Eighteen years before Minneapolis police killed an unarmed black man named George Floyd on Monday, Minneapolis police killed an unarmed black man named Christopher Burns. Today, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar decries the killing of Floyd. Back then, Minneapolis chief prosecutor Amy Klobuchar refused to prosecute city police for killing Burns. Continue reading
World-renowned intellectual and author Noam Chomsky called U.S. President Donald Trump a “sociopathic megalomaniac” whose leadership drove the U.S. to become “singularly unprepared” for the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading
A proposal by Sen. Mitt Romney to establish congressional committees with the specific goal of crafting legislative “solutions” for America’s federal trust fund programs has reportedly resurfaced in GOP talks over the next Covid-19 stimulus package, sparking alarm among progressive advocates who warn the Utah Republican’s bill is nothing but a stealth attack on Social Security and Medicare. Continue reading
Civil rights groups are vowing to fight back against what they are calling a nationwide voter intimidation and suppression campaign by the national Republican Party and President Donald Trump that could have a “chilling effect” on voting rights and November turnout. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—GOP President Donald Trump’s Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia, and his #2 who runs the agency that oversees jobless benefits want employers to report—and states to bar benefits from—workers who fear returning to their old jobs because their employers won’t protect them against the coronavirus. Continue reading
Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an interview airing Sunday that the public should not expect a vacancy on the Supreme Court to remain open this election year, despite what happened last time. Continue reading
A federal judge on Monday denied the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ request to amend his earlier ruling regarding TC Energy’s Keystone XL pipeline, reaffirming that a permit issued by the Army Corps was invalid. Continue reading
Suddenly concerned about the growing national debt now that corporations have secured access to trillions of dollars in COVID-19 bailout funds with little oversight, Trump administration officials are reportedly considering several proposals purportedly aimed at reducing government spending—including a pair of plans that would provide Americans with cash payments in exchange for delays or cuts to their Social Security benefits. Continue reading
The U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors—which is controlled by appointees of President Donald Trump—announced late Wednesday that it has unanimously selected a top Trump and GOP donor to serve as postmaster general, installing an ally of the White House to lead a popular agency that has long been a target of right-wing reforms and is currently under severe threat of collapse due to the Covid-19 crisis. Continue reading
Ohio officials are encouraging employers to report what they’ve designated “COVID-19 fraud” as the state begins reopening some industries. Workers who refuse to report to work in light of the pandemic, which has killed more than 1,300 Ohio residents so far, can be reported via a government website and have their unemployment benefits taken away. Continue reading
Critics decried a failed attempt Sunday by a group of mercenaries, including two Americans, to invade Venezuela as an “unacceptable” act of aggression by the U.S. and Colombia in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading
President Donald Trump on Sunday said he will not approve another badly needed COVID-19 stimulus package if it doesn’t include a payroll tax cut, a policy that would strike a blow to Social Security and Medicare funding while offering no relief for the more than 30 million people who have lost their jobs over the past six weeks. Continue reading
Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups are accusing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of endangering the health of members of Congress and Capitol Hill employees for political gain as the Kentucky Republican presses forward with plans to reconvene the chamber next week for the sole purpose of confirming more right-wing judges—including his unqualified 38-year-old protégé. Continue reading
Falun Gong, the Central Intelligence Agency-linked Chinese cult, which is banned in China, has achieved overarching influence in the Donald Trump White House, State Department, and among Republican Party stalwarts harboring ambitions for national office. The cult’s newspaper, The Epoch Times, enjoys access to White House press conferences and is currently engaged in a campaign to cast blame on China for the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading
Instead of easing state-sponsored violence against Palestinians at a time of COVID-19 outbreaks, the racist Netanyahu regime and extremist settlers it supports are using the public health crisis to intensify viciousness. Continue reading
The 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union accused President Donald Trump of plotting to “sacrifice our public Postal Service at the altar of private profit” after the Washington Post reported late Thursday that the White House is considering using a $10 billion relief loan approved by Congress last month to impose long-sought changes on the popular agency. Continue reading
Reporting out Monday shed new light on the fact that millions of U.S. citizens are not eligible to receive coronavirus stimulus checks because of who they married. Continue reading
Smithfield Foods, the nation’s largest pork producer has closed its Sioux Falls, SD, slaughterhouse after 238 Smithfield employees grew sick, according to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Continue reading
Woken in the middle of the night and marched out of a crowded, quarantined group cell by prison guards to be deported. That is the story of one D.C.-area man on Wednesday, inside of an ICA Farmville for-profit prison full of hundreds of undocumented immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The unit is in the middle of a two-week lockdown due to a number of inmates showing symptoms of COVID-19, yet that did not stop guards bursting in and taking the man, who has not been named due to fears about retaliation, out to process his deportation, recklessly endangering others in the facility. Continue reading
The western United States is likely being gripped by an “emerging” megadrought partly fueled by the climate crisis, says a study published Friday. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—Got plans for that $1,200 federal check you’re going to get from the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus law? Think again. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—Faced with a crash in mail volume and revenue due to closures to battle the coronavirus pandemic—right when the country needs the Postal Service the most to help get vital food, medicine, and other life-saving goods to everyone—Postmaster General Megan Brennan asked Congress for a combination of $75 billion in cash and credit to keep going through the financial disaster. Continue reading
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday urged Congress to act immediately to stop President Donald Trump from using the novel coronavirus outbreak “as an opportunity to bankrupt and privatize the Postal Service,” a longstanding goal of the conservative movement. Continue reading
The COVID pandemic has thrown America’s atomic reactor industry into lethal chaos, making a major disaster even more likely. Reports from “terrified” workers at a Pennsylvania reactor indicate vital precautions needed to protect them may not even be possible. Continue reading
The world will not soon forget the despicable nature of the Trump administration during the worst global pandemic since the 1918 flu. Trump, aided and abetted by a rogues’ gallery of misfits, hyper-xenophobes, and egotistical homosexuals, has all but ruined any good will the United States still maintained in the world prior to the coronavirus outbreak. Continue reading
A new study out Tuesday estimates that worker layoffs unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic in the United States have already caused more than 1.5 million people to lose their employer-provided health insurance in recent weeks, with another 5.7 million likely to become uninsured by the end of June. Continue reading
The government of Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley was shocked when the Trump administration seized over 150 ventilators ordered and pre-purchased by Barbados from five different foreign sources. Although Barbados Health and Wellness Minister Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic said there are no shortage of ventilators in the country to deal with its current level of Covid-19 cases, the seizure by the U.S. has resulted in icy relations between Barbados and the United States. Continue reading
In a move that critics warned could put independent oversight of a multi-trillion-dollar coronavirus stimulus package “in grave jeopardy,” President Donald Trump on Monday fired the official in charge of monitoring the federal government’s implementation of the business-friendly new law. Continue reading
We finally got the mail on Thursday. None had arrived for a week, except for some packages. Our main local post office downtown, at the southern end of Manhattan’s West Village, has been hit hard by COVID-19. Continue reading
During a press briefing Sunday night purportedly aimed at providing the U.S. public with crucial information amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump refused to allow the nation’s top infectious disease expert to answer a reporter’s question about the efficacy of an anti-malaria drug that the president has recklessly touted as a possible COVID-19 treatment despite warnings from medical professionals. Continue reading
Support for Medicare for All among U.S. voters has reached a nine-month high in a Morning Consult/Politico tracking poll as the deadly and ongoing coronavirus pandemic lays bare the horrors and systemic inefficiencies of America’s profit-driven healthcare system. Continue reading
As millions of Americans await the $1,200 cash payments authorized by the latest coronavirus stimulus package, experts and progressive advocates are condemning a move by the Trump administration which would force millions of seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities to jump through unnecessary hoops to receive money they are entitled to under law. Continue reading
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