Author Archives: Leonard C. Goodman

Why it’s time to declassify the documents from Trump’s basement

Whatever your feelings about former President Trump, there are reasons to be skeptical when government officials say it was necessary to raid his Florida home to recover classified documents that threatened national security. Continue reading

The U.S. killer drone program stays afloat on the back of lies and Pentagon propaganda

A wrongly targeted Afghan aid worker and his family are among the latest casualties.

On August 29, in the final days of our 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, the United States launched a drone strike, firing a 20-pound Hellfire missile at an aid worker named Zemari Ahmadi as he parked his car outside his home in a residential neighborhood of Kabul. The lethal strike killed Ahmadi and nine members of his family, including seven children, five of whom were younger than 10. The children had come outside to meet Ahmadi as he returned home from his job at an American NGO where he distributed food to Afghans displaced by the war. He and his family had applied for refugee resettlement in the United States. Continue reading

Obama wants his private presidential center on public land—and mainstream media is looking the other way

Advocates say an alternate site in Washington Park is less disruptive and more beneficial to the community and the environment.

Chicagoans mostly support the Obamas’ decision to build the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) on the south side of Chicago. But few of us are aware of the controversy over the Obamas’ decision to site their private center on historic public parkland on the shores of Lake Michigan, as these important issues have not been widely covered in the mainstream press, including in any of Chicago’s major newspapers. Continue reading

So much for ‘The Squad’—much-hyped new U.S. Progressive bloc has caved to corporate power

People who want structural change in the U.S. will have to develop new channels and networks to overcome the established power system.

I signed up for the COVID-19 vaccine on a public health website and got my two shots at a Salvation Army facility on the northwest side of Chicago. The site was efficiently and competently run. The experience provided a small glimpse into how a true national health care system—like they have in other developed countries—might look and feel. No one demanded to see my insurance card or sent me a bill. Continue reading