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Business as usual: Politicians cynically exploit child sex victims in attack on your freedom
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
The terrible fate facing the Afghan people
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
Rather than sink Main Street by raising interest rates, the Fed could save it
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
Fossil fuel companies and their mouthpieces offer net-zero logic on climate change
Oil and gas CEOs were too chicken to show up to a recent congressional hearing—perhaps fearing that their climate pledges will be revealed as nothing more than slick PR.
Everywhere around us there is evidence of climate change, from the increase in winter storms such as New England’s late January blizzard, to California’s recent record-breaking winter heat wave. Meanwhile, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP, whose products directly fuel global warming, have done little to counter the disastrous trend. While they have made promises that sound constructive on the surface, a cursory examination reveals them to be hollow. Perhaps worried about their deception being exposed, the executives and board members of these fossil fuel companies snubbed members of Congress at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on February 8, 2022. Continue reading
Old world odor needs cleansing by a new world order before the stench kills everyone
The imperial center of the capitalist attack on nature in pursuit of private profits that threaten ultimate public loss continues into the new year, but we’re hopefully closer to a solution of our racial (human) problem at this most crucial time. With countless systemic breakdowns and divisions among people that seem, especially in America, to invite calamity, it may be the rest of the world that offers the most hope. Continue reading
‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill by Florida GOP ignites national condemnation
"If we don't speak up now, and act, Republicans will keep fighting to make laws like DeSantis' hateful 'Don't Say Gay' bill the norm," warned one advocate
Opponents of bigotry and censorship are raising their voices in protest after Florida’s GOP-controlled Senate Education Committee on Tuesday advanced legislation that would effectively prohibit teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in primary grades or at any level “in a manner that is not age-appropriate.” Continue reading
Cubans will not forget U.S. treachery
Is the U.S. in a position to maintain the embargo upon the pretext of bringing democracy to Cuba with its record in destabilising secure states, even those upholding democracy?
Economic sanctions against Cuba were discussed in April 1960 by the U.S. government. If the U.S. found it impossible to counter the Cuban Revolution, a memorandum with the subject “The Decline and Fall of Castro” stated, economic hardships should be imposed on the island. “If such a policy as adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” Continue reading
They don’t just lie to us about wars; they lie to us about everything
Propaganda isn’t just about manufacturing consent for wars and ridiculous governmental measures we’d never normally accept. That’s what most people think of when they hear that word, but there’s so very, very much more to it than that. Continue reading
How student debt is sabotaging America
Ronald Reagan knew that an educated populace was more progressive and more Democratic, and he was determined to stop the explosion of college educated Americans caused by both the 1944 GI Bill and free tuition at the University of California. Continue reading
Eric Adams’ Black on Black crime
The mass incarceration state was built to lock up as many Black people as possible and discussion of even modest reforms is shut down. Such was the case in New York where the mayor and police commissioner smeared Manhattan's district attorney, forcing him to backtrack on his campaign promise of reducing the number of prison sentences. The Black face rises to the high place because of adherence to white supremacist ideology.
The term “black on black crime” is a particularly pernicious trope. It is a ruse used to absolve the systemic racism which kills Black people in a plethora of ways. It invalidates Black people’s suffering and gives license to law enforcement and its many acts of brutality. Continue reading
Cooperative artist residencies give Black creatives the space to thrive
How two nascent artist residencies on opposite sides of the country are giving Black creatives opportunities to rest and create.
Under the pervasive stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, waxing and waning ad infinitum, with no end in sight, finding time to be creative for creativity’s sake can provide a booster to mental health, according to a study conducted in March 2021. Members of the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) community already coping with the degrading effects of systemic racism on their mental health are in even greater need of time devoted to arts and crafts. However, renting a studio space, affording equipment and supplies, or having any free time at all for creative pursuits may only seem like a pipe dream to poor Black creatives living paycheck to paycheck—ubiquitously oppressed by institutional racism. Continue reading
How China became an Olympic boogeyman for the West
The history of the Olympic Games shows both the struggle by China and the Global South to be accepted by the U.S. and other imperialist nations, as well as alternative models to it.
In the early 1990s, barely a decade after rejoining the Olympic movement, Beijing launched a bid to host the 2000 Games. Unfortunately by then, U.S. policy had begun to shift perceptibly from the honeymoon years of rapprochement. Gone was the incentive for even arch-reactionaries like U.S. Presidents Nixon and Reagan to embrace the People’s Republic of China (PRC) effusively in the name of hard-nosed anti-Soviet realpolitik. With the end of the first Cold War, anticommunism also receded as a guiding framework for U.S. imperial rhetoric, in favor of a universalized (if richly hypocritical) weaponization of neoliberal “human rights.” This was a discursive terrain tilted heavily toward bourgeois democracies in the imperial core, on which China was hardly more equipped to compete than it had been in the Mao era. Continue reading
Helsinki 2.0
The European security order has broken down. The conflict around Ukraine is a symptom of this larger problem.
The European security order has broken down. Continue reading
Spotify’s business model is screwing over musicians and ruining music
The recent spat between Neil Young and Spotify reminds us that the world’s largest streaming company only cares about profits—which is what independent musicians have been complaining about for years.
Neil Young’s recent decision to pull his music from Spotify, the world’s largest streaming service, has shaken up the music industry and sparked broader questions about how streaming services operate. Young demanded that the company choose between his music or Joe Rogan’s misinformation-laden podcast. Spotify chose Rogan. Continue reading
Demon slayers to the rescue
We live in a time of multi-leveled ghastliness. People are dropping dead from COVID and dropping dead from the vaccine that’s supposed to prevent it. The weather is rampaging, the earth spewing fire. Mental illness has become normal. Continue reading
The geopolitics behind spiraling gas and electricity prices in Europe
Markets do not solve the problem of energy pricing. What is required is planning and long-term investments in infrastructure.
The current crisis of spiraling gas prices in Europe, coupled with a cold snap in the region, highlights the fact that the transition to green energy in any part of the world is not going to be easy. The high gas prices in Europe also bring to the forefront the complexity involved in transitioning to clean energy sources: that energy is not simply about choosing the right technology, and that transitioning to green energy has economic and geopolitical dimensions that need to be taken into consideration as well. Continue reading
How the “moral panic” of Critical Race Theory morphed into a book-banning frenzy
The moral panic currently sweeping America about Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been covered ad nauseum by the press and commentators across the political spectrum. That’s what typically happens with moral panics (more on that in a moment). Continue reading
Marti’s relevance to the Cuban revolution
Marti was an important prelude to Cuba’s ongoing tenacity to define its liberation according to revolutionary values, as opposed to colonial and imperial impositions.
On January 28, Cubans celebrated the 169th anniversary of Jose Marti’s birth—the Cuban poet and revolutionary upon whose values the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro was founded. In the aftermath of the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 when being interrogated by dictator Fulgencio Batista’s officers, Fidel described Marti as “the intellectual author of this revolution.” In 2010, Fidel had declared, “I can only bear witness to the way in which the heroic city [of Santiago de Cuba] fell in the hands of the Rebel Army on January 1st, 1959. Then, Marti’s ideas triumphed in our country!” Continue reading
Data highlights ‘egregious’ pandemic profiteering by US food and oil giants
On the eve of a congressional hearing on corporate price hikes, a new analysis shows that "companies are hiding behind the pandemic and supply chain disruptions as an excuse to gouge consumers."
A new analysis released Tuesday ahead of a congressional hearing on pandemic-era price gouging shows that U.S. corporations in the food and energy sectors—from Tyson to Exxon Mobil—are pushing higher costs onto consumers while raking in ever-increasing revenues and handing executives massive pay packages. Continue reading
Are you making these medication mistakes?
Drugs can help us, but not when we use them too long, for the wrong things, or when better treatments are available.
Americans might be the most medicated people in the world thanks to aggressive drug-maker marketing and favorable regulation. But drugs can be over-prescribed, conditions over-diagnosed, and less expensive non-drug treatments slighted. Here are common dangers to watch for in your and your family’s medication use. Continue reading
Russia bashing on Sunday propaganda TV
As hegemon USA, NATO vassal regimes and their MSM press agents wage war of words on Russia, Sino/Russian ties are stronger and more durable than any previous time throughout the post-WW II period. Continue reading
Israel’s hasbara in Sheikh Jarrah: On Gilad Erdan’s ‘terrorist’ rock and faulty logic
Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, is leading his country’s anti-Palestinian propaganda, this time engaging in pre-emptive hasbara in anticipation of a Palestinian response to the ongoing evictions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Continue reading
Will I be forced to register as a Russian agent?
Over the years, as a journalist and newspaper editor, I have been accused of a variety of things, received death threats and even had a National Park Service historian threaten to kill me right in front of my mother (while I shrugged his threat off, she wasn’t amused). Continue reading
Theranos verdict: In the U.S., it is fine to lie to consumers but not to investors
Hyper-capitalism has systematically weakened regulations to help capital at the cost of consumers. The verdict on the Elizabeth Holmes case simply illustrates the growing post-’90s disregard for consumers.
The verdict on Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who was tried for fraud in a U.S. court, was guilty. Theranos was a company set up by Holmes and her former partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani and had promised to revolutionize blood testing. Their advanced biotech equipment—they claimed—would provide results for a whole battery of tests with just a few drops of blood. In its heyday, Theranos was worth more than $9 billion, and Elizabeth Holmes was looked at as “the next Steve Jobs.” She was also the face that launched $724 million in stock sales to private equity firms and venture capitalists. Holmes figured in Time’s 2015 list of the 100 most influential people of the year and was feted by Wall Street as the “world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.” Continue reading
Key battleground states considering using digital ballot images to boost voter trust
During an afternoon of public hearings where the Arizona Senate sent seven new election bills to the next stage of legislative review, Kari Lake, leaned into the podium, and, after introducing herself as “the Trump-endorsed candidate for governor,” told the Government Committee how she felt her 2020 presidential election vote had been stolen. Continue reading
Tales of invasions past: The facts about Russia’s ‘annexation’ of Crimea
In June 1985, as the Morning Star’s Moscow correspondent, I had the chance to visit the Crimean peninsula, for centuries a holiday and recuperation favorite for Russian leaders and famous writers like Mikhail Lermontov, Anton Chekhov (whose famous short story The Lady with the Little Dog was set in Yalta), Leo Tolstoy (whose family lived for nearly a year in an old mansion in Gaspra), Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and many other prominent Russians of pre-revolutionary times. Continue reading
California could be on the verge of passing single-payer health care
If passed, a new bill would establish a streamlined, publicly funded single-payer health care system in California, paid for by progressive taxes—in the face of dogged opposition from corporate profiteers.
Imagine living in a society where a medical diagnosis does not trigger crippling fears of the cost of treatment and prescription drugs, where switching jobs or being laid off didn’t include considerations around health insurance coverage, where trips to the emergency room don’t generate thousands of dollars in bills, and where the out-of-pocket cost of seeing a doctor is zero. Continue reading
Community’s response to Israel’s administrative detention should go beyond humanitarian grounds
The absence of a persistent strategy to counter Israel’s human rights violations and to hold the settler colonial state accountable is of detriment to the Palestinian people, who remain shackled to humanitarian agendas.
A seriously ill Palestinian teenage refugee boy, Amal Nakhleh, has brought Israel’s administrative detention system to the news headlines. Nakhleh, who is 17 years old and who suffers from a serious medical condition and who underwent an operation to remove a tumour from his ribcage prior to his detention by Israeli forces, has been held without charges in administrative detention since January 2021, and his latest extension was yet lengthened again this January until May 2022. Continue reading
Morality cannot be divided: How Netanyahu’s corruption has exposed Israel’s ‘democracy’
Former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his prosecutors are reportedly finalizing the details of a plea deal that would practically water down, shelve, or drop altogether all three major corruption cases that have led to his high-profile trial in May 2020. If such news actualizes, Israel would officially sink to a new low in terms of political nepotism and corruption. Continue reading
If a criminal becomes president, do you get more crime?
Years ago when Nextdoor.com rolled out, Louise signed up to see what was happening in our neighborhood; back then it was mostly people offering kittens, trying to find their lost dogs, or begging neighbors to take piles of zucchini. Today, in many parts of the country, it’s become a running list of assaults and burglaries. Continue reading
Ukraine and U.S. war propaganda
The 2014 U.S. sponsored coup against the elected government of Ukraine must be the starting point for any discussion of the current crisis. That crisis has been manufactured by Joe Biden, who was the Obama administration point person in using Ukraine as a means of destabilizing Russia.
The corporate media always carry water for the state, and they are never more dangerous than when the nation is on a war footing. Right now the United States government is sending weapons to Ukraine. One wouldn’t know that because of constant references to “lethal aid.” The euphemisms and subterfuge are necessary for a very simple reason. Everyone except the Washington war party knows that provoking war with Russia is extremely dangerous. Continue reading
Why is Olympian Eileen Gu so controversial?
Perhaps it is because as a young, biracial woman, she dared to make a choice for herself.
Posted on February 15, 2022 by Lauren Gonitzke
Eileen Gu is an 18-year-old from San Francisco who made the decision to ski in the 2022 Beijing Olympics for China instead of the United States and just won the gold in freestyle skiing. You may have either heard her name mentioned during the Olympic coverage or by the likes of television host Tucker Carlson and South African comedian Trevor Noah. Continue reading →