Environmental and climate campaigners decried Monday’s announcement that the Biden administration—which promotes nuclear energy as part of its solution to the climate emergency—will give more than a billion dollars to California’s largest utility to keep the state’s last nuclear power plant operating. Continue reading
“If John Fetterman lacks the stomach to expose the entire Oz-Turkish love affair, particularly Ankara’s support of ISIS, he may lose … and will deserve it.” Continue reading
Nearly 50,000 academic workers at the University of California launched a historic strike on November 14 after contract negotiations with their employer failed. Postdoctoral scholars, researchers, trainees, fellows, graduate student instructors, readers, and tutors, who are from 10 UC campuses across the state and are unionized with United Auto Workers, walked out of their jobs. Continue reading
Evoking memories of the days when Republicans in control of the House used non-stop investigations and the Tea Party to almost bring down then-President Barack Obama’s historic agenda, the leaders of the GOP in the House made it clear Thursday that they intend to do the same thing to President Joe Biden. Continue reading
Reproductive rights advocates, attorneys, and family members of people who have died as a result of Poland’s stringent abortion ban were among those who testified before the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday, calling on the body to take every available action to protect Polish people from “conservative politicians” whose ban has led to at least six deaths so far. Continue reading
This was the most important election in American history, as was the previous one, the one before that, and all previous exercises of marketing that pose as democratic rule in our great example of how to fool most of the people most of the time. Of course this election, as all others, cost more money than the previous marketing fiasco, when more than 14 billion dollars were spent on the 2020 purchase of the White House and Congress which rose to more than 16 billion for this cycle of shopping center lesser evilism that cost even more just to purchase Congress. Clearly, democracy survived its most serious assault in the history of marketing, at least according to our mind managers and consciousness controllers who make pimps and sex workers seem like poets of love. The only thing that is consistent in our one corrupt system with two corrupt parties is the rising profit margin as all manner of advertising, insurance, polling and other marketplace hustlers feast on the profits available in marketing capitalist democracy while claiming to stand for truth, beauty and other forms of mass hallucinations. Continue reading
On November 16, the Respect for Marriage Act achieved 62 votes for “cloture” in the US Senate, meaning that it will proceed to floor debate and likely—after reconciliation with the House version, which passed in July—become law. Continue reading
Soon after arriving in Oslo, my taxi zigzagged through the city’s well-organized streets and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Large billboards advertised the world’s leading brands in fashion, cars, and perfumes. Amid all the expressions of wealth and plenty, an electronic sign by a bus stop flashed the images of poor looking African children needing help. Continue reading
The votes are in. Continue reading
Although it was hardly a newsworthy event when Donald Trump, in a lackluster November 15 speech at his Mar-a-Lago grifters’ club in Florida, announced that he was launching another presidential campaign, it served as an example of the growth of nihilism among the “libertarian” right, fascist far-right, and various lunatic conspiracy-obsessed factions of the left in the world today. From Trump’s ongoing “Make America Great Again” traveling white nationalist carnival act and the BREXIT catastrophe in the United Kingdom to the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s imperialist threat to attack and occupy Taiwan, the “burn it all down” approach to governance has taken hold in the halls of power of dozens of nations, including those that possess nuclear weapons. Continue reading
The House on Wednesday passed bipartisan legislation that prohibits employers from using pre-dispute non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or non-disparagement clauses to silence survivors of workplace sexual assault and harassment. Continue reading
At a recent Istanbul conference that brought many Palestinian scholars and activists together to discuss the search for a common narrative on Palestine, a Palestinian member of the audience declared at the end of a brief, but fiery intervention, ‘we are not red Indians’. Continue reading
As cryptocurrency exchange FTX falls into bankruptcy and its principals seem likely to face various criminal charges over the activities leading to that bankruptcy, it’s time for another round of crowing from opponents (and would-be regulators) of cryptocurrency. Which means it’s time for another round of pointing out where those opponents and would-be regulators are all wet. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—Former Oval Office Republican occupant Donald Trump has announced yet another run for the White House, even as many Republicans expressed unhappiness with their master, not because they reject his politics, but because they think it is his style that caused mass rejection of his endorsed midterm candidates by the voters. Continue reading
As former President Donald Trump prepared to announce his 2024 presidential campaign Tuesday, Rep. David Cicilline was circulating a letter to his fellow Democratic lawmakers calling on them to support legislation that would bar Trump from running, citing his involvement in the January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Continue reading
In the face of midterm election results that confounded predictions and crushed Republican hopes for a landslide victory, some in the media are suggesting that the party may finally turn away from Trump. Continue reading
After 36 years of incarceration, political prisoner Mutulu Shakur was granted parole after having been denied on nine occasions. Invariably media accounts mention that he is the step-father of the late rapper and actor Tupac Shakur while saying little about his own history. Any of the elder Shakur’s accomplishments are given short shrift in favor of an emphasis on pop culture celebrity. Continue reading
I wonder if my own government is being truthful about its actions in that part of the world? Continue reading
While some high-profile Republicans are ditching Donald Trump after a series of major losses for the party in 2018, 2020, and 2022, the political brand of “Trumpism,” an anti-democratic fascist movement, is not likely to disappear any time soon. Militant political movements that double as cults of personality often long outlive their demagogic leaders. As significant far-right ideologies, Trumpism and its Tea Party forerunner may continue as a potent force within the GOP for several decades. Ronald Reagan left office in 1989, but his philosophy of Reaganism, itself an outgrowth of Barry Goldwater’s brand of doctrinaire conservatism, was only recently discarded with the ascendancy of Trumpism. Goldwater’s extreme conservatism was emblematic of a party that had, for thirty years, dabbled in the extremism of the pro-Nazi Germany American First movement in the 1930s and early 1940s, the postwar Red Scare politics of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the unhinged conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society. Continue reading
Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State, has defeated Republican Kari Lake in the battleground’s closely watched gubernatorial race, scoring the latest victory over a Trump-backed candidate who openly embraced the former president’s lies about the 2020 election. Continue reading
Who “won” the 2022 midterm elections? Who has cause to crow the loudest? Democrats? They averted the traditional midterm swoon. Florida governor—and presidential hopeful—Ron DeSantis? His state GOP team swept away Dems at every level. Republicans in the House? They’re claiming a bare majority, enough to make life hell for President Joe Biden over the rest of his term. Continue reading
Far-right politicians are dragging America back to the 19th century. Continue reading
The day after every midterm congressional election, conventional wisdom turns to “the presidential campaign starts today.” Continue reading
The pundits are mystified by last Tuesday’s election outcome: they were certain a red wave was on its way. Continue reading
Americans invested in the idea of living in a democracy heaved a collective sigh of relief the day after the 2022 midterm elections when it became clear that the dire predictions of a Republican sweep were overblown. Democrats made greater gains than expected, winning races in both the Senate and the House that they didn’t expect to. Continue reading
While it’s still too soon to know the full results of the midterms, there were some major victories on Tuesday night that spanned the entire country. Continue reading
Juliana Cardoso is sitting in her office in front of a lavender, orange, and yellow mandala that was made for her. She has been a member of São Paulo’s city council since 2008. On October 2, 2022, as a candidate for the Workers Party (PT), Cardoso won a seat in Brazil’s lower house, the Federal Chamber of Deputies. Continue reading
Make no mistake about it, those who have demonized modern medical practices, including vaccinations and women’s health care—pejoratively referred to as “abortion” by its opponents—have no place in the public commons as they issue forth snake oil treatments and, like Dr. Mehmet Oz, suggest that an abortion is between a woman, her doctor, and her local politicians. Continue reading
If the powerful leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Jack Reed (D) and Jim Inhofe (R), have their way, Congress will soon invoke wartime emergency powers to build up even greater stockpiles of Pentagon weapons. The amendment is supposedly designed to facilitate replenishing the weapons the United States has sent to Ukraine, but a look at the wish list contemplated in this amendment reveals a different story. Continue reading
The political civil war that is erupting in the Republican Party between loyalists of Donald Trump and Florida’s recently re-elected governor, Ron DeSantis, has the making for a full-blown Hatfield and McCoy-style feud. Although Trump supporters are largely cultists adhering to QAnon and white nationalist drivel, DeSantis supporters include several former Trump fans who are no less driven to settling scores on the streets. No sooner had he taken to disparaging DeSantis on his Truth Social platform, Trump began re-transmitting scores of anti-DeSantis postings from QAnon accounts. Continue reading
Palestinians and their supporters are justified in celebrating the election victory of the leftist presidential candidate, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brazil’s runoff elections on October 30. But Lula’s victory is incomplete and could ultimately prove ineffectual if not followed by a concrete and centralized Palestinian strategy. Continue reading
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Musk’s free speech moves on Twitter have so far been unimpressive
Posted on November 22, 2022 by Caitlin Johnstone
When Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter was first announced this past April I said that the purchase likely wouldn’t go through if the empire thought it posed a threat to its information interests. I said that any reduction of censorship protocols which Musk implements on the platform would probably not be of the sort that make any difference to the powerful, but would instead just amplify vapid partisan culture war nonsense. Continue reading →