Judging from statements made by G-7 leaders at the recent meeting, President Trump’s application of US sanctions to Europe and disregard of European interests, just as Washington dismisses every country’s interests except Israel’s, has not caused Europeans to disassociate from Washington’s hostility to Russia. Continue reading
In a speech earlier this month to the Organization of American States, Vice President Mike Pence issued the standard, obligatory denunciation of the communist regime in Cuba, which the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA) have targeted for regime change ever since the Cuban revolution in 1959. Continue reading
Negative fallout ahead is more likely than overall ongoing afterglow continuing longer than short or perhaps intermediate term—the way US agreements most always play out. Continue reading
Facebook’s new advertising disclosure rules for news organizations provoked outcry this week as seven media groups protested against the tech giant’s attempt to blur the lines between news and propaganda and to regulate the sharing and spread of political and election-related news on their platform. Continue reading
US President Donald Trump’s stance on migrants from Central America fleeing gang warfare or persecution due to their race, religion or political views makes a mockery of the plaque on his nation’s most recognisable monument. “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .” now reads like a bad joke. Continue reading
I keep hearing that if Trump fires Mueller we’ll face a constitutional crisis. Continue reading
I’m sitting in a spacious bar, Love City, that was once a factory. Too slicked up, it’s not quite a ruin bar, of the kind you find in Budapest. The patrons are mostly hipsters and yuppies, but with a handful of Joe Sixpacks thrown in. Looking like contractors, they’re probably fixing properties in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Continue reading
The battle for digital democracy, the last frontier of press freedom crucial to preserve, continues on a day that will live infamy if right doesn’t triumph over pure evil. Continue reading
It’s frightening. Unprincipled psychologists, in the service of a malignant regime, use sophisticated techniques in order to control the mind of a person from afar. Continue reading
More than 140 of November’s congressional elections will be decided using electronic voting machines with no verifiable paper trail, leading to concerns among election officials that any hacking or tampering will be undetectable—and accurate recounts or audits in the event of extremely close races, difficult to verify. Continue reading
Most mornings lately, I’ve woken up to two things. First I hear my toddler, sounding off that it’s time to get up. Then I see the news stories about other toddlers our immigration authorities ripped away from their parents. Continue reading
When a book as fascinating, truthful, beautifully written, and politically significant as American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family, written by a very well-known author by the name of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and published by a prominent publisher (HarperCollins), is boycotted by mainstream book reviewers, you know it is an important book and has touched a nerve that the corporate mainstream media wish to anesthetize by eschewal. Continue reading
US Defense Secretary James Mattis, who earned the nickname “Mad Dog” while serving in the Marine Corps, jetted off to the 2018 International Institute of Strategic Studies’ (IISS) annual Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore armed with threats against China and North Korea. Ironically, Mattis’s military machismo occurred prior to the June 12 summit in Singapore between Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Continue reading
Last Wednesday, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management members held a hearing on US “War Powers and the Effects of Unauthorized Military Engagements on Federal Spending.” Continue reading
How did the once modest medical specialty of child psychiatry become the aggressive “pediatric psychopharmacology” we see today? Millions of children who were once just considered too active are now diagnosed with ADHD, conduct disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, mixed manias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, pervasive development disorders, irritability, aggression and personality disorders and given drugs. Children who were once considered shy or moody are now diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder, mood disorders, social phobia, anxiety, borderline disorders, assorted “spectrum” disorders and even schizophrenia. Continue reading
While the single digit IQ brigades continue finding new Russian plots and Trump fascism under every rock on the White House lawn, the earth worms they seem not to have noticed are making the substance of our mental health crisis center more subject to collapsing our great democracy and imperial master race of self chosen people in and on itself. Continue reading
The United States is at war with itself. It is actually a function of the nation’s heritage—the past contesting specific aspects of a modern present. This results in traditions in flux. Some examples of this are the racism, the pseudo-frontier mentality, and the religious fundamentalism that persist into the present moment. Continue reading
As the Forever AUMF 2018 (SJRes 59) (Authority for the Use of Military Force) continues to await action by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one can only imagine the extent of the behind-the-scene efforts underway to sway those few wavering senators who may be reluctant to go down in American history as voting to eliminate Congress’ sole, inviolate Constitutional authority ‘to declare war.’ Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11. Continue reading
As corporate media outlets predictably trumpeted the right-wing narrative that Social Security is in dire financial straits after the Social Security Trustees’ annual report was released on Tuesday, advocacy groups and experts were quick to denounce the fearmongering and correct the record, arguing that the new analysis shows the program is “stronger than ever.” Continue reading
The May jobs numbers were good last week—so swell, in fact, that our putative president couldn’t resist hinting about them in an early morning tweet last Friday morning, a major breach of confidentiality and protocol that instantly affected Treasury yields—basically, the interest rate at which the government borrows money. Continue reading
Someone needs to alert Donald Trump: there is no “Get Out of Jail Free” card just for being president. Continue reading
June 5, 2018, marked the 51st anniversary of the Israeli Occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Continue reading
The counterattack on those, including Senator Robert Kennedy’s children, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, claiming that Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy involving at least a second gunman, has commenced. The Boston Globe, the traditional hometown newspaper of the Kennedy family, published a clearly misleading piece on May 31, 2018, by Nik DeCosta-Klipa, with the curiously long and loaded headline “Bobby Kennedy’s son thinks he was killed by a second shooter. Is there anything to it? Or has RFK, Jr. “launched a whole new generation of conspiracy nuts 50 years later.” Continue reading
The report has things backwards—Britain waging political, propaganda, and economic war on Russia, along with Washington and their rogue allies, not the other way around. Continue reading
The dissolution of the Soviet Union removed the constraint on Washington’s unilateralism. The neoconservatives, who had just risen to power, seized the opportunity and replaced diplomacy with threat and coercion. One infamous example is from the George W. Bush regime when the deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, told Pakistan to do as you are told or you will be bombed into the stone age. We have this on the authority of the president of Pakistan himself, who did as he was told. Continue reading
Imagine that an impeachment resolution against Trump passes the House. Trump claims it’s the work of the “deep state.” Fox News’s Sean Hannity demands every honest patriot take to the streets. Rightwing social media call for war. As insurrection spreads, Trump commands the armed forces to side with the “patriots.” Continue reading
A national veterans’ organization is weighing in on this year’s Emmy awards with a full-page ad in Variety, saying Ken Burns and Lynne Novick’s “Vietnam War” series does not deserve a “Best Documentary” award. Continue reading
American president Donald Trump seems intent to isolate the U.S. economy from neighboring economies, and even from the world economy, and thus to break with three quarters of a century of closer economic cooperation between countries, established after World War II. There is a clear danger that the international economic system could become structurally unsettled for years to come, which does not mean that such a system is not in need of reform. Continue reading
Under Donald Trump, the State Department has been victimized by a series of bad appointments. Three of them—the posts of U.S. ambassador to Germany and Estonia, as well as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, have seen Trump nominate neo-conservative candidates with sordid histories. Out of the three, one was unsuccessful. Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Estonia was withdrawn after the Estonian government complained that the individual due to take up the post in Tallinn was unacceptable to them. Continue reading
America’s closest allies, Canada, Mexico and European states are perplexed and angry. There were plenty of warning signs that Donald Trump sought what he calls fairer trade practices which was one of his campaign pledges. Most thought his threat to slap them with crippling trade tariffs on steel and aluminium imports was a mere negotiating bluff. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t, they believed. But he did. Continue reading
“While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication,” tweeted Sanofi-Aventis after Roseanne Barr blamed her tweets on the sleeping drug Ambien. While the drug maker may look like the good guy now—and enjoy a boost in Ambien/zolpidem sales––12 years ago it was a different story. Continue reading
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Is Trump giving Amazon the Postal Service?
Trump wanted to use the Postal Service to hit back at Amazon, but he may end up doing the opposite.
Posted on June 14, 2018 by Jim Hightower
The U.S. postal system has 30,000 outlets serving every part of America. It employs 630,000 people in good middle-class jobs. And it proudly delivers letters and packages clear across the country for a pittance. Continue reading →