Justice Samuel Alito appears spellbound by the 19th century. Continue reading
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U.S. China policy: A perilous arms race instead of waging critical cooperation
Did the Biden officials know what they were doing when they announced a broad expansion of export controls on China? China is the world’s second-largest economy, which is intricately intertwined with the economy of the U.S. and other nations. This is mainly due to U.S. multinational companies exporting huge slices of our manufacturing economy to China for its cheap labor. Continue reading
All human rights are at stake when abortions are banned
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade hurdles our society back into a dark age that disrespects the sovereignty of women, and all people.
A shared ache radiates this summer across the collective of those of us born with breasts, wombs, and pussies. It is the ache of a too-familiar grief held in subjugated bodies. It is the ache that comes from tearing open the sutures we’ve sown, and resown, over an unhealed trauma that stretches back millennia. It’s the ache for freedom from the ancient, decaying cycle of oppression called patriarchy. The ache of hard-won freedoms pilfered once again by a group of old men, appointed by other old men, to positions of inordinate power. It’s the ache for bodily autonomy that is our inherent birthright. It’s an ache for respect and a basic sense of safety in our own bodies; the ache for human rights. Continue reading
Achieving self-funding local sovereignty as global food systems collapse
The solution to the current food crisis is small and local, including growing food locally. But how to fund local food co-ops without pricey loans from big banks?
“Deglobalizing” and “dedollarizing” have been much in the news. Reducing dependence on the global supply chain and the U.S. dollar are trends that are happening not just internationally but locally. In the United States, we have seen movements both for local food independence and to divest from Wall Street banks. The burgeoning cryptocurrency movement is another push to “dedollarize” and escape the international bankers’ control grid. Continue reading
Rogue cops: The Supreme Court is turning America into a constitution-free zone
The Supreme Court has spoken: there will be no consequences for cops who brutalize the citizenry and no justice for the victims of police brutality. Continue reading
15 years of failed experiments: Myths and facts about the Israeli siege on Gaza
Fifteen years have passed since Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, subjecting nearly two million Palestinians to one of the longest and most cruel politically-motivated blockades in history. Continue reading
Buying into conspiracy theories can be exciting—that’s what makes them dangerous
Conspiracy theories have been around for centuries, from witch trials and antisemitic campaigns to beliefs that Freemasons were trying to topple European monarchies. In the mid-20th century, historian Richard Hofstadter described a “paranoid style” that he observed in right-wing U.S. politics and culture: a blend of “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” Continue reading
The United States contests the Chinese Belt and Road with a private corporation
At the G7 Summit in Germany, on June 26, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden made a pledge to raise $200 billion within the United States for global infrastructure spending. It was made clear that this new G7 project—the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII)—was intended to counter the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Given Biden’s failure to pass the Build Back Better bill (with its scope being almost halved from $3.5 trillion to $2.2 trillion), it is unlikely that he will get the U.S. Congress to go along with this new endeavor. Continue reading
The impact of destructive information
The 23 of November, according to information of Security Department of Uzbek Republic, the clandestine group of extremists’ organization “Katiba Tauhid val Jihad” was uncovered in Tashkent region. Continue reading
How the American Legislative Exchange Council turns disinformation into law
State lawmakers introduced nearly 2,900 bills based on ALEC templates from 2010 through 2018. More than 600 of them became law.
In June 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a bill banning the state from contracting with or investing in businesses that divest from coal, oil or natural gas companies. For Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian—one of the state’s top energy regulators—the message was clear: “Boycott Texas, and we’ll boycott you.” Continue reading
The Supreme Court has lit our planet on fire
Longtime readers of my work and listeners to my program know that the Supreme Court has seized for itself extraordinary powers that the Framers of the Constitution never intended for it to have. There are summaries here and here, for example. Continue reading
Colombia, once a pro-U.S. conservative bastion, turns left
Voters in Colombia have picked a powerful new duo, Gustavo Petro as president and Francia Márquez as vice president, to take the nation in a new direction, tackling economic and environmental injustice.
For the first time ever, Colombia has chosen new leadership that is not conservative. Voters in the third-most populous nation in Latin America narrowly elected the former mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, in a runoff election against his conservative opponent Rodolfo Hernández, with 50.47 percent of the votes. Continue reading
SCOUNDREL!
There is always a reluctance in the United States to sentence ex-presidents to prison after having been convicted of crimes. However, the nation is rarely faced with that dilemma. President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, came with a “get out of jail free” card. In retrospect, Donald Trump’s multiple crimes against the Constitution and people of the United States vastly exceed the impeachable offenses of Nixon. Ford may have been correct in deciding that it would set a bad precedent for the nation if Nixon went to prison. Nixon did redeem himself during his post-presidency and even served as Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump, on the other hand, has moved the goalpost of presidential crimes against the nation so far, it will set a bad precedent if Trump is not sentenced to prison after his conviction on counts of fraud, criminal conspiracy, communicating the threat of assassination to the vice president, misprision of justice, and a host of other charges under the U.S. criminal code. Continue reading
The Ukraine war’s role in exacerbating global food insecurity
The effects of the war in Ukraine have brought much of the world’s attention to energy prices. But food insecurity is also rising and will likely get worse.
With some of the world’s most fertile land, Ukraine’s nickname as the breadbasket of Europe is an understatement of its agricultural potential. Together with Russia, the two countries account for roughly 14 percent of global corn exports, 22 percent of rapeseed/canola exports, 27 percent of wheat exports, and 30 percent of barley exports, as well as almost 70 percent of the world’s sunflower oil exports. Russia is also the world’s top exporter of fertilizer, and so the global food system faces the simultaneous challenges of Western sanctions on Russia and steeper costs of both growing and importing food. Continue reading
Have you noticed America has gotten meaner?
“Have you noticed that people are getting meaner?” the villain asks in a Paramount+ promo for their new show Evil.
“What does it mean?” asks the “nice” character.
“It means,” says the evil character with a note of triumph in her voice, “that your side is losing.” Continue reading
The continuing damages from corporate-managed so-called free trade
The great progressive Harvard economist and prolific best-selling author, John Kenneth Galbraith, wrote that “Ideas may be superior to vested interest. They are also very often the children of vested interest.” I wished he had written that assertion before I took Economic 101 at Princeton. One of the vested ideas taught as dogma then was the comparative advantage theory developed by the early 19th-century British economist, David Ricardo. He gave the example of trading Portuguese wine for British textiles with both countries coming out winners due to their superior efficiencies in producing their native products. Continue reading
The wide role Brazil’s military has played in the destruction of the Amazon
In the Brazilian Amazon, as deforestation reaches record levels and rivers are increasingly polluted, the illegal gold mining contributing to these problems continues largely unabated. The response of the government has been to increase military action to curb environmental crimes in Brazil. Far from achieving this purpose, however, the military intervention has only led to tragedies in the region, directly or indirectly. Continue reading
Is universal basic income part of a just transition?
When you give everyone a chunk of change, does it really change their lives and their communities?
In the remote rural village of Dauphin, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, economists tried out an unusual experiment. In the 1970s, they persuaded the provincial government to give cash payments to poorer families to see if a guaranteed basic income could improve their outcomes. During the years of this “Mincome” experiment, families received a basic income of 16,000 Canadian dollars (or a top up to that amount). With 10,000 inhabitants, Dauphin was just big enough to be a good data set but not too big as to bankrupt the government. Continue reading
Zugzwang*
Europe’s future looks bleak. It is now pressed by its own imposition of sanctions, and the resultant spike in commodity prices. The EU is lumbering around in a daze.
Western self-destruction—a puzzle defying any unique causal explanation—continues. The examples where policy is pursued in apparent indifference to anything resembling rigorous reflection, has become so extreme as to provoke a former British military chief (and former head of NATO forces in Afghanistan), Lord Richards, to huff that the relationship between strategy and any synchronisation of ends has become hopelessly broken in the West. Continue reading
How corporate food monopolies caused the baby formula scandal
The fact that a handful of companies produce the majority of our food means that small disruptions will have big impacts. This time the impacts are borne by American babies.
It’s a tough time to be the parent of a newborn in the United States today. Not only is child care prohibitively expensive, but the cost of all things including baby products is rising, COVID-19 poses a threat to children too young to be vaccinated—and there has been a months-long shortage of baby formula. Continue reading
Trumpite Postmaster General DeJoy sued over huge gas guzzler buy
NEW YORK—Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has caught flak ever since former Republican Oval Office occupant Donald Trump forced the U.S. Postal Service to accept the GOP big giver into its top job, has put his foot in it again. Continue reading
Keeping workers poor is bad for business
At America's biggest low-wage employers, chief executives now pocket 670 times more than their workers.
CEOs at America’s biggest low-wage employers now take home, on average, 670 times what their typical workers make. Continue reading
Bilderberg does China
When Davos and Bilderberg messenger boys look at The Grand Chessboard, they realize that their era of perpetual free lunch is over.
Discreetly, as under the radar as a looming virus, the 68th Bilderberg meeting was held earlier this month in Washington, D.C. Nothing to see here. No conspiracy theories about a “secret cabal”, please. This is just a docile, “diverse group of political leaders and experts” having a chat, a laugh, and a bubbly. Continue reading
Russia’s attempt at reshaping the world economy
Starting on May 31, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov embarked on a tour to Gulf Cooperation Council countries, where he visited Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, among others. Lavrov’s main objective of these visits is to strengthen ties between Russia and GCC nations amid a global race for geopolitical dominance. Continue reading
You’ve been flagged as a threat: Predictive AI technology puts a target on your back
You’ve been flagged as a threat. Continue reading
If poverty is a moral issue, then the U.S. is bankrupt
The Poor People’s Campaign, ahead of its June 18 gathering, is calling out the false pro-corporate rhetoric on poverty, wages, and inflation.
Newspaper headlines are warning of rising inflation and the possibility that voters will respond to it by punishing Democrats in the midterm elections this fall. But there are few, if any, headlines about the enormous numbers of Americans who are low-income and poor—a travesty in one of the world’s wealthiest nations. Continue reading
The food shortage solution in your own backyard
While the global food systems we depend on come under increasing strain, there’s a solution to the growing crisis that most Americans can find in their own backyards–or front lawns.
A confluence of crises—lockdowns and business closures, mandates and worker shortages, supply chain disruptions and inflation, sanctions and war—have compounded to trigger food shortages; and we have been warned that they may last longer than the food stored in our pantries. What to do? Continue reading
Why won’t Europe call for an end to this war?
The North Atlantic media are entangled in an unprecedented information war. It is characterized by a relentless erosion of the distinction between facts and the manipulation of emotions and perceptions, between conjectures and unassailable truths. I saw this kind of information war in the United States firsthand during the last years of the war on Vietnam and in the lead-up to the war on Iraq—both wars driven by political hoaxes that led to numerous war crimes. Continue reading
As January 6 hearings begin, poll finds many conservatives with open minds
Younger Republicans, and Republican women, are not Trump cultists.
As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol held its first televised public hearing in prime time on Thursday, June 9, a nationwide poll has found that there are more Republicans “open” to changing their minds about what happened than there are immovable Donald Trump loyalists. Continue reading
Storms at the Summit of the Americas
June 7 was a bad day for Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS). During the ninth Summit of the Americas, a young man declared to him what he is: an assassin and puppet of the White House, instigator of the coup in Bolivia. He said that Almagro cannot come to give lessons on democracy when his hands are stained with blood. In another room at the summit in Los Angeles, Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemed to be doing no better: several journalists rebuked him for using freedom of the press to provide cover for the murderers of journalists and for sanctioning and excluding certain countries from this meeting. “Democracy or hypocrisy?” could be heard over the loudspeaker that day. Continue reading
The GOP’s ‘pro-life’ victory will mean more dead mothers
Anti-choice states already have the highest maternal mortality and infant mortality rates. Women who choose to avoid pregnancy could instead face execution.
Under a Louisiana bill likely to become law when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, a woman who has an abortion is guilty of first-degree murder. For this, she’ll face the death penalty or—if the prosecutor chooses leniency—life imprisonment and hard labor. Continue reading
Abortion: Why is the court using religious belief to alter what should be secular law?
Democrats are generally disinclined to discuss religion, much less debate it. Continue reading
