Category Archives: Special Reports

Gazans show no signs of ending their liberating struggle against Israel’s illegal blockade and overall occupation harshness. Continue reading →

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has made her post a “more glamorous” position than her predecessors—as President Donald Trump described Haley’s two-year term at the UN, following her resignation announcement. Continue reading →

As Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, wields ever greater power over U.S. foreign and defense policy, with Defense Secretary James Mattis due to be the next victim of Bolton’s “house cleaning,” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is preparing Libya for a neocon-led “nation-building” operation. Although Trump has slashed funding for USAID, the agency has found the necessary budget to begin to prepare Libya’s local municipal councils for elections. Continue reading →

On a recent night in Richmond, Virginia, speaker after speaker came forward to talk about the multidimensional reality of poverty. The setting was a hearing held by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Continue reading →

Former president George W. Bush has been misinterpreted by many political observers as a “neo-moderate.” However, Bush’s phone calls to four wavering senators, in which he urged them to vote for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, belies the actual reason behind his support for Kavanaugh. Serving as White House Staff Secretary for Bush from 2003 to 2006, Kavanaugh was part and parcel of theft of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes to Bush in 2004, which ensured Bush’s re-election and denied the presidency to Democratic candidate John Kerry. Bush’s phone calls to Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) were supplemented with an invitation for her to visit the Bush family at their Kennebunkport, Maine estate. Bush also phoned Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Out of the three, only Murkowski voted against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Continue reading →

In what amounts to a clear violation of the United States-United Nations Treaty of 1947, the Trump administration is denying visas to same-sex domestic partners of UN diplomats and staff. The U.S. is also requiring UN personnel in same-sex partnerships to get married or face the cancellation of current U.S. visas for domestic partners. For foreign diplomats being assigned to the UN and hoping to obtain visas for their same-sex partners, the U.S. is requiring them to get married before issuing visas. However, some of those affected by the U.S. visa ban live in countries where same-sex or even opposite sex domestic partnerships are illegal. Continue reading →

While Americans were transfixed by Senate hearings over Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults, House Republicans quietly passed another enormous tax handout for the wealthiest Americans. Continue reading →

The United Kingdom is resettling Al Qaeda’s Syrian medical unit, called the “White Helmets,” as “refugees” in the UK. The White Helmets organization is funded by UK’s MI6 and America’s CIA, and is headed by Raed Saleh, who was prohibited from visiting the US because he’s a terrorist. These jihadists won’t just have UK honors (and they already have: a Hollywood Oscar-winning ‘documentary’ full of lies about how ‘heroic’ the White Helmets are), but, presumably, they’ll also obtain UK citizenship. Continue reading →

There are roughly 9 million pigs in North Carolina—the same number as people. There are also 819 million chickens and 33.5m turkeys on a multitude of poultry farms and even fish farms. Continue reading →

There are a variety of factors why 15-year old Christina Blasey did not report the alleged sexual assault by a 17-year old Brett Kavanaugh at a party in 1982. The freewheeling 1980s were not kind to those who were sexually harassed or assaulted. The decade was marked in the Washington, DC area by booze, drugs, and inappropriate behavior in the workplace. This was the environment, particularly insidious among the affluent teens of Georgetown Prep and University crowd, that Blasey found herself. 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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Less than a day after The Intercept reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) received a letter that purportedly details an “incident” involving Trump Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh and “a woman while they were in high school,” Feinstein announced in a statement on Thursday that she has referred the secret document to the FBI. Continue reading →

By releasing new documents (pdf) previously marked “committee confidential” late on Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) doubled down on accusations that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh committed perjury in his 2006 confirmation hearing for his seat on a federal appeals court. Continue reading →

With 1.5 million residents now under orders to evacuate their homes in preparation for Hurricane Florence’s landfall in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the region faces the possibility of catastrophe should the storm damage one or more of the nuclear power plants which lie in its potential path. Continue reading →

When the nation’s founders selected what is now the District of Columbia to serve as the capital of the United States, engineers and architects were faced with the task of building a capital city on what was essentially a swamp. Donald Trump and his cronies and grifters have done their damnedest to turn Washington back into a swamp, one inhabited by slimy and scaly denizens eager to cash in on government access and control. Continue reading →

Before Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s nominee for the U. S. Supreme Court, was a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, White House staff secretary for George W. Bush, and a member of the Bush-Cheney 2000 legal team in the 2000 Florida presidential vote recount, he was a member of Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s investigation team looking into the July 1993 suicide of Bill Clinton’s deputy White House counsel, Vince Foster. Kavanaugh also helped draft the Starr Report, which recommended the impeachment of Clinton. Continue reading →

The infamous Trumputin consigliere Paul Manafort worked with the GOP operatives who stole Ohio’s 2004 presidential election at the same time they teamed up to install the Kremlin’s chosen mafia don in Ukraine. Continue reading →

Three months after President Donald Trump proposed penalizing immigrants for using public assistance programs, families appear to have received his message loud and clear—likely risking the health of young immigrant children across the country. Continue reading →

Hours after he launched yet another “direct attack” on workers by canceling a modest pay raise for around two million federal employees, President Donald Trump told Bloomberg on Thursday that he is considering a regressive and possibly illegal plan to use his executive power to hand the rich another $100 billion in tax cuts by indexing capital gains to inflation. Continue reading →

Hanan al-Khoudari resorted to Facebook in a cry for help when Israeli authorities rejected her request to accompany her three-year-old son, Louay, to his chemotherapy treatment in East Jerusalem. Continue reading →

Officially, three grand juries have been hearing testimony from witnesses in the Justice Department’s investigation of criminal activities by Trump Organizations and Trump campaign officials. These have included the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and federal courts in Manhattan, Washington, DC, and Alexandria, Virginia. Continue reading →

Amid reports of the “devastating” impact U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly reimposed sanctions are having on ordinary Iranians’ ability to afford basic necessities and life-saving medicines, Iran accused the U.S. of “naked economic aggression” before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday and called on the United Nations body to order the suspension of the penalties. Continue reading →

Former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, convicted in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on eight criminal counts, including bank and tax fraud, was the chief promoter of Vice President Mike Pence while Trump was deciding on a running mate. Pence’s brother, Ed Pence, is a retired executive with engine manufacturer Cummins, Inc., headquartered in Columbus, Indiana. During Ed Pence’s 36 years with the firm, he was promoted to vice president in charge of strategic initiatives. Ed Pence retired in December 2017. Ed Pence was largely responsible for developing a close relationship between Cummins and Russian truck manufacturer KAMAZ, based in the Russian autonomous Republic of Tatarstan. Continue reading →

Longtime U.S. Senator John McCain, the Republican from Arizona whose pro-war record includes aggressively pushing for the illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003, has died. He was 81. Continue reading →