Ukrainian troops step up attacks on civilians in the east as the U.S. sends more missiles, tanks, and troops to Ukraine and Poland.
After U.S. credibility was strained again Thursday by yet another declaration coming from President Joe Biden that he expects a Russian invasion of Ukraine in the next few days, Secretary of State Antony Blinken rushed to the U.N. to assure the Security Council that “I am here today not to start a war but to prevent one.” He followed his declaration with a string of provocative remarks and claims that Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine. Russia insisted, once again, that it has no such plans. Continue reading →
Conservatives in the United States have fallen in love with the fringe protests led by Canadian truckers. It is a cause that unites the libertarian and extremist wings of the GOP and offers a new front in the culture wars to mobilize right-wing forces.
Canadians have a reputation for being polite, nice people. But the high-profile weeks-long civil disobedience actions by some Canadian truckers that began in late January in the capital city of Ottawa has undermined this reputation. Truckers and their allies caused traffic snarls within the city and wreaked havoc along the international supply chains crossing the United States-Canada border. Continue reading →
The Washington Post has always been a CIA asset. The CIA used the Washington Post to orchestrate the Watergate narrative used to drive President Nixon out of office. Continue reading →
In 2011, FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg, an Obama nominee, lamented that the government could not find enough experts who were not funded by drug makers to serve on advisory committees and recommended that the FDA’s conflict of interest rules be loosened. Continue reading →
The fragile geopolitical nature of the Balkans has allowed Russia to consistently undermine Western integration attempts in the region. While foreign interference is nothing new in Europe’s underbelly, it has historically been limited to regional powers and the U.S. But China’s recent collaboration with Russia in supporting ethnic separatism in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) reveals that Beijing is happy to challenge the West and to highlight EU and NATO vulnerabilities within Europe. If Western pressure over China’s policies in Xinjiang and Taiwan increases, China’s enhanced coordination with Russia will further erode the West’s delicate balancing act in the Balkans. Continue reading →
With legislative and presidential elections coming up in Colombia, the supposedly “oldest democracy in Latin America” will see if it can consolidate the most precarious and recent peace on the continent.
The Latin American and Caribbean electoral calendar for 2022 promises to be no less hectic than that of the previous year. Among the upcoming elections and referendums that are slated for this year—Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, Peru, perhaps Haiti—two contests that are expected to attract the most attention, due to the specific geopolitical weight of these respective countries, are the general elections in Brazil, which are supposed to take place in October, and the Colombian parliamentary and presidential elections, slated for the first half of 2022. Continue reading →
Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the U.S. and Britain. Continue reading →
The U.S. has a date with destiny as it faces up to its own inherent failings and its very real enemy within— the national security state.
Georgy Arbatov, the witty Soviet diplomat, remarked for an American audience at the end of the Cold War: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.” His observation at the time seemed to be an oxymoron. Continue reading →
Every day brings new noise and fury in the crisis over Ukraine, mostly from Washington. But what is really likely to happen? Continue reading →
On January 21, 2022, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach attended a talk in New Delhi, India, organized by the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. Schönbach was speaking as the chief of Germany’s navy during his visit to the institute. “What he really wants is respect,” Schönbach said, referring to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. “And my god, giving someone respect is low cost, even no cost.” Furthermore, Schönbach said that in his opinion, “It is easy to even give him the respect he really demands and probably also deserves.” Continue reading →
A trillion-dollar company like Amazon, with a centi-billionaire CEO, shouldn’t have warehouses that collapse.
The fight for justice and accountability continues for six Amazon employees who were killed when a warehouse roof collapsed during a tornado last December. Continue reading →
"The industry thinks they can save it with minor tweaks and cosmetic fixes. But we won't back down until Direct Contracting is shut down, for good," one doctor said of the Trump-era program.
Physicians and progressive advocates on Tuesday urged the Department of Health and Human Services to reject an industry appeal to tweak and rebrand—not end altogether—a Medicare privatization scheme known as Direct Contracting, which the Trump administration launched in 2020. Continue reading →
"Our pollinators are threatened. We know the cause, and it's time to take action."
Amid “astounding losses” of bees in the U.S., a California Democrat on Tuesday introduced legislation for a state ban on nearly all non-agricultural uses of insecticides linked to pollinator and environmental harm. Continue reading →
A European dictator was expected to launch a full-scale military assault on his neighbor. The media was all over the map in speculating whether war was imminent or not. Peace feelers by diplomats and heads of state and government abounded, “don’t worry, he’s bluffing,” many stated to an anxious and nervous public. Continue reading →
The infernal danger is that Washington and London are pushing Europe and the world towards the abyss of a nuclear with Russia.
The Anglo-Americans are running a modern-day reworking of Operation Overlord, the June 1944 military invasion plan billed to liberate Western Europe from Nazi Germany. This time around, the billed objective is to “liberate” the European Union from its “tyrannical” dependency on Russian natural gas. Continue reading →
So Biden, where is the “imminent Russian Invasion of Ukraine?” Where, Jake Sullivan, is the “major military action that could begin any day now?” Where UK government, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NY Times, Bloomberg, Washington Post, BBC, and the rest of the presstitutes are the Russian hordes that are supposed to be overrunning Ukraine?” Continue reading →
Saab is virtually unknown in the United States, where he is currently languishing in a Miami prison, but he has been vital to Venezuela’s ability to survive the brutal economic war being waged by the U.S.
“It’s not a crime to fulfill a diplomatic mission. It’s not a crime to evade sanctions that are harming an entire country. It can’t be illegal to help a people.” Camilla Fabri Saab made these impassioned remarks when explaining the situation behind the illegal arrest and extradition—the kidnapping, in essence—of her husband, Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Continue reading →
On February 10, the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee advanced the EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act, setting it up for possible adoption as a free-standing bill or, more likely, as a last-minute sneak amendment to one of Congress’s periodic so-called “must pass” legislative packages. Continue reading →
On February 8, 2022, UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) Afghanistan sent out a bleak set of tweets. One of the tweets, which included a photograph of a child lying in a hospital bed with her mother seated beside her, said: “Having recently recovered from acute watery diarrhea, two years old Soria is back in hospital, this time suffering from edema and wasting. Her mother has been by her bedside for the past two weeks anxiously waiting for Soria to recover.” The series of tweets by UNICEF Afghanistan show that Soria is not alone in her suffering. “One in three adolescent girls suffers from anemia” in Afghanistan, with the country struggling with “one of the world’s highest rates of stunting in children under five: 41 percent,” according to UNICEF. Continue reading →
"Climate change is here and now," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "If a 1,200-year mega-drought isn't enough to make people realize that, I don't know what is."
The megadrought which has gripped western U.S. states including California and Arizona over the past two decades has been made substantially worse by the human-caused climate crisis, new research shows, resulting in the region’s driest period in about 1,200 years. Continue reading →
Inflation is plaguing consumer markets, putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to tighten the money supply. But as Rex Nutting writes in a MarketWatch column titled “Why Interest Rates Aren’t Really the Right Tool to Control Inflation” . . . Continue reading →
While much of the world struggles to find a way out of the Ukraine crisis, influential fascist groups inside and outside the government there are vowing to stop any peace deal with Russia that they don’t like. Even more worrisome is that the Ukrainian government, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to use its ties to the far right as leverage against peace efforts underway by urging the fascists and nationalist groups to arm themselves more heavily. Continue reading →
The Republicans are about to win a major battle in their war on electric vehicles, this time with the second largest vehicle fleet in America owned by the US Postal Service. It’s an outrageous story that most Americans don’t know a thing about. Continue reading →
Consciousness is all there is
Posted on February 22, 2022 by William T. Hathaway
As Mark Twain once said, “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure but which just isn’t true.” Continue reading →