On December 6, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas for the second time in 2021 under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This lawsuit was for drawing congressional and state legislative districts following the 2020 census that “refused to recognize the state’s growing minority electorate.” In other words, districts intended to impede candidates of color. Continue reading
Amidst our ever-escalating climate Apocalypse, the viral insanity of atomic power gets ever worse. Now it’s spread deep into the Biden administration, with no apparent cure in sight. Continue reading
BUFFALO, N.Y.—Starbucks Workers United broke a significant barrier on December 9 with the first-ever worker win at the big retail coffee chain. Workers at the Elmwood store in Buffalo voted 19-8 to unionize with Starbucks Workers United, the National Labor Relations Board officer announced. The union also won 15-9 at a second store, but there are seven challenged ballots, and the NLRB will have to decide whether and how many of them to count. Continue reading
Santa’s got a new helper. Continue reading
“What about the Supreme Court?” Those words are used to thwart any discussion which questions support for the Democratic Party. The Democrats maintain their hold on voters who would otherwise be rid of them by dredging up the fear of the federal judiciary falling under Republican Party control. The legal right to abortion is one of the issues used to keep millions of people from leaving the Democrats once and for all. Continue reading
Fighting global warming is not just about providing a path to net-zero carbon emissions for all countries. It is also about figuring out how best to meet the energy needs of people across the world while working toward net-zero emissions. If fossil fuels have to be given up, which has now become an urgent need given the current environmental challenges, countries in Africa and a significant part of Asia, including India, need an alternate path for providing electricity to their people. What then is the best alternate course for poorer countries to follow for electricity production—if they do not use the fossil fuel route—that is being used by rich countries? This in turn also raises questions about how much this alternative energy source route will cost poorer countries, and who will pay the bills incurred when making the switch to this new source of energy. Continue reading
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris does not have any biological children and grew up middle-class. Meanwhile, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, a Mormon with five kids, was born into wealth and has substantially increased it for his family. Continue reading
‘Tis the season, right? Traditionally, this time of year celebrates spirituality and festivities—including Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. Continue reading
Despite a disagreement over some amendments in the Senate, the United States Congress is poised to pass a $778 billion military budget bill for 2022. As they have been doing year after year, our elected officials are preparing to hand the lion’s share—over 65%—of federal discretionary spending to the U.S. war machine, even as they wring their hands over spending a mere quarter of that amount on the Build Back Better Act. Continue reading
President Joe Biden will soon regurgitate the public words George W. Bush uttered in 2002. Words that ushered in a global war on terrorism, a 20-year was in Afghanistan, a second invasion of Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, thousands of Americans killed/wounded, US “Black Sites” for torture and trillions in resources/dollars squandered away: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Simply replace terrorists with Russia, China, and Iran and you’ve got the war cry for 2022 onward. It likely will not be long until those exact words will be used when war breaks out on the Ukrainian border and, perhaps, the South China Sea. Israel may get the green light from the USA to start a bombing campaign on Iran. It’s not likely that the USA wants anything to do with a ground campaign in Iran or China or Russia. But US military advisors will be active on the front in Ukraine if the Russians do invade. Continue reading
With the failure of the US backed TPLF Terrorist coup attempt against the democratically elected government of Ethiopia, the USA is facing it’s greatest strategic blunder since losing Iran in 1979. Continue reading
Georgia’s 2021 municipal runoff elections saw dozens of progressives elected as new mayors, city council members and local officials in a wave that challenges the political narrative that only centrists can win in Southern battleground states, according to several organizers of voter outreach efforts. Continue reading
There was a time when Democrats called their party “the Party of Freedom.” Continue reading
WASHINGTON—The Postal Workers are pushing Congress to approve comprehensive postal reform before the end of this year, but it appears that even the Democratic-run House isn’t listening. Continue reading
While rising gasoline prices have adversely affected millions of working people in the U.S., the world’s biggest fossil fuel corporations have benefited immensely, raking in a combined $174 billion in profits during the first nine months of this year. Continue reading
Yet another non-binding UN General Assembly has passed, granting Palestinians permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, even as Israel has absolute dominion over their territory. The draft resolution, titled “Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources,” is a perfect example of how the UN glosses over Israel’s colonial violence by refusing to take action, preferring to enact non-binding resolutions which do nothing to protect the Palestinian people’s political rights and their territory. Continue reading
On December 9 and 10, President Biden will host a virtual “Summit for Democracy.” The gathering will bring together leaders from 110 countries who work in government, civil society and the private sector, with the officially declared purpose of developing an agenda to renew democratic government and keep democracy’s ideals strong. (The guest list includes Pakistan, Ukraine and Brazil.) As authoritarianism grows around the world, including in the U.S., the administration says it seeks practical ideas and strong alliances against its spread. Continue reading
We interrupt the eulogies for former Senator Bob Dole to bring the readers a few important facts. Normally, when some old politician dies, it is wise to follow the Latin dictum: De mortuis nihil nisi bonum (“Of the dead, [say] nothing but good”). However, in Bob Dole’s case, we must make a few exceptions. Continue reading
False charges from the right-wing that President Biden is hampered by senility represents an old and worn-out tactic by malign players, who have used the tactic against elder statesmen who have served as presidents, heads of state, or heads of government. Biden finds himself in august company when it comes to the propaganda barrage directed at him, in Biden’s case, by domestic and foreign on-line troll campaigns. Charles De Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Deng Xiaoping, Jozef Broz Tito, Paul von Hindenburg, and other senior statesmen all faced similar false charges at specific times during their terms in office. Continue reading
“This is who they are,” said the Minnesota Democrat. “And we have to be able to stand up to them. And we have to push them to reckon with the fact their party right now is normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry.” Continue reading
BUFFALO —First it was—and still is—Amazon in Alabama. Now it’s Starbucks in Buffalo. Continue reading
Days after the GE Transportation plant in Erie, Pennsylvania, announced a round of crippling layoffs in 2013, an employee was found hanging from a crane in “Building 20,” according to the Erie Times-News. The image of a dead worker dangling from a crane in a dying factory seemed symbolic of a city going ever deeper into the depths of despair. Continue reading
I was told that a man by the name of John Doe passed through the offices of Argentine congressmen. He wasn’t carrying heavy bags of cash, but only had an American Express card on him. Doe was a well-groomed and well-dressed U.S. national who came on behalf of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). He came bearing gifts for several congressmen: airfare, lodging, and entertainment in Washington, D.C. It is a well-known fact that deputies in Third World countries travel to first world countries, especially to the United States, to meet their rich sponsors. The gifts from Doe were well received in several offices. Continue reading
While most of the corporate media seek to outdo one another in normalizing seditionists, fascists, insurrectionists, died-in-the-wool racists, and anti-public health conspiracy zealots, the last vestiges of a once-vibrant press in the United States refuse to go quietly into the night. On November 28, the Editorial Board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch launched a scathing blast at two Senate Republicans, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, for supporting the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The editorial, titled “It’s long past time for the Senate ethics panel to address Hawley’s Jan. 6 actions,” stated: “Ten months after a group of Senate Democrats lodged ethics complaints into the conduct of Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas regarding their roles in sparking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Senate Ethics Committee has shown no sign of movement.” Continue reading
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has just ruled that a historic union vote held earlier this year among Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) was not valid. The highly publicized vote, which took place over several weeks in February and March 2021, resulted in a resounding defeat for the union, with more than 70 percent of those voting choosing against union membership. Continue reading
The Belgian government’s decision on November 25 to label products made in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements is welcome, although it will ultimately prove ineffectual. Continue reading
My friend, Carl Sagan, used to talk about the first major war we fought. In the age of reptiles (Mesozoic era), our warrior-ancestors were tiny mouse-sized creatures, the first of our mammalian class to exist, eventually evolving into humans. Continue reading
It seems like a good moment for a little reflection on the past couple of years. A lot has happened, and a lot hasn’t. What has happened, among other things, has been a whole lot of police brutality, racially-motivated killings by police, a whole lot of media coverage of this sort of thing, a whole lot of protests and riots, and a whole lot more media coverage of that. What hasn’t happened—what hasn’t been reflected in all of this—are significant political or economic changes that might begin to address the ever-deepening inequities in this extremely polarized society. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—Declaring they would never give up the fight for reproductive choice and legal abortion, approximately 1,000 pro-choice advocates literally ringed the Supreme Court building to publicize their cause, hours after the six right-wing justices on the nine-member Court indicated they were ready to end abortion rights in much if not all of the country, starting with upholding the restrictive Mississippi law. Continue reading
A Trump-era pilot program that could result in the complete privatization of traditional Medicare in a matter of years is moving ahead under the Biden administration, a development that—despite its potentially massive implications for patients across the U.S.—has received scant attention from the national press or Congress. Continue reading
Stop me if this sounds familiar. Continue reading
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Israel is hell-bent on sabotaging US nuclear negotiations with Iran
Posted on December 13, 2021 by Ariel Gold and Medea Benjamin
After a 5-month hiatus, indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran resumed last week in Vienna in an attempt to revise the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA). The outlook isn’t good. Continue reading →