America is now under armed assault, a tyranny that suppresses free speech and has produced almost-daily mass- and school-shootings, in a gun ownership frenzy fed by people who claim their power comes from the Constitution. Continue reading
Steve Bannon, the former political guru to Donald Trump and architect of the false narrative over the stolen 2020 election, should be prosecuted for more than merely contempt of Congress. There’s an abundance of prima facie evidence that Bannon was a key plotter in a fascist coup to overturn the presidential election to keep Trump in power. Continue reading
Stories about protagonists who’ve been misguided their whole lives about something very important have been emerging in our culture for generations, and they continue to delight audiences in the box office to this day. Continue reading
Donald Trump wanted to turn the Justice Department into his own private law firm, the FBI into his own political police force, the military into his own private security force, and the Secret Service into his own praetorian guard. He failed in all cases with the exception of the latter. Continue reading
Government watchdogs on Friday warned that a plan by former President Donald Trump to drastically remake the federal workforce should he win the presidency in 2024 would “utterly destroy” public service in the United States. Continue reading
Democrats, the Cato Institute’s Andy Craig points out at The Daily Beast, are trafficking in panic over an upcoming Supreme Court case, Moore v. Harper. Continue reading
There was a big lie that modern corporations sold to American workers in the late 20th century and into the first decade of the 21st century: It was that profit-driven entities could make both employees and customers happy enough that no interventions like worker unions or strong federal regulations were needed. Continue reading
Other than being an adjunct booster of overseas Pentagon military operations and refortifying its vulnerable embassies, what does the U.S. State Department stand for and do anymore? Continue reading
Nothing is private. Continue reading
With many lawmakers expressing disbelief that a law codifying the right to use birth control is needed in the U.S. in 2022, House Democrats passed the Right to Contraception Act on Thursday—joined by just eight Republicans as the party denied access to contraception is under attack. Continue reading
“We regret we failed to protect you.” This was part of a statement issued by United Nations human rights experts on July 14, urging the Israeli government to release Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra. Only 14 years old at the time of his arrest and torture by Israeli forces, Manasra is now 20 years old. His case is a representation of Israel’s overall inhumane treatment of Palestinian children. Continue reading
Florida’s outbreak of listeria has so far led to at least one death, 22 hospitalizations and an ice cream recall since January. Humans get sick with listeria infections, or listeriosis, from eating soil-contaminated food, undercooked meat or dairy products that are raw, or unpasteurized. Listeria can cause convulsions, coma, miscarriage and birth defects. And it’s the third leading cause of food poisoning deaths in the U.S. Continue reading
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 7 million Ukrainian refugees have left the country till mid-June. While some 1.5 million ended up in Russia, the rest have mostly entered the European Union, where they have been granted the right to live and work for up to three years, in addition to receiving welfare, education, housing, food, and medical assistance. Continue reading
The spirit of La Marseillaise, that greatest of all national anthems, is again infusing citizens in countries as diverse as Ukraine, Canada, England, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands, where the banners for liberté, liberté chérie are again unfurled against NATO’s “horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings.” Continue reading
History is repeating itself as far as the presence on the world stage of so many psychopaths in positions of leadership. The last time the world experienced a slew of bloodthirsty craven leaders with megadeath on their minds was World War II. That war etched into the collective memory of humankind such psychopaths as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco, Vidkun Quisling, Juan Peron, Subhas Chandra Bose, and an assortment of petit-tyrants, fascist despots, and bloodthirsty warlords whose names have largely been forgotten by history. Continue reading
Holidays in the United States celebrate awful events such as the settler colonists declaring independence from Britain so that they might take indigenous lands and protect slavery. There is also Thanksgiving, the commemoration of genocide turned into a day when Americans should think grateful thoughts before spending more than they can afford in order to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is ostensibly a religious holiday but is rarely treated as such. Labor Day was created to prevent acknowledgement of May 1, May Day, which commemorates just one example of U.S. state repression which took place in Chicago in 1886. Continue reading
Many big business CEOs turn out to be grifters who rip off consumers, workers, and others. But the corporate con artists I consider most vile are those who profiteer from people’s health care needs. Continue reading
Did you know chimpanzees hunt smaller primates for food? Continue reading
Many people have strong opinions about abortion—especially in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, revoking a constitutional right previously held by more than 165 million Americans. Continue reading
Rep. Cori Bush and Sen. Tina Smith introduced bicameral legislation Monday aimed at bolstering access to medication abortion as Republican-led states across the U.S. attempt to restrict distribution of the pills in their drive to ban abortion entirely. Continue reading
As fierce fighting continues in Ukraine and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss determines to arm Taiwan to fight China, Ecuadorian bananas have found themselves smack in the center of NATO’s campaign to crush Russia. The key to getting Russia to hoist the white flag and surrender her bountiful resources to the Anglo American alliance is, it seems, not only to deprive Russia of Ecuador’s bananas but to ensure the Russians cannot source their banana supply elsewhere. Continue reading
As he begins to campaign for the White House, Gov. Gavin Newsom is toying with extending operations at two of the world’s most dangerous atomic reactors, sited at the aptly named Diablo Canyon, nine miles west of San Luis Obispo. Continue reading
Since the turn of the century, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have played an increasingly important role in conflict zones. Because the lines between private military companies and private security companies are often blurred, the all-encompassing PMSC term is used to describe them. Continue reading
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion has far-reaching personal and political implications and may help decide the midterm elections in November 2022. Continue reading
While reproductive rights advocates and many Democrats on Friday welcomed the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of a bill protecting the right to travel for abortion care, Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. called out GOP lawmakers who opposed the legislation. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have finally had it with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s “sabotage”—Sanders’ word—of the party’s progressive agenda on Capitol Hill. Continue reading
The G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, June 26-28, and the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, two days later, were practically useless in terms of providing actual solutions to ongoing global crises—the war in Ukraine, the looming famines, climate change and more. But the two events were important, nonetheless, as they provide a stark example of the impotence of the West, amid the rapidly changing global dynamics. Continue reading
What Westerners call the West or Western civilization is a geopolitical space that emerged in the 16th century and expanded continuously until the 20th century. On the eve of World War I, about 90 percent of the globe was Western or Western-dominated: Europe, Russia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and much of Asia (with the partial exceptions of Japan and China). From then on, the West began to contract: first with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the emergence of the Soviet bloc, and then, from mid-century onward, with the decolonization movements. Terrestrial space, and soon after, extraterrestrial space, became fields of intense disputes. Continue reading
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was predictable even as it was shocking. Right-wing forces have spent years working painstakingly on multiple fronts in plain sight to ensure that the right to an abortion would no longer be guaranteed, and they have won. Two of the three Supreme Court Justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, who were appointed by former President Donald Trump, stand accused of lying about their positions on abortion. A third, Justice Clarence Thomas, invited challenges to same-sex marriage and the right to contraception as part of his undoing of Roe, hinting at the right-wing’s future targets. Continue reading
It is quite clear that Donald Trump and his supporters who took part in planning and executing the January 6th insurrection in Washington, DC aimed to kill as many members of Congress, government employees, and journalists as possible. Thanks to the January 6 Select Committee’s investigation to date, we know that the insurrection was planned weeks in advance by Trump and his inside and outside advisers. The J6 Committee played a video of one such Trump supporter, a YouTube blogger who goes by the handle “Salty Cracker,” exhorting his 750,000 subscribers to join in what was planned to be a bloody uprising in Washington on January 6. He said, “You better understand something, son. Red wave, bitch! There’s gonna be a Red Wedding going down Jan. 6 . . . Motherfucker, you better look outside. You better look out Jan. 6, kick that fucking door open and look down the street. There’s going to be a million-plus geeked-up, armed Americans.” Continue reading
The collapse of the short-lived Israeli government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid validates the argument that the political crisis in Israel was not entirely instigated and sustained by former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Continue reading
RSS
The Trump-initiated civil war to come: a complete description
Posted on July 26, 2022 by Jack Balkwill
Right now, you’re probably asking yourself, “What does Jack think would likely happen if a shooting war broke out between Democrats and Republicans?” Continue reading →