Things are fucked. That’s our current situation in a nutshell. Continue reading
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A coup by any other name is still a coup
Notable from the tenor and direction of the House of Representatives Select Committee on January 6th’s most recent subpoenas for witness testimony and documents from Infowars’ Alex Jones and longtime Republican political dirty tricks operative Roger Stone is a clear indication that the committee’s investigators are on a trail that could ultimately point to Donald Trump being aware of the plans by insurrectionists to march on the U.S. Capitol. Those Oval Office plans could also include the physical occupation of the Capitol, as well. Continue reading
Corporate greed the ‘real culprit behind rising prices,’ researchers say
"The more sway mega-corporations have over our economy, the more power they have to gouge customers, squeeze Main Street, and exploit workers."
Amid mounting data showing that people are paying more for food at grocery stores around the United States, a new analysis out Wednesday reveals how corporate power is “the real culprit behind rising prices at the checkout line.” Continue reading
The “Shining City on a Hill” is ready to ignite
All hands are needed on deck right now to save the republic. No joke.
I’m beginning to think that when it comes to saving the United States and our fragile democracy, perhaps the only answer is to hit the off button and reboot. Continue reading
China is not colonizing Africa
International media cannot be trusted to give accurate information. Skepticism is especially warranted when China is the topic and allegations of colonizing Africa make headlines.
International media are reporting that the Ugandan government has turned over Entebbe airport to a Chinese bank in order to make payment on a loan. “Museveni to surrender Uganda’s only international airport over Chinese loan,” claimed The Guardian. Similar headlines have appeared widely and all repeat as fact an allegation that Uganda will lose its airport to Exim bank. Continue reading
Unlearning to not think
Recent American elections involving a relatively small segment of those already small numbers who actually vote has revealed, according to major consciousness controllers, a tremendous turn-around from what is called progressive left to reactionary right. This is actually the all to ordinary voters move from what the Rolling Stones once called an electoral “choice of cancer or polio.” Meanwhile, good health still awaits the total transformation of the American and global political economy and a political party to help bring it about in a truly democratic form before it is forced on us by something approaching a massive global collapse with particular disasters here in America. Continue reading
The GOP now stands for trolls, vigilantes & death
The Rittenhouse verdict sent a shudder through America as terrorists and vigilantes celebrated. One right-winger called for wholesale slaughter of Democrats saying on Telegram, “The left won’t stop until their bodies get stacked up like cord wood.” Continue reading
Rittenhouse and verdict mania
Black people give great attention to certain court cases in hopes of receiving justice when the system is designed to be unjust. That recognition and the commitment to fighting back will be of greater use than divining conclusions about a racist nation when juries reach verdicts.
Every high-profile trial which demonstrates the connections between systemic racism and law enforcement rivets 40 million Black men, women, and children to television, newspapers, and social media. One would think that jury verdicts change the living conditions of Black people in this country. The recent trial and not guilty verdict in the case of Wisconsin shooter Kyle Rittenhouse is but one example of this phenomenon. Continue reading
Cuba: Five years after Fidel
Fidel Castro died five years ago, but I feel like decades have passed in Cuba since November 25, 2016. Trump arrived and passed slowly with his string of sanctions that have felt worse than ever because of the pandemic. Then came Biden with his faint-hearted court, reeling us each day with veiled or direct threats, without daring to fulfill his timid campaign promises. Continue reading
We do exist: Why the Palestinian voice should take center stage
At a recent New York event, the president of the Foreign Press Association, Ian Williams, declared, before an approving audience, that it is time “to reclaim the narrative on Palestine”. Continue reading
Trump regime turned Washington into a fetid and lawless version of wartime Tangier and Macao
During his four years in office, Donald Trump, accompanied by his unethical and immoral family, business associates, and advisers, turned Washington, DC, into a replica of wartime neutral cities like Tangier and Macao, where anything and everyone was for sale to the highest bidder. Fans of the 1942 film noir, “Casablanca,” which starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, may be surprised to know that it was not wartime Casablanca in Morocco that inspired director Michael Curtiz to develop a theme around Rick’s Café Américain, where foreigners of every political stripe — German Nazis, Vichy French, Free French, and European refugees — co-mingled in an environment of deceit and corruption. Continue reading
Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving
I am taking a break
May you enjoy this day with friends and family however you celebrate it. Continue reading
Don’t give up on the blessings of freedom
How do you give thanks for freedoms that are constantly being eroded? Continue reading
Don’t blame government benefits for inflation—blame the modern economy
Headlines are screaming that inflation is here to stay. Consumer prices have risen by an average of 6.2 percent in the past year, the sharpest increase since 1991. Although Americans are supposedly—in the words of the New York Times—“flush with cash and jobs,” they are also deeply unhappy with the state of the economy. Continue reading
The high stakes of the U.S.-Russia confrontation over Ukraine
A report in Covert Action Magazine from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine describes grave fears of a new offensive by Ukrainian government forces, after increased shelling, a drone strike by a Turkish-built drone and an attack on Staromaryevka, a village inside the buffer zone established by the 2014-15 Minsk Accords. Continue reading
Raids, arrests and death threats: Israel’s strategy of silencing human rights defenders
On October 21, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced the issuance of a military order designating six prominent Palestinian human rights groups as ‘terrorist organizations’. Gantz claimed that they are secretly linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a socialist political group that Israel considers, along with most Palestinian political parties, ‘a terrorist organization.’ Continue reading
Hapless Biden administration is Weimar Republic on way to U.S. fascism
The soaring economic inflation and social woes under the Biden administration point to a disastrous outcome awaiting the United States.
The embrace of political extremism by the Republican Party in the United States has constitutional historians worried about the drift towards fascism. If that’s the case, then the hapless Biden administration may go down in history as the imitation of the Weimar Republic before the rise of American fascism. Continue reading
Wisconsin is the new ground zero for 2020 election deniers
As COVID-19 swept the country in March 2020, Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers tried to postpone the April 7 presidential primary. But Republican state legislators aligned with President Trump and denying the severity of COVID-19 sneered, sued, and won in court hours before the polls were to open. That fray left Wisconsin’s 1,850 municipal clerks who administer elections, and the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which guides the clerks, frantically scrambling. Continue reading
Biden nominates two industry shills to “regulate” their industries
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
Is the new GOP “Southern Strategy” civil war & bloodshed… and a return to “Leave It To Beaver”?
Thursday, all but two Republicans in the House of Representatives went on record saying it’s okay to openly encourage the assassination of one of their own, a person of color and elected member of the House. Continue reading
The corporate demolition of our pillars of freedom
The disposition of the Boeing manslaughtering of 346 trusting passengers and crew in the 737 MAX crashes (Indonesia—2018 and Ethiopia—2019) further weakens the system of tort law and individual pursuits of justice after wrongful deaths. Continue reading
If you think vaccine mandate pushback is bad…
At some point, governments will start using more sticks than carrots to break our deadly dependence on fossil fuels. How will humanity respond?
I’ve only had to show my vaccination card a couple times—to eat in a restaurant in New York City, to see a play in Washington, DC. I was happy to do so. Once inside, I was relieved to be among the vaccinated. Continue reading
Australia refuses to reveal additional proof of its role in Chile’s CIA-backed coup
Almost 50 years have passed since Pinochet took power, so what exactly is Australia afraid of?
The U.S. has declassified thousands of documents relating to its involvement in the ousting of Chile’s socialist President Salvador Allende and the installing of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Australia, on the other hand, continues to guard its classified documents on the pretext of security, drawing a discrepancy between its purported democratic principles and obstructing the public’s right to knowledge. As a country which welcomed Chileans fleeing the horrors of Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship, as well as harbouring Chilean agents—the most notable case being that of Adriana Rivas—Australia’s political and moral obligation should not be played down. Continue reading
Trump’s and Bannon’s alternate world
In a reality-based world, the recent video summit between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping may have gone, in part, something like the following . . . Continue reading
From Pegasus to Blue Wolf: How Israel’s ‘security’ experiment in Palestine became global
The revelation, a few years ago, that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been conducting mass surveillance on millions of Americans has reignited the conversation on governments’ misconduct and their violation of human rights and privacy laws. Continue reading
Why our climate isn’t jumping for joy after COP26
Two major gains took place at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Glasgow, Scotland, which concluded on November 13: the first was that there would be another COP in 2022 in Egypt, and the second was that the world leaders expressed their aspiration to keep global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius alive. These were, however, the only gains made at the end of COP26 to address the pressing issue of climate change. Continue reading
The Georgia way: How to win elections
An oral history recounts the organizing that led to 2020’s historic presidential and senatorial victories in Georgia.
Corey Shackleford knew he could rely on Georgia’s Prince Hall Masons—named after the freed slave who created the civic-minded group’s first Black chapter in 1784. “We’re in those corners of the state, those rural areas, where others don’t normally go. But we are there.” Continue reading
Cubans say they are more excited about school reopening than regime change
Most Cubans seem more concerned with getting their economy fired up than toppling their leaders. Even if they blame their government for mismanagement, corruption and a system that stifles private enterprise, few fail to recognize the enormous impact of U.S. sanctions.
HAVANA—“If you build it, they will come,” said Kevin Costner in the Field of Dreams. In Cuba, they didn’t come. Dissidents on the island, with their U.S. backers, had been working feverishly for months to turn the unprecedented July 11 protests into a crescendo of government opposition on November 15. They built a formidable structure, with sophisticated social media (including an abundance of fake news), piles of cash from Cuban Americans and the U.S. government, and declarations of support from a bipartisan Congress and all the way up to the White House. Continue reading
COP26: climate pledges don’t match up with policies or consumer behavior
The Glasgow Climate Pact kicks the climate can down the road.
After more than two weeks of negotiations during the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, diplomats from almost 200 nations finally agreed on two major points: ramp up the fight against climate change and help at-risk countries prepare. Specifically, governments agreed to meet again next in 2022 with more robust plans to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent by 2030, significantly reduce emissions of methane (which has even more global warming potential than CO2), and nearly double the aid to poor countries to help them mitigate the effects of climate change. Notably, nations agreed to initiate reductions in coal-fired power and to begin slashing government subsidies on other fossil fuels, representing the first time a COP text mentioned coal and fossil fuels. Continue reading
Climate action pretense at COP26
Joe Biden’s presence at COP26 was a photo opportunity meant to give the impression that he is fighting the climate crisis. But the U.S. and other governments continue carbon production while pretending to take action.
The 26th Conference of the Parties, COP26, climate summit ended with its president fighting back tears. Alok Sharma came to Glasgow, Scotland, hoping for an agreement to end the extraction of coal. Instead he said this, “I apologize for the way this process has unfolded. I am deeply sorry.” Continue reading
What’s being compromised?
In any policy fight, it’s never the priorities of the wealthy that are compromised—it’s working and middle-class Americans who are.
Sometimes, when watching Congress in action, I can’t decide whether to laugh, cry, or check myself into an insane asylum. Continue reading
Is greed the reason we’re in Omicron’s cross-hairs?
Posted on December 3, 2021 by Thom Hartmann
As the Omicron variant puts us in its crosshairs, America is still stuck with a predatory health insurance and healthcare system that’s barely up to the task of meeting our nation’s needs. This new variant apparently emerged from South Africa, which has been unsuccessfully begging the WTO for 14 months for a “TRIPS Waiver” to allow them to manufacture Covid vaccine…which might have prevented this variant from evolving. Continue reading →