After President Joe Biden kicked off his White House tenure Wednesday by sacking several corrupt and incompetent holdovers from the Trump administration—including labor board attorney Peter Robb and CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger—progressives are urging the newly inaugurated president to keep the firing spree going by terminating his predecessor’s right-wing appointees at the Social Security Administration. Continue reading
Corrupt, sadistic, and run by a hereditary dictatorship, Azerbaijan is unfit to rule over others, least of all Armenian Christians. Continue reading
Much to the embarrassment of major corporations, their political donations were traced to the mayhem of January 6. Continue reading
On January 11, the Israeli Lod District Court ruled against a Palestinian film-maker, Mahmoud Bakri, ordering him to pay hefty compensation to an Israeli soldier who was accused, along with the Israeli military, of carrying out war crimes in April 2002, in the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp located in the northern occupied West Bank. Continue reading
No doubt about it: the coup d’état was successful. Continue reading
The temporary seizure of the U.S. Capitol by far-right supporters of Donald Trump should serve as the political death knell for the libertarian ideological base of “Trumpism.” Every day around the globe, legislators convene to deliberate over the passage of bills designed to improve the lot of the people who sent them there. These legislatures exist at the national, supranational, state, provincial, municipal, tribal, and island level. They have names like Chamber of Deputies, Diet, Senate, House of Commons, House of Representatives, National Assembly, Duma, Council of State, House of Keys, and House of Lords. Continue reading
Our shredded nation slowly breathes again as the unelected orange menace leaves us at last. If you somehow feel your mood lightening and your state of mind improving, here’s why: This twice-impeached viral dung heap who needlessly killed 400k-plus Americans, along with 13 federal prisoners he outright murdered at the last minute, is actually on his way out. Continue reading
The worse the political and economic crisis becomes, the more lethargic the US left behaves—as if generations of collaboration with corporate Democrats has sucked the life out of the left. Continue reading
We did it. We took control of the Senate from Mitch McConnell. Even so, Republicans may still be able to block key parts of Joe Biden’s agenda. But there are plenty of critical policies he can and must enact without them. Continue reading
The English expression “the calm before the storm” is defined as “a period of quiet that comes before a time of activity, excitement, violence, etc.” but in Washington there was no calm before the violent storm that swept through it on January 6, after the president of the United States had declared to a crowd of demonstrators near the White House that “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we’re probably not going to be cheering, so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong.” Continue reading
In 11 hours and 48 minutes from midnight, Donald J. Trump will no longer be president of the United States. Continue reading
At inauguration time, journalist I. F. Stone wrote, incoming presidents “make us the dupes of our hopes.” That insight is worth pondering as Joe Biden ascends to the presidency. After four years of the real-life Trump nightmare, hope is overdue—but it’s hazardous. Continue reading
In classical dramas, tragic figures are driven to their doom by some inexorable flaw in their character. Continue reading
A nation more seriously divided than in the 1960s when movements against war and racism pulled families and communities apart and drove some to drugs, drink, and worse, approaches a greater and more threatening social dissolution. When more than 74 million people can be reduced to “white supremacists” by alleged liberals with the same ease that past supposed conservatives were led to see a communist fiend behind every supporter of unity among people we are indeed in a time of all American hate crimes, thought crimes and worse. Those labels are being flung about by one or another bunch of hateful bigots, loving humanitarians or usually, both. Continue reading
Few will find it surprising that the incoming Biden administration looks, in both form and function, a lot like the Obama administration of 2009-2017. After all, Joe Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice-president for those eight years. His staff and cabinet appointments comprise a veritable Who’s Who of Obama holdovers and members of Biden’s own political circle, built over decades in the Senate and White House. Continue reading
People of the U.S. often fail to notice the methods their own government uses to do what amounts to brainwashing them. The book “Manufacturing Consent” by Edward S. Hermann and Noam Chomsky details how U.S. corporate-controlled mainstream media outlets (today that includes mainstream TV “news” networks, most mainstream magazines, newspapers, etc.) act as propagandists. Another excellent source on U. S. media propaganda is Michael Parenti’s book, “Inventing Reality.” Continue reading
In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, in 2015, former US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, vehemently denied that exporting democracy to Iraq was the main motive behind the US invasion of that Arab country 12 years earlier. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I was contemplating writing a piece for right about now suggesting that as a symbolic gesture and public service, one of Joe Biden’s first orders should be to tear down much of that ugly hurricane fencing around the White House and the surrounding neighborhood. After four years of corruption and skullduggery, as an emblem of a renewed openness and transparency, let the public see their new elected leader’s home and office without all the barriers. Continue reading
I keep hearing that Joe Biden will govern from the “center.” He has no choice, they say, because he’ll have razor-thin majorities in Congress and the Republican party has moved to the right. Continue reading
As I write this, the Capitol Hill riot of January 6 is enjoying its extended 15 minutes of fame, complete with straight-faced comparisons to December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001. Continue reading
Who is Victoria Nuland? Most Americans have never heard of her because the U.S. corporate media’s foreign policy coverage is a wasteland. Most Americans have no idea that President-elect Biden’s pick for Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs is stuck in the quicksand of 1950s U.S.-Russia Cold War politics and dreams of continued NATO expansion, an arms race on steroids and further encirclement of Russia. Continue reading
America is just starting to discover that it came within a hair’s breadth of witnessing its Constitution upended and a fascist dictatorship declared by Donald Trump as a result of the January 6 insurrection targeting the U.S. Capitol. Indeed, it is all but certain that Trump was borrowing a page from Adolf Hitler’s playbook in ordering Brown Shirts to set fire to the Reichstag in Berlin in 1933 and blaming the arson attack on “Communists” as a reason to suspend the democratic guarantees contained in the Weimar Constitution. According to those few witnesses to Trump’s expletive-laden rants in the Oval Office, the would-be dictator continues to blame the non-existent “antifa” for the attack on the Capitol. Bogus “antifa” attackers in 2021 are as much a propaganda device for Trump as fake “Communists” were for Hitler in 1933. Continue reading
We haven’t seen the last of billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Or, to put the matter a bit more exactly, we haven’t seen the last of Sheldon Adelson’s fortune. Continue reading
Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, a graduate of Harvard Law School, asked his colleagues: “If inciting a deadly insurrection is not enough to get a president impeached, then what is?” Ten Republicans voted for impeachment, but 197 House Republicans disagreed. Trump incited the crowd in person on the Mall. He lied to his supporters saying, “I’ll be with you” on the march to the Capitol. Trump then refused to call the crowd back when it turned into a mob that violently stormed into the Capitol. Trump scurried back to the White House to gleefully watch on TV his “special people” rampage through the Congress with destructive intent. Continue reading
Donald Trump won’t be around forever. But the political crises his attacks on democracy have caused will outlive his one-term presidency. Continue reading
The United States began as a glint in the eyes of an English mob of oddballs, dissenters, and criminals let loose on what they considered virgin territory. Once secure in their new digs, they administered rough justice to the original Americans and any colonist who fell afoul of community rules. Eventually, casting aside their imperial British overlords, the rabble achieved a measure of respectability by creating an independent state. Continue reading
At least partially under the radar Monday was a move by a newly elected member of the House that has opened the door to use of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to remove from office two top instigators of the fascist insurrection at the Capitol last week. Continue reading
Israel’s decision to exclude Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely callous. Continue reading
This holiday season, struggling families and businesses came close to getting a lump of coal from Congress. Only just before Christmas, as critical relief programs were about to expire, did lawmakers manage to pass a $900 billion aid package. Continue reading
It’s intense right now. Damn intense. Especially in America. Continue reading
A week ago, on Jan. 6, Donald J. Trump secured his place in history by becoming the only president of the United States to ever incite the violent overthrow of the government. His legacy in now further cemented by his becoming the first president to ever be impeached twice. The House of Representative has voted 232 to 197 to impeach Trump, formally branding him “a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution.” Ten Republicans broke with their party and joined the Democrats in condemning the White House occupant. Continue reading
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The time I got coffee with Hollywood Satanists
They were a lot nicer than QAnon conspiracy theorists seem to believe.
Posted on January 25, 2021 by Jill Richardson
In the interest of stemming the QAnon conspiracy theories about Satanist pedophile rings in Hollywood, I’d like to share my experience with actual Satanists in Hollywood. The truth is so much more boring than the (completely false) conspiracy theories. Continue reading →