With two dyed-in-the-wool Tory Brexiteers vying to replace Theresa May as prime minister, Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union now looks inevitable. The hopes of Britons who resented their country being under Brussels’ sway will come to fruition. Freedom from foreign constraints is on the horizon. “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves,” go the stirring words of the patriotic song Rule Britannia children of my generation sang in school. Continue reading
The Center for Reproductive Rights on Friday announced its intention to keep fighting after an Oklahoma court upheld a ban on a common abortion procedure. Continue reading
Intense fighting and hideous attacks battered Afghans throughout their country last week as negotiators in Qatar weighed the benefits and costs of a peace agreement that might stop the bloodshed. Continue reading
After Labor Secretary Alex Acosta announcing his resignation on Friday in the wake of outrage over the deal he brokered for alleged child rapist Jeffrey Epstein, President Donald Trump said the department’s number two, Deputy Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella, would now serve as the acting secretary. Continue reading
It is discouraging to note just how the United States has been taking on the attributes of a police state since 9/11. Stories of police raids on people’s homes gone wrong are frequently in the news. In one recent incident, a heavily armed SWAT team was sent to a St. Louis county home. The armed officers entered the building without knocking, shot the family dog and forced the family members to kneel on the floor where they were able to watch their pet struggle and then die. The policemen then informed the family that they were there over failure to pay the gas bill. Animal rights groups report that the shooting of pets by police has become routine in many jurisdictions because the officers claim that they feel threatened. Continue reading
Millions of kids today are on meds for conduct disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, mixed manias, social phobia and, of course, ADHD. Continue reading
It’s hard to believe we need to have this conversation in this day and age. But if we don’t keep having it, at some point we might not be allowed to have it. Continue reading
When you’re a small kid the grownups tell you cute little lies. Lies about things like those presents under the Christmas tree coming from a hairy obese trespasser instead of your poor overworked mother, or that babies come from a man and a woman loving each other. Continue reading
It comes as no surprise that the American public remains oblivious to a not-so-slight glitch in the 5G Race with China as the US strives to be the first, the best and most technologically advanced country in the world with its guarantee of a Brave New World. But then, many Americans are unaware of the true nature of 5G in the first place. In its haste to win, the telecom industry, its friends in Congress and the Federal bureaucracy are intent on foisting 5G on a largely unsuspecting American public before all the technological kinks have been worked out. Continue reading
A CIA-backed provision for a bill that could have dire effects on the freedom of the press is quietly making its way through Congress, despite the protestations of civil rights groups to Rep. Adam Schiff, the powerful California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, to strip the rule. Continue reading
I remember, as a young man asking how do the Republicans win elections? After all, they are clearly in the minority and, yet, seem to fare well at the voting booths. I was unaware that for some elections, more than half the eligible voters, most of them working class people who realized that it mattered not who won, did not vote. Whether Republican or Democrat, their struggles remained unchanged. Continue reading
In September 1993, Bill Clinton came to Congress to deliver an address on health care reform. But the wrong speech was in the teleprompter. This would have been an epic calamity for the current occupant of the executive mansion but President Clinton adroitly ad-libbed and remained on topic for some ten minutes while the problem was fixed. Continue reading
As witnessed during Donald Trump’s recent attendance at the G20 Summit in Osaka and his side trip to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Korea, relying solely on the counsel of one’s daughter and son-in-law resulted in Trump displaying for the world his total ignorance of the fundamentals of international relations and geopolitics. Trump insisted on placing his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, on center stage in Osaka for the G20 conclave and at Panmunjom for a hastily arranged meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Ms. Trump acted as if she was on some sort of sorority house outing and was keen to impress her friends with inane statements that stepping into North Korea with her father was “surreal.” Continue reading
Tuesday, Hong Kong’s Chinese anointed leader of the Legislative Council, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-Ngor, assured protesters that the controversial extradition bill was ” dead.” Previously she had assured the protesters that the same bill was “suspended.” The protesters ain’t buying it. Continue reading
Power corrupts. Continue reading
The Democratic Party has clearly swung to the progressive left, with candidates in the first round of presidential debates coming up with one program after another to help the poor, the disadvantaged and the struggling middle class. Proposals ranged from a Universal Basic Income to Medicare for All to a Green New Deal to student debt forgiveness and free college tuition. The problem, as Stuart Varney observed on FOX Business, was that no one had a viable way to pay for it all without raising taxes or taking from other programs, a hard sell to voters. If robbing Peter to pay Paul is the only alternative, the proposals will go the way of Trump’s trillion dollar infrastructure bill for lack of funding. Continue reading
I was born here in the US, grew up and went to school here. Like everyone else, I was taught that I was fortunate because I lived in the greatest, most democratic country in the world. We are such a good people that we voluntarily intercede in other countries to ensure that the people’s freedom is maintained. Continue reading
Those who are still hoping that the new American agenda on Palestine and Israel is temporary, or reversible, should abandon this false hope. Washington’s complete adoption of Israel’s messianic, extremist policies regarding Occupied Palestine has been a long time in the making. And it is here to stay. Continue reading
The John Hagee-led Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is a lunatic-fringe, hard-right Christian fascist religious fundamentalist group—seeking theocratic dominion in the US, allying with neocons in Washington in pursuit of its objectives. Continue reading
It amazes me that alternative journalists would spend even a minute writing about the ongoing Democratic Party debates. They are meaningless and they are not debates. How many times do we have to go through this ridiculous charade before this can be accepted once and for all? The “debates” are farces, total theater, as are the presidential elections. They don’t matter. The political quiz show of duopoly is fixed. Discussing who has won is the height of absurdity. It legitimizes the system of oppressive duopoly. It is political “jeopardy,” and only the fixers win when they suck us into watching and opining. One expects the corporate media to do their jobs and drone on endlessly about nothing, but not those who oppose this anti-democratic sham. Continue reading
Russiagate is a scheme meant to give Democrats popular support without doing anything the public wants them to do. Continue reading
I keep hearing that the Democratic party has moved “left” and that some Democratic candidates may be “too far left.” Continue reading
Unfortunately, an exotic flu epidemic has broken out in Washington, D.C. Dubbed the “Canadian Hot Sauce Flu,” it uniquely afflicts a particular group of Democratic officeholders and operatives. Continue reading
The entire corporate media is in cardiac arrest over “socialists” it sees running for president as Democrats. None of them are actually socialists—not one has called for the control of the means of production to be put into the hands of the people, but facts never matter much in corporate media propaganda. Their job is to keep the masses as ignorant as possible on behalf of the ruling Forces of Greed (FOG)—the plutocrats and their subordinate oligarchic corporations. Continue reading
United States demands that Iran promise to halt pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile developments distract from the real intent of the US actions. Knowing that the Islamic Republic is not pursuing nuclear weapons and will react aggressively to sanctions, the US ploy deters other nations from establishing more friendly relations with Iran and from changing their perspectives on the causes of the Middle East crises. Continue reading
Bush/Cheney aggression on Iraq destroyed the cradle of civilization. Along with over a dozen years of genocidal sanctions, millions of Iraqis perished. Continue reading
It appears that the information revolution is redefining cultural aspirations at a time when mass production has become a concave-convex supernova offering everybody (in theory) the right to ‘have everything,’ regardless of the cost to fellow beings or to nature itself. Continue reading
In mid-May, San Francisco, California became the first American city to ban use of facial recognition surveillance technology by its police department and other city agencies. That’s a wise and ethical policy, as a July 7 piece at the Washington Post proves. Continue reading
Billionaire Wall Street hedge fund financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested by federal authorities on July 6 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Epstein was returning on his private jet from a trip to Paris. After his arrest, Epstein was taken to the Metropolitan Corrections Center in Manhattan while awaiting arraignment in federal court at Foley Square on July 8. Epstein’s old friend, Donald Trump, was spending the weekend at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey gold club, 44 miles from the Teterboro airport where Epstein was arrested. Continue reading
In case you missed the kickoff, there is an unprecedented ‘must win’ wireless race for the US to cross the 5G finish line before China as alluded to during the recent Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing on the Federal Commerce Commission. Continue reading
Where is the international outcry in response to reports that asylum seekers, among them children and newborns, are being crammed tightly into detention centres on America’s southern border without basic facilities? Does American exceptionalism extend to treating 2,500 human beings worse than animals with impunity? Continue reading
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Damaging fallout from Sino-US trade war
Posted on July 17, 2019 by Stephen Lendman
Trade wars assure losers, not winners, a reality geopolitically/economically/politically ignorant Trump doesn’t understand. Continue reading →