Conservation advocates accused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of “deep rot within the agency” Monday as they condemned the Biden administration’s plan to weaken or eliminate protections for several endangered species—a step that officials appear to be taking without any consideration for the threats the climate crisis poses to the animals. Continue reading
On November 25, 2021, an article appeared in Uganda’s national newspaper the Daily Monitor with the headline: “Uganda surrenders airport for China cash.” The article pointed to “toxic clauses” in the loan agreement signed by the Ugandan government with the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China on March 31, 2015. The loan—worth $207 million at 2 percent interest—was for the expansion of the Entebbe International Airport—a project under the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Work on the expansion of the airport began in May 2016. 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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
WASHINGTON—As Congress returned to D.C. the week of Nov. 15, the continuing war over President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda—an agenda that would enact the large expansion of the social safety net the U.S. has needed for years—heated up. Continue reading
On September 20, letters began to arrive at eight Cuban municipal or provincial government headquarters announcing the holding of “peaceful” marches on November 15 by a group called Archipiélago. The motivation for these marches was a call for change. The letter was not a formal request to occupy the busiest streets of some cities in Cuba, but rather a notification by the group that they would do so and they also demanded that the authorities provide them with security for these marches. By virtue of Cuban laws and obsessive American support for the marches, the Cuban government denied permission for holding the protests. Continue reading
Far-right Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona is drawing widespread condemnation for sharing an edited animated video depicting him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, conduct that lawmakers and others said warrants his immediate removal from office. Continue reading
A month before the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP26) kicked off in Scotland, a new asset class was launched by the New York Stock Exchange that will “open up a new feeding ground for predatory Wall Street banks and financial institutions that will allow them to dominate not just the human economy, but the entire natural world.” So writes Whitney Webb in an article titled “Wall Street’s Takeover of Nature Advances with Launch of New Asset Class.” Continue reading
We are a nation on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Continue reading
Reproductive rights advocates on Thursday doubled down on their urgent demand that federal lawmakers pass legislation to protect the right to abortion after Ohio Republicans introduced a total ban on the procedure—part of a proposal modeled on Senate Bill 8 in Texas. Continue reading
On October 18, 2021, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency for 60 days. This declaration led to the constitutional rights of Ecuadorian nationals being suspended and heavily armed troops flooding the streets in Ecuador. The immediate reason for the declaration was the murder of an 11-year-old boy named Sebastián Obando, who was killed in a crossfire between “an armed robber and a police officer” on October 17 at a cafeteria and ice cream parlor in the Centenario neighborhood in Guayaquil. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—Much is being made of several conservative justices appointed by Trump expressing concerns Monday about how the outrageous Texas abortion law is written to avoid federal judicial review. Continue reading
When I first saw Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison, in 2019, shortly after he had been dragged from his refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy, he said, “I think I am losing my mind.” Continue reading
Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have come under sharp pressure from Democrats on the way they are leading their respective departments. In Yellen’s case, it has been her foot dragging on “reworking,” as she put it, harsh U.S. sanctions on Cuba that were imposed by Donald Trump. In June, Yellen told the House Appropriations Committee that Treasury was “reviewing” Cuba sanctions. That is where she left it and no loosening of Cuba travel or trade restrictions have occurred so far this year. Continue reading
BALTIMORE—Once again, Democrats are negotiating with themselves as President Joe Biden, realizing that so-called “moderate” Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona remain obstinate in opposition to key elements of his agenda, is giving ground. But he also vows to keep trying to attain those goals. Continue reading
WASHINGTON— President Biden, the AFL-CIO, top unions, and key progressives condemned Senate Republicans’ defeat—again—of key legislation to protect voting rights and stop voter repression measures running rampant in Republican-run states from coast to coast. Continue reading
Question: What does a packet of M&M’s and your local veterinarian have in common? Answer: Both are owned by Mars Inc., the global candy monopolist. Continue reading
A coalition of more than two dozen press freedom groups on Monday intensified an earlier call demanding the U.S. Department of Justice drop its charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying the demand is now even more urgent due to recent reports that the CIA plotted to kidnap—and possibly kill—the journalist. Continue reading
Colin Powell, the former U.S. Secretary of State who helped President George W. Bush under whom he served to sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the United Nations and the American people, has died at the age of 84. Continue reading
Donald Trump and his acolytes are often complaining about the “deep state.” When asked to describe their “deep state,” Trumpists are unable to provide a coherent answer. Some spew forth the stock villains often cited by the far-right: the CIA, the Federal Reserve, the Vatican, George Soros, the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, the globalists, and, of course, their traditional target, the Jews. Continue reading
Reproductive rights advocates warned Thursday that the manslaughter conviction of a woman in Oklahoma following her pregnancy loss is just the latest case that sets a “dangerous precedent” for pregnant people across the country—and represents the result of numerous extreme restrictions on reproductive rights including Texas’ six-week abortion ban. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—Four and a half years ago, half a million people—mostly women sporting pink knitted hats—descended on Washington, D.C., to show loudly and clearly they stood against misogynist GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump and for a woman’s reproductive choice. Millions more joined them nationwide. Now expect them again. Continue reading
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