Macron’s incitement: ‘Crisis in Islam’ or French politics?

There is no moral or ethical justification for the killing of innocent people, anywhere. Therefore, the murder of three people in the French city of Nice on October 29 must be wholly and unconditionally rejected as a hate crime, especially as it was carried out in a holy place, the Notre Dame Basilica. Continue reading

Traffic jams and boarded windows: Trump’s American carnage

With only a few days to go before Election Day 2020, Donald Trump supporters attempted to run a Biden-Harris campaign bus off of a highway near Austin, Texas, and blocked traffic on the Mario Cuomo Bridge over the Hudson River, the Garden State Parkway, and the Washington DC Beltway. Two Trump “poll challengers,” one wearing a horror movie mask, attempted to intimidate early voters in Detroit and there were reports of other Trump supporters menacing voters and polling precinct authorities in other locations around the nation. Continue reading

Trump’s anti-communism worked, but only in Miami

For months, Trump’s re-election campaign regularly charged that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were at minimum the puppets of the “radical left.” At worse, the Democratic nominees were themselves socialist extremists who were pals with left-wing governments in Havana and Caracas. Across most of the United States, the fictional claims failed to capture much appeal outside the MAGA crowd. But one place where Republicans’ anti-communism played just as intended was south Florida—where Cuban exiles make up a substantial segment of voters. Continue reading

Amid deadly and intensifying pandemic, Kushner-owned company moves to evict hundreds of tenants

‘We don't need slumlords running our country—we need to cancel rent and ensure that housing is a human right.’

An apartment company co-owned by President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is reportedly moving to evict hundreds of tenants who are behind on their rent payments, threatening to force low-income families onto the streets in the midst of an intensifying pandemic and nationwide economic crisis. Continue reading

‘They tried to freeze me to death’: Torture and resistance in Israeli prisons

Mohammad Ibrahim Ali al-Deirawi was born on January 30, 1978, in Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. His family is originally from Bir Al-Saba’, an ethnically cleansed Palestinian town located in the southern Naqab desert. Mohammad was arrested by the Israeli army at a military checkpoint in central Gaza on March 1, 2001. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the armed Palestinian resistance, and was freed on October 18, 2011, in a prisoner exchange between the Palestinian resistance and Israel. Continue reading

Electoral musings: Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix

It is perfectly valid for the American public to express outrage over Trump’s declaration of victory, but the entire American media and political class forever lost all legitimacy to condemn a nation’s leader from illegitimately crowning themselves by backing the Venezuela coup. Continue reading

Trump’s executive order to manipulate the minds of US schoolchildren

On November 2, Trump signed an executive order that aims to manipulate the minds of young children. Continue reading

Freedom Rider: Black people lose in 2020

Black people will get nothing from a Joe Biden administration except fiscal austerity and the precarity that comes with it. Continue reading

Western civilization? A good idea

The Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi was asked what he thought about western civilization. His answer? “I think it is a good idea.” Continue reading

Israel’s contribution to the destruction of Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh

Every state makes decisions and enacts policies based on its interests and security perceptions. Some state decisions are more insidious than others in that the secondary effects can be devastating, especially by those states that can project sovereignty outside their own borders. Continue reading

Political assassinations are a hallmark of fascist regimes

Recent arrests made in the United States of armed right-wing gangsters intent on kidnapping and assassinating state, local, and national leaders is another indication of the adverse effect the Trump administration and its supporters have had on the overall political stability of the United States. There have been right wing plots to kidnap and place on “trial” the Democratic Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, and the Republican Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine. The same Michigan group that threatened Whitmer also threatened to abduct Democratic Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia. In all three cases, the governors were targeted by self-styled “citizens’ militias,” which are nothing more than terrorist groups, that planned to place the governors on trial in sham proceedings with likely guilty verdicts for instituting public health restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the violent nature of these groups, the executions of the governors would have been the likely outcomes of the vigilantes’ clandestine “trials” for alleged “tyranny.” Continue reading

America after the election: A few hard truths about the things that won’t change

The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us. Continue reading

Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does

This could be our last chance to send the American dictator packing.

November 3 is upon us. At the risk of overstating the obvious, if you haven’t already done so, and in the name of all that’s good and fair, please exercise your right to vote. It’s more crucial than ever. Truly. Continue reading

This election is about Trump’s pandemic failures. But what happens next?

It’s going to take more than a change of personnel in Washington to address our decaying climate, public health, and democracy. But it’s not too late.

In 2008, Americans voted for hope and change. In 2016, they voted for fire and fury—and change. In 2020, the vote for change comes from an entirely different quarter. Continue reading

The stock market is not the economy

Whatever happens to the economy—jobs, wages, the hardships so many are facing—the stock market seems to be in a world of its own. Why? Continue reading

What does Israel have against Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf?

Why does Israel hate Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf? Continue reading

The pandemic has been a bonanza for the rich

Billionaires are letting their money make money for them, while CEOs slash jobs and reward themselves with bonuses.

Let’s say you’re a millionaire. That’s a lot of money, right? Now let’s say you’re a billionaire. That’s a lot more money! But how much more? Continue reading

The new kings of jihadist terrorism: Azerbaijan and Turkey

The vicious war against the Armenian Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) and Armenia by Azerbaijan, Turkey, and thousands of their jihadist terrorists has passed the one month mark. Continue reading

A day away from Nov. 3, another week of Trumpian havoc

But despite everything, Christmas may be a little bit early this year.

Hard to believe. Coming into the final stretch, remarkably it seems that—in some of their TV ads at least—the Trump campaign’s closing argument is: Oh c’mon, he’s not so bad. Continue reading

Calling this ‘our democracy’ is like slaves referring to ‘our plantation’

While Americans are reprogrammed every four years for the most important desperately crucial national emergency election since the last one, which will assure that Wall Street, the Pentagon, Israel and billionaires maintain power and control over everything that matters, most eligible voters will choose neither of the ruling power’s candidates and in a sense exercise democratic values by refusing to act as majority puppets. Continue reading

Is Pharma our COVID savior?

The COVID pandemic has given Pharma a temporary halo. Who cares about its prohibitively expensive drugs, the way it hides drug risks, the way that it “sells” diseases through TV ads and “symptom checkers” and the opioid epidemic it created? We need a vaccine and we need it now! Already Pharma has received $1 billion of our hard earned tax dollars to develop COVID vaccines. Continue reading

SpaceX’s declaration of space independence is just common sense

Sooner or later, absent some kind of mass extinction event, humankind will establish itself there: On the Moon. On Mars. Among the asteroids. Someday even on planets orbiting distant stars. Continue reading

Ending regime change in Bolivia and the world

Less than a year after the United States and the U.S.-backed Organization of American States (OAS) supported a violent military coup to overthrow the government of Bolivia, the Bolivian people have reelected the Movement for Socialism (MAS) and restored it to power. Continue reading

‘Dangerously authoritarian’: Trump says ‘hopefully’ courts will stop states from counting ballots after November 3

‘He's saying it out loud: he wants courts to block legally cast ballots from being counted.’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again openly voiced hope that U.S. courts—now packed with his right-wing judges—will intervene and stop states from counting legally submitted ballots after November 3, remarks that came just before the U.S. Supreme Court suggested it could invalidate late-arriving Pennsylvania votes after Election Day. Continue reading

Trump’s lies to seniors and veterans

Here in the heart of Florida’s retirement community, that swath consisting of gated communities, condominiums, and apartment complexes that surround Interstate 4 from Tampa through Lakeland, Kissimmee, and Orlando to Daytona Beach, Donald Trump’s promises to senior citizens and veterans have never produced any results. The laissez-faire public health policies enacted by Trump, aided and abetted by Florida’s incompetent Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, have resulted in needless deaths among seniors and veterans. These vulnerable members of society with co-morbidities, including heart disease, diabetes, and for veterans, combat-related injuries, were made more susceptible to Covid-19 super-spreading resulting from Trump campaign rallies in Sanford, The Villages, and Ocala. Continue reading

Something wicked this way comes: Anarchy Is being loosed upon the nation

Things are falling apart. Continue reading

The world is changing: China launches campaign for superpower status

The outdated notion that China ‘just wants to do business’ should be completely erased from our understanding of the rising global power’s political outlook. Continue reading

From a wealthy socialite to an Israeli govt censor, Facebook’s new ‘free speech court’ is anything but independent

Freedom of speech on the Internet is all but extinct, and on the eve of the 2020 US elections, a de facto ‘free speech court’ is going to make sure it never comes back. On Facebook at least.

Days away from the most polarized electoral contest in American history, social media companies like Facebook have vowed to censor any voices which they and their partners in the federal government consider inconvenient. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook is ready to implement election information strategies that have been in the works for years. Continue reading

Freedom Rider: Campaign confusion in the age of collapse

Biden always obliges Trump by denying that he will do anything that rank and file Democrats want and that would in fact increase his odds of winning. Continue reading

‘He’s down to steal this thing’: Kavanaugh parrots Trump mail-in ballot lies as Supreme Court bars extension of Wisconsin deadline

‘Kavanaugh is announcing to the world that if it will help Trump win, he will join a decision to not cunt votes.’

The U.S. Supreme Court late Monday delivered a victory for the Republican Party by barring the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin from extending its Election Day deadline for the arrival of absentee ballots amid the pandemic, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh issuing an ominous concurring opinion that echoes President Donald Trump’s false narrative on mail-in voting. Continue reading

The Barrett travesty

Amy Coney Barrett is nothing if not consistent. Time and again, she refused during her confirmation hearings to say a word about any judicial decision or any of the major political issues of the day. The ostensible reason: it would compromise her judicial independence. Continue reading

Reversing the GOP power grab

Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation as the ninth justice on the U.S. Supreme Court is a travesty of democracy. Continue reading