‘Secrecy saves no life. Secrecy kills.’
Less than a week after Argentine lawmakers rejected a bill that would have legalized some abortions, the apparent first casualty from their action has emerged: a woman died from complications from an at-home abortion. Continue reading →
The white nationalist immigration policy established by Donald Trump’s policy adviser, Stephen Miller, and his former U.S. Senate boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is putting in jeopardy a number of governments-in-exile and political leaders receiving asylum in the United States. Since World War II, the United States has been one of the few countries in the world that extended a welcome to governments overthrown in coups and military invasions. However, under the Trump administration’s policy of reviewing the status of permanent resident immigrants in the United States, the welcome mat may soon be pulled out from under a number of exiled governments and their leaders. Continue reading →
‘Anyone who does care about news needs to understand Facebook as a fundamental threat.’
During a closed-door and off-the-record meeting last week, top Facebook executive Campbell Brown reportedly warned news publishers that refusal to cooperate with the tech behemoth’s efforts to “revitalize journalism” will leave media outlets dying “like in a hospice.” Continue reading →
The federal arrest and indictment for insider stock trading of Representative Chris Collins (R-NY), the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president, had a familiar air about it. Indicted along with Collins were his son, Cameron Collins, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins’s fiancee. Continue reading →
Android and iPhone users may be under the impression that Google is not tracking their location data if they’ve turned off “Location History” on their devices. Continue reading →
On August 9, a U.S.-supported Saudi airstrike bombed a bus carrying schoolchildren in Sa’ada, a city in northern Yemen. The New York Times reported that the students were on a recreational trip. According to the Sa’ada health department, the attack killed at least forty-three people. Continue reading →
An astounding 10,000 2- and 3-year-olds in the U.S. are on drugs like Ritalin and Adderall for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder it was reported in 2014. Pediatric “psychopharmacology” treating conduct disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and more has become a gold mine for Pharma. Pre-school kids are even “diagnosed” with schizophrenia. Fifty percent of pediatricians prescribe kids insomnia drugs. Children are ideal patients because they have to do what their parents, teachers and doctors tell them. Continue reading →
In a huge win for everyone concerned about the devastating effects corporate consolidation has on local media outlets and independent journalism, Tribune Media announced on Thursday that it is terminating its proposed $3.9 billion merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group and suing the right-wing media giant for “breach of contract.” Continue reading →
Across Africa, outside nations are vying for influence as the economic and military power of the United States decreases on the continent. Post-colonial spheres of influence established over newly-independent African states are no longer relevant. Replacing paternalistic former colonial overseers like France, Britain, and the United States are China, Russia, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates in what resembles the most frenetic “scramble for Africa” since the Congress of Berlin concluded in 1885. Continue reading →
In an apparent win for the president's hostile rhetoric, nearly half of Republicans also agree with his claim that 'the news media is the enemy of the American people.'
In the age of “media-bashing enthusiast” President Donald Trump—who regularly declares critical journalists and outlets “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people”—at least 43 percent of Republican respondents to a new survey said they believe “the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior.” Continue reading →
Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and lobbyist for eastern European oligarchs and Third World dictators, could not have a better judge in his federal trial in Alexandria, Virginia than Thomas Selby (“T.S.”) Ellis. Manafort has been charged with tax and bank fraud by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller. The charges are not related to Mueller’s probe of the Trump campaign for criminal conspiracy related to foreign involvement in the 2016 election. Continue reading →
While regulators in other regions of the world have recently worked to ban bee-poisoning pesticides called neonicotinoids that scientists have long warned could cause an “ecological armageddon,” the Trump administration just reversed an Obama-era policy that had outlawed the use of neonics and genetically modified crops in the nation’s wildlife refuges. Continue reading →
The British House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sports recently released an interim report on “Disinformation and ‘Fake News.’” In a conclusion that does not surprise those who have been investigating “election engineering” in U.S. national and state elections over some two decades, the report states that “a small group of individuals and businesses had been influencing elections across different jurisdictions in recent years.” Continue reading →
U2’s Bono picked a Capo Grande from the US intelligence community to run his “One” NGO, choosing Gayle Smith, who as senior director of the US National Security Council and special advisor to President Barack Obama used to tell the CIA what to do, especially when it came to Africa. Continue reading →
America’s gulag prison system is the shame of the nation. The Sentencing Project’s director, Marc Mauer, is a leading expert on US criminal injustice, harming blacks and Latinos most of all. Continue reading →
Donald Trump’s “horse whisperer,” Steve Bannon, has traveled the speaking circuit throughout Europe, pushing for an alliance of far-right wing parties he calls “The Movement.” The idea for a “Fascist International” is nothing new. Central Intelligence Agency archives contain multiple references to a resurgent Nazi dream, cultivated in the rubble of World War II, to create a “European Reich” stretching from “Dublin to Vladivostok.” This Fourth Reich, unlike the Third Reich, was to be a corporate-controlled supranational entity. Continue reading →
The need for new LNG terminals in Europe, said one analyst, ‘is like most of Trump's trade policy—illusory.’
Responding to questions from reporters during a joint press conference with Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the White House on Monday, President Donald Trump echoed his “And-Mexico’s-Gonna-Pay-for-It” routine by announcing plans to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals across the continent for the expressed purpose of importing fracked gas from the United States. Continue reading →
If the billionaire Koch brothers really want to undermine the economic case for Medicare for All, they have a funny way of showing it. Continue reading →
As Donald Trump’s legal problems grow, seemingly by the hour, other world leaders with whom his Trump Organization has conducted business may suffer the legal and political consequences of being identified with Trump and vice versa. One of those leaders, former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli, is currently in prison in Panama and awaiting trial for illegal wiretapping of his opponents and public corruption while president from 2009 to 2014. Continue reading →
With the help of 139 Democrats, the House of Representatives on Thursday easily rammed through the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which—if it passes the Senate—will hand President Donald Trump $717 billion in military spending. Continue reading →
Former Donald Trump White House strategist and 2016 campaign chairman Stephen Bannon has been active in Europe trying to stir up far-right political agitation. His latest move has been to announce the creation of an international organization of the far-right in Brussels, known simply as “The Movement.” It is not known where Bannon is getting the funds to start The Movement. In the past, Bannon has received generous subsidies from the billionaire father-daughter team of Robert and Rebekah Mercer. The duo funded Bannon’s former media enterprise, Breitbart News. Continue reading →
‘The heavens are going to be littered with radioactive debris.’
The commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump, has announced a new mission into the realm of martial excess. It is one is that will surely enrich the aerospace industry while spreading the global battlefield to a new dimension. Continue reading →
Following weekend reporting that key members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet are leading a campaign to “foment unrest” in Iran, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s warning that a conflict between the two countries “would be the mother of all wars,” Trump turned to Twitter late Sunday with a message for Rouhani. Continue reading →
While mourning continues over the shooting deaths of five members of the staff of the Annapolis Journal Gazette, including four journalists, by a deranged pro-Donald Trump and neo-confederate-supporting madman, Trump doubled-down on his incendiary comments about the press, again referring to the media as the “real enemy of the people.” Trump also continues to bash the Democratic Party, claiming it has a “death wish.” Continue reading →
If Interior Department's proposals are approved, "Zinke will go down in history as the extinction secretary"
Gutting the law that has protected the bald eagle, the American crocodile, the gray wolf, and countless other animals from extinction over the past four decades, the Trump administration gave its latest handout to corporate interests on Thursday when it unveiled sweeping changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Continue reading →
“In my four years as High Commissioner, I have heard many preposterous claims. That claim is almost in its own category of absurdity. Have you no shame, sir, have you no shame? We are not fools.” Continue reading →
Those US and British politicians who are bashing Russia for foreign “election meddling” could use a more honest set of talking points. It is Israel, not Russia, China, or North Korea, that hosts a blossoming industry of cyber-election meddlers who operate from corporate offices in Tel Aviv, Cyprus, London, Washington, and Tortola. Most, if not all, of these firms, received their start-up funds from Israeli government-backed business development venture capital funds, some of which are solidly linked to right-wing American financiers like Robert Mercer, Paul Singer, Sheldon Adelson, and Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Continue reading →
As part of its broad and relentless effort to roll back longstanding workplace safety regulations that have drastically reduced on-the-job injuries and deaths over the past several decades, President Donald Trump’s Department of Labor (DOL) has officially sent the White House a proposal to allow teenagers to “spend full days operating chainsaws and meat slicers and working in other dangerous occupations.” Continue reading →
In what many observant Muslims consider to be an act of sacrilege, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia governing the country in the name of his ailing father, King Salman, has permitted Israeli intelligence agents to enter Mecca and Medina. MBS has struck a close working relationship with the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, and the Israeli Defense Force’s military intelligence arm, AMAN, to counter several perceived threats, including Iran. Continue reading →
The billionaire's pitch comes as the White House is reportedly ‘preparing for a government-wide appraisal’ of the war strategy
Notorious billionaire and war profiteer Erik Prince, who founded the disgraced mercenary firm Blackwater, is once again appealing to President Donald Trump to privatize the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Continue reading →
New Trump administration report calls for imposing work requirements for federal benefits programs, which anti-poverty advocates warn would harm poor Americans
Anti-poverty advocates are rejecting a new Trump administration report that ridiculously declares the “War on Poverty is largely over and a success.” In the words of Rebecca Vallas at the Center for American Progress, it is “part of a carefully calculated strategy to reinforce myths about the people these programs help” and “to smear these programs with a dog-whistle of welfare, in order to make them easier to cut.” Continue reading →
A draft Middle East “peace” plan, scheduled to be rolled out by Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and then put on hold, involved Mohammed Dahlan, a key former Palestinian Authority figure who now aligns with United Arab Emirates pro-Israeli crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahayan (MBZ). Continue reading →
