Category Archives: Special Reports

Election researchers reveal that flexible voting options boosted 2020 turnout

In the 2020 presidential election, 66 million Americans voted with a mailed-out ballot after most states loosened restrictions on qualifications to vote by mail to make voting safer in the pandemic. Another 36 million people voted in person at an early voting site before Election Day after many states expanded this option. Continue reading

New York AG reveals telecom giants funded ‘secret campaign’ to flood FCC with fake net neutrality comments

"This investigation shows how low the industry will stoop to undermine even the most basic and benign safeguards."

The New York Attorney General’s Office released a report Thursday showing that major U.S. telecom companies pumped millions of dollars into a “secret campaign” that flooded the FCC with millions of fake comments in an attempt to influence the agency’s 2017 repeal of net neutrality protections. Continue reading

Modi is singularly responsible for India’s pandemic disaster

As infections and deaths mount at a terrifying pace in India, the prime minister’s culpability for the crisis has become startlingly clear.

India has become the new global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with daily infections surpassing 300,000 per day and the official death toll—likely a massive underestimate—nearing a quarter of a million people. Hospitals are being overrun with patients, and the crisis is exacerbated by a devastating shortage of oxygen. The Indian judiciary has gone as far as threatening capital punishment for anyone caught trying to divert shipments of oxygen from around the country to affected areas. There have been dozens of deaths documented directly tied to a lack of oxygen. Continue reading

‘A slap in the face’: Postal union slams DeJoy plan to close mail processing facilities

"Plant consolidations are a misguided strategy that not only disrupts the lives of postal workers but will further delay mail."

The 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union reacted with outrage Tuesday to news that USPS management is moving ahead with a plan to consolidate 18 mail processing facilities as part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s sweeping overhaul of delivery operations. Continue reading

How Venezuela is rebuilding its industrial base, one volunteer at a time

An organisation of 2,270 volunteer workers is helping Venezuela boost its industrial capacity, devastated by years of US economic sanctions.

“We don’t just repair machines; we repair consciences,” says Sergio Requena of the Productive Workers Army (EPO by its Spanish-language initials) in Venezuela. The EPO is a group of 2,270 volunteers with a broad range of technical expertise. They go from factory to factory repairing broken machinery. Their mission is to recover Venezuela’s industrial production by empowering workers to take matters into their own hands. Continue reading

Tanks and think tanks: How Taiwanese cash is funding the push to war with China

Twenty years ago, a group of neoconservative think tanks used their power to push for disastrous wars in the Middle East. Now, a new set of think tanks staffed with many of the same experts and funded by Taiwanese money is working hard to convince Americans that there is a new existential threat: China.

TAIPEI—At MintPress, we have been at the forefront of exposing how Middle Eastern dictatorships and weapons contractors have been funneling money into think tanks and political action committees, keeping up a steady drumbeat for more war and conflict around the world. Yet one little-discussed nation that punches well above its weight in spending cash in Washington is Taiwan. Continue reading

Key U.S. air base in Turkey sits on property stolen from Armenians during the genocide

Suppose the U.S. built and operated a military base in Germany on property confiscated from Jews during the Holocaust. America, Jewish Americans, Germany, and Israel would have reached a principled resolution years ago. Continue reading

To ‘honor the victims’ of 20th century atrocity, Biden recognizes Armenian genocide

"This principled stand represents a powerful setback to Turkey's century-long obstruction of justice for this crime, and its ongoing hostility and aggression against the Armenian people."

U.S. President Joe Biden cracked many decades of U.S. government silence on Saturday by publicly and officially recognizing that the systematic killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottomans during the First World War was—as historians, survivors, and their descendants have long known—a “genocide.” Continue reading

The United States’ extensive knowledge of the 1976 planned military coup in Argentina

While the released documents portray the U.S. as having knowledge of the coup as opposed to intervening overtly or covertly, the aftermath shows U.S. involvement was considerable.

Last March, on the 45th anniversary of Argentina’s descent into dictatorship, the National Security Archive posted a selection of declassified documents revealing the U.S. knowledge of the military coup in the country in 1976. A month before the government of Isabel Peron was toppled by the military, the U.S. had already informed the coup plotters that it would recognise the new government. Indications of a possible coup in Argentina had reached the U.S. as early as 1975. Continue reading

‘If you want to save the USPS,’ says watchdog, ‘fire Louis DeJoy’

"The entire board and then Mr. DeJoy should be handed their walking papers," said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.). "Their unquestioning support for this postmaster general is unacceptable."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Thursday reiterated its call for the ouster of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the Republican megadonor accused of attempting to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service last year as millions of Americans relied on the agency to participate in the presidential election. Continue reading

In closed-door event with corporate lobbyists, Manchin vows $15 wage ‘not going to happen’

A top restaurant industry lobbyist reportedly "couldn't contain his excitement" at the West Virginia Democrat's remarks.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on Tuesday reportedly mocked the popular push for a $15 federal minimum wage during a private event with restaurant industry lobbyists, telling attendees he prefers an hourly wage floor of $11 and nothing “above half of that” for tipped workers. Continue reading

Democratic lawmakers urge Barrett to recuse herself from Koch dark money case

The members of Congress note that Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded advocacy group, mounted a "full-scale campaign" in support of the justice's confirmation.

Three Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday urged U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself from a pending case revolving around the nonprofit arm of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded political advocacy group that spent heavily to ensure Barrett’s confirmation to the bench last October. Continue reading

A school for spooks: The London university department churning out NATO spies

Last week, MintPress exposed how the supposedly independent investigative collective Bellingcat is, in fact, funded by a CIA cutout organization and filled with former spies and state intelligence operatives. However, one part of the story that has remained untold until now is Bellingcat’s close ties to the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, an institution with deep links to the British security state and one that trains a large number of British, American and European agents and defense analysts. Continue reading

DeSantis signs ‘outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional’ anti-protest bill into law

"Every single Floridian should be outraged by this blatant attempt to erode our First Amendment right to peacefully assemble."

Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed into law a bill that civil rights groups warn is designed to crack down on peaceful demonstrations and criminalize dissent by redefining “rioting” in an overbroad way and creating draconian new felonies for protest-related offenses. Continue reading

Federal court ends Trump effort to open 128 million acres of Atlantic, Arctic oceans to drilling

"As the Biden administration considers its next steps, it should build on these foundations, end fossil fuel leasing on public lands and waters, and embrace a clean energy future."

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt the final blow to former President Donald Trump’s attempt to open nearly 130 million acres of territory in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans to oil and gas drilling. Continue reading

Critics warn $15 billion merger of global water giants would create ‘dangerous corporate monopoly’

"Veolia's plan to dominate public water services all across the globe is becoming a terrifying reality."

France-based transnational corporation Veolia agreed in principle to acquire Suez, its main rival, for $15.5 billion on Monday, setting the stage for the creation of a water and waste management juggernaut that critics warn would be a “dangerous corporate monopoly” destined to “hurt consumers and enrich shareholders.” Continue reading

Sanction the axis of mercenary and terrorist evil: Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia

Azerbaijan deployed thousands of mercenaries in last year’s 44-day war that it and Turkey waged against Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh and Armenia. Continue reading

‘All you telecom lobbyists are bound to lose’: Judge upholds California’s gold standard net neutrality law

"Now we're one step closer to net neutrality being the law of the land."

Defenders of the open internet celebrated a major victory late Tuesday after a federal judge ruled that a California law establishing strong net neutrality protections can take effect, a severe blow to the telecom giants that spent big money trying to kill the measure through aggressive lobbying and litigation. Continue reading

DARPA’s new space program stirs worldwide concern

A new space technology exploration program announced by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is riling up international opposition as the race to mine space heats up

On the same day that Joe Biden obtained the Electoral College majority needed to become president of the United States, a metallic asteroid roughly half the size of New York City made its closest approach to earth. Far from indulging in apocalyptic visions of cosmic destruction, mining company executives like Bob Goldstein of US Nuclear Corp. were seeing dollar signs. Somewhere in the ballpark of $10,000 quadrillion of them in fact. Continue reading

US Supreme Court denies Trump’s ‘shameful’ effort to block release of his tax returns

"This decisive defeat once again shows that no one—including Donald Trump—is above the law."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered another blow to Donald Trump’s efforts to block the enforcement of a subpoena for his accounting firm to turn over eight years of the ex-president’s tax returns and other financial documents to a grand jury convened by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. while Trump was still in office. Continue reading

‘Blood is on Abbott’s hands’: Anger at GOP leaders surges as food, water shortages compound Texas power crisis

"Abbott has failed and passed off blame to somebody else. Texas is in dire straits. Texans are dying. Homes are being destroyed, people are cold and hungry, and we have no idea when things will begin to return to normal."

Texans who have been without power for days in the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri are now also facing food and water crises as frigid temperatures and ongoing blackouts disrupt supply chains and wreak havoc on the state’s infrastructure—compounding emergencies that have spurred intensifying backlash against GOP leaders. Continue reading

After Trump acquittal by GOP, Sunrise Movement says ‘time is now to abolish the filibuster’

"If Democrats don't deliver in this moment, future Presidents Days will recognize Trump's second term."

In the wake of the GOP’s acquittal of former President Donald Trump, the Sunrise Movement on Monday joined the progressive lawmakers and activists arguing that the failure of Democrats to secure bipartisan cooperation—even during an impeachment trial meant to hold Trump accountable for provoking a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol—exemplifies why the majority party must eliminate the legislative filibuster if it hopes to pursue a transformative agenda capable of improving social and environmental well-being. Continue reading

‘Fire DeJoy before he burns down USPS’: Postmaster general pushes plan for slower mail, higher prices

'Fire DeJoy before he burns down USPS': Postmaster general pushes plan for slower mail, higher prices

Undeterred by the backlash and widespread delays that followed his disruptive operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service last year, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is reportedly planning to roll out another slate of policies that would significantly hike postage rates and further slow the delivery of certain kinds of mail. Continue reading

Same as the old boss, Julian Assange edition

On February 9, the US Justice Department announced that US President Joe Biden, as in so many other areas, intends to serve Donald Trump’s second term when it comes to persecuting heroes guilty of exposing US war crimes and embarrassing American politicians. Continue reading

Ignoring pleas of press freedom defenders, Biden DOJ files appeal to extradite Julian Assange

"The Assange case represents the gravest threat to press freedom in a generation."

The Biden Justice Department on Friday formally appealed a British judge’s rejection of the U.S. request to extradite Julian Assange, confirming the new administration’s intention to run with its predecessor’s espionage charges against the WikiLeaks publisher despite warnings that the case endangers press freedoms around the world. Continue reading

Medicare for All the ‘only way forward,’ concludes Lancet panel in study detailing death and misery inflicted by Trump

"Trump's disastrous actions compounded longstanding failures in health policy in the USA. We know what it will take to create a healthy society. We just need the political will to do it."

A panel of policy experts and medical professionals convened to examine the healthcare legacy of Donald Trump concluded in a detailed report released Thursday morning that the former president’s sweeping regulatory rollbacks and full-scale assault on America’s already decimated public health infrastructure severely undermined the nation’s fight against Covid-19 and caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths. Continue reading

As DeJoy readies new assault on U.S. Postal Service, pressure grows for Biden to ‘clean house’

"My solution starts at the top: firing the whole board who presided over Trump and DeJoy's wrecking of USPS," said Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr.

With Postmaster General Louis DeJoy reportedly preparing to unveil plans for another round of service cuts and operational changes as soon as this week, President Joe Biden is facing growing calls from lawmakers, mail carriers, and others to take urgent steps to protect the U.S. Postal Service from further damage, pave the way for DeJoy’s removal, and shore up the agency’s finances for the near and distant future. Continue reading

Congressional report reveals manufacturers ‘knowingly’ sold toxin-tainted baby food

"This is what happens when you let the food and chemical companies, not the FDA, decide whether our food is safe to eat."

Leading baby food manufacturers are selling—knowingly and without warning—unsafe products contaminated with dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals that can cause serious and often irreversible damage to infant brain development, according to a new congressional investigation that is generating renewed calls for greater regulation of the industry. Continue reading

Pure evil: The boys and girls being sold for sex during COVID-19 and the Super Bowl

Even in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no stopping this year’s Super Bowl LV showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Continue reading

The movement for a wealth tax in Washington state

A levy of just 1 percent on wealth over $1 billion would raise more than $2 billion per year to meet the state's urgent social needs.

Legislators in Washington state are taking bold steps towards instituting a state-level wealth tax. The proposed tax is a 1 percent levy on wealth over $1 billion, applying to fewer than 100 households in the state. Continue reading

Poultry industry bosses are no longer calling all the shots in Washington

In the new political landscape, poultry workers have already managed to scuttle a Trump administration reform that would’ve made their jobs even more dangerous.

Over Super Bowl weekend, Americans are expected to devour 1.42 billion chicken wings—enough to “circle the circumference of the Earth three times,” the National Chicken Council crowed. Continue reading

House impeachment managers argue Trump aimed violent mob at Capitol ‘like a loaded cannon’

Pre-trial brief says the former U.S. president bears "singular responsibility" for inciting January 6 insurrection.

House impeachment managers on Tuesday filed a trial memorandum laying out their case for convicting Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection against the republic he swore to protect” ahead of the former president’s historic second impeachment trial slated to begin next week. Continue reading