other countries on Trump’s tariffs, has put an unlikely state in play for the Democrats: Nebraska. Continue reading
Part of my awkward youth was spent in service of the New York State Democratic Party, an act of true hubris if you grew up, as I did, in rural upstate, where it was easier being a Menshevik than a Democrat. Continue reading
The Buddha’s approach to wrongdoing is a realistic one: if you think it makes you happy do it; if it does not make you happy it is foolish to continue doing it. This is a more practical way of dealing with ethical issues than using guilt as a form of social control which has grave side effects both to the individual and the society at large. Continue reading
As someone who has worked in psychoanalysis and psychiatry for the past three decades I suppose I may be considered as having some expertise in ‘madness.’ This is not to say that I have devoted my life to determining who or who is not ‘crazy’—and that is because the true work of a mental health clinician is not to impose totalitarian judgments but rather to accept the diverse variety of humanity in all of its manifestations and to alleviate mental and emotional suffering. Continue reading
Before 2012, if you had voiced suspicions that the Australian government had been anything but open and honourable in dealing with East Timor—its newly independent but impoverished neighbour—you would likely have been dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. But it was then revealed Australian Secret Intelligence Service agents had bugged East Timor’s cabinet office during treaty negotiations over oil and gas fields. Continue reading
On every anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is cycled through various talking head “news” formats to recount the events of the fateful day seventeen years ago. Giuliani’s veracity about the events of 9/11 had plenty of doubters just after the attacks. However, given Giuliani’s declaration on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on August 19, 2018 that “truth isn’t truth,” Giuliani’s lies about both the Trump administration and 9/11 should be considered holistically as coming from a corrupt liar. Continue reading
For decades, America has been sending its young boys and girls to die for Israel. It sends billions of its taxpayers’ dollars to the wealthy Jewish State instead of supporting America’s own people in need and its deteriorating infrastructure. Continue reading
The rich are hiding trillions in wealth. Continue reading
After hearing so much of this state’s bad press over the years regarding Jeb Bush, Rick Scott, Florida’s hellish foster-care system, the violent Trump rallies, the brutal murder of Trayvon Martin, the climate catastrophe and all the other horror tales about Flora-duh, I was totally dreading my trip to St. Petersburg—but still had to go there. Had an important book conference to attend at the historic Vinoy Hotel. Continue reading
In examining the future, we must look to the past. Continue reading
Central bankers are now aggressively playing the stock market. To say they are buying up the planet may be an exaggeration, but they could. They can create money at will, and they have declared their “independence” from government. They have become rogue players in a game of their own. Continue reading
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How the US piles pressure on Palestinians
Funding cuts to the institutions in Palestine are followed by legislation that brands criticism of Israel anti-Semitic
Posted on September 25, 2018 by Linda S. Heard
Palestine is occupied and I am beginning to wonder whether Washington is as well. Not only has President Donald Trump gifted occupied Jerusalem to the Jewish state and defunded UNRWA, he has axed $25 million (Dh91.82 million) for Palestinian hospitals, closed the PLO’s mission and revoked visas for the Palestinian envoy and his family. His latest blow was to cut $10 million for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence programmes. Continue reading →