Imagine standing at a TSA security checkpoint on your way home for the holidays. You’re getting ready to go through the awkward travel procedures instituted almost immediately after 9/11 when the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) was created and air travel in the United States morphed into a search and seizure operation with the implied possibility of your detention and interrogation. Continue reading
Repeating his desire for a winner to be declared on the night of November 3, President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he doesn’t “believe” tallying votes for weeks after Election Day is lawful, a remark observers interpreted as yet another open signal of the president’s intention to challenge the counting of legally submitted ballots. Continue reading
When geopolitical power, malignant governance, military might and petroleum wealth determine the political pecking order, being a landlocked country on the right side of history is a minor detail. It is through this lens that global citizens may observe the tiny besieged Republic of Armenia fighting for its survival alone against neighboring aggressors, ISIS, civilian bombings, foreign actors provoking instability in a bid for regional dominance, and world powers which gang up like hyenas before an uncaring world. Continue reading
I’d like to tell you a folktale. It’s called “The Emperor’s New 9/11.” Continue reading
Hidden behind the dull silver sheen of chain-link fences and concrete walls are the gut-wrenching, shallow-breathed screams of children. They watch with tear-blurred eyes as their parents are pulled away from them by Immigration and Border Control officers, unsure of what comes next or whether they will ever see, or hear, or hold their mothers and fathers again. Continue reading
Political analysts of all stripes have concluded that President Trump has a base of supporters who are credulous, immovable, and unpersuadable. Allow us to briefly test that hypothesis, but to ignore the skins-shirts labels—Left-Right, Democrat-Republican—that often though not always determine how a person votes. Continue reading
On November 9, 1932, the day after Election Day, progressively minded Americans woke up feeling a sense of relief—and a sense they might finally have an opportunity to forge real social change. At that moment, in the depth of the Great Depression, progressives could sense a new beginning. Continue reading
There is hardly a nation on earth that hasn’t been negatively impacted by the lethal, highly-contagious virus that has swept over our planet killing the most vulnerable, stealing jobs and hurling families into poverty. Egypt hasn’t escaped the pandemic’s tentacles but so far it has weathered the storm with remarkable success when compared to developed nations such as the UK, France, Belgium, Spain and the United States of America that alone accounts for almost a quarter of global cases. Continue reading
The most radical socialists; Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters (Black, White, Latino or Asian); liberal and conservative zealots; diversity and equity gurus; pacifists; denizens of corporates and non-profits; rappers, rockers and country western musicians; Bernie Sanders; racists and White guilt pushers; Baptists, Catholics, and Muslims; children; bland K-16 teachers; members of the military; indeed, every social, cultural, political and economic demographic of the United States of America drinks, swims and drowns in an ocean of Liquid Capitalism. It is nearly as old as humanity itself. Continue reading
Trump’s Kampf (German for struggle) has been clear since before he got in the White House. Continue reading
I live in a ghost town—at least Donald Trump seems to think so. It’s “a ghost town!” he exclaimed more than once at Thursday night’s second and last debate with Joe Biden. “Take a look at New York and what’s happened to my wonderful city. For so many years, I loved it. It was vibrant. It’s dying. Everyone’s leaving New York.” Continue reading
With free speech—and a student’s mind—under attack on all fronts on America’s university campuses, in a stunning and heartwarming tale the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals showed that it, too, likes a good joke. Thanks to the unanimous decision of the court, the University of California/ San Diego lost in its attempt at furthering censorship, this time against a tiny but hilariously funny and irreverent satirical campus-wide newspaper called the “The Koala.” Continue reading
While President Donald Trump has baselessly attacked plans to eradicate fossil fuel-based sources of energy from the United States’ power grid on the grounds that doing so would be expensive and economically destructive, a new analysis reveals the opposite to be true—aggressively transitioning to 100% renewables would save Americans up to $321 billion per year while reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet. Continue reading
A postage stamp cost 3 cents, milk was 84 cents a gallon, a bottle of Coke was a nickle, bread was 14 cents a loaf, and a Democratic Senator from the State of Minnesota proposed a comprehensive national health insurance system that would reduce medical costs for a majority of Americans. The year was 1949 and the senator was Hubert Humphrey, who was later to serve as Vice President and the 1968 Democratic presidential candidate. Continue reading
Nearly everyone has heard the comment attributed for former Clinton consigliere Rahm Emanuel that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. The implication of the comment is that if there is a major crisis going on the cover it provides permits one to do all sorts of things under the radar that would otherwise be unacceptable. That aphorism is particularly true in the current context as there are multiple crises taking place simultaneously, all of which are being exploited to various degrees by interested parties. Continue reading
“Politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths. I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this… That a small minority of human beings literally have no conscience was and is a bitter pill for our society to swallow—but it does explain a great many things, shamelessly deceitful political behavior being one.”—Dr. Martha Stout, clinical psychologist and former instructor at Harvard Medical School. Continue reading
This country has a long history of disenfranchising and suppressing the votes of people of color, particularly in the South. But in 2013 the voter suppression efforts of yesteryear came roaring back. That’s when the Supreme Court gutted key provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Those provisions had stopped states with histories of voter suppression from changing their election laws without an okay from the federal government. Continue reading
In theory, Europe and the United States stand on completely opposite sides when it comes to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. While the US government has fully embraced the tragic status quo created by 53 years of Israeli military occupation, the EU continues to advocate a negotiated settlement that is predicated on respect for international law. Continue reading
Pundits in the international media and political classes twist and distort the word “democratic” until it has no resemblance to the actual meaning of the word. Start with “democracy” from which “democratic” is born. “Government by the people exercised either directly…? or by elected representatives” and later “the principles of social equality and individual rights”. Continue reading
After all this time, most of us realize that Donald Trump is a Russian asset. Not that he’s a secret mole necessarily or even The Manchurian Candidate, but Vladimir Putin plays him like a balalaika strumming “Song of the Volga Boatmen.” Continue reading
The president of the United States has the power to fire off thousands of nuclear weapons and destroy the world. As succinctly explained by William Perry and Tom Collina in the New York Times, “Mr. Trump has the absolute authority to start a nuclear war. Within minutes, the president could unleash the equivalent of more than 10,000 Hiroshima bombs. He does not need a second opinion. The defense secretary has no say. Congress has no role.” Continue reading
Trump is likely to claim that mail-in ballots, made necessary by the pandemic, are rife with “fraud like you’ve never seen,” as he alleged during his debate with Joe Biden—although it’s been shown that Americans are more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud. Continue reading
Sometimes I don’t know whether to weep uncontrollably, laugh hysterically, or just throw up. Continue reading
If nations had personhood, the US would be diagnosed as psychopathic, sociopathic, or both—what applies to its ruling class. Continue reading
Bolivia’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) party is celebrating what appears to be a crushing, landslide victory in Sunday’s elections. Although official vote counting is far from over, exit polls show an overwhelming triumph for the socialists, and a repudiation of the right-wing military government of Jeanine Añez, who has ruled since the coup last November. At the same time, the corporate press appears less than pleased about the return to democracy for the Andean country. Continue reading
In recent years, many territories’ declarations of independence have been justifiably affirmed through international agreements. The Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh’s declaration of independence from Azerbaijan three decades ago is as legitimate as any of those. Artsakh is the republic’s ancient Armenian name. Continue reading
As The Donald unleashes his inner Adolf, there must be no illusions about what we face. Continue reading
In ordinary times, Ted Glick would hardly be someone you’d expect to hear urging fellow progressives to vote for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Continue reading
The companies that own a Venezuelan oil vessel that’s been positioned off the country’s coast for nearly two years called on the U.S. to give a “green light” to unload 1.3 million barrels of oil after local environmental advocates on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago expressed alarm over the recent appearance of the boat, which is tilting to one side and looks to be on the verge of sinking. Continue reading
Citing “censorship outcry” from the three branches of government, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced yesterday via tweet the agency’s intention to move forward with regulation of social media by looking to modify Section 230 of the Communications Act, which protects the likes of Facebook and Twitter from the parts of the U.S. code that opens publishers to legal challenges over the content posted to their platforms, which inevitably puts content creators, themselves, in the cross hairs of the legal system without the benefit of their First Amendment rights. Continue reading
Toward the end of Joe Biden’s October 15 town hall session, a Trump supporter asked Biden the only foreign policy question of the night. “So peace is breaking out all over the world,” the questioner claimed. “Our troops are coming home. Serbia is talking to Kosovo. And the Arabs and Israelis are talking peace, which I believe is a modern-day miracle, what’s going on. Does President Trump’s foreign policy deserve some credit?” Continue reading
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Right-wing SCOTUS justices: Impeach them
Posted on October 28, 2020 by Wayne Madsen
There is a constitutional method for ridding the U.S. Supreme Court of its two far-right justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. It borrows a page from the right-wing in the 1960s. Conservatives, including members of the far-right John Birch Society, outraged over President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s pick for Chief Justice, former California Governor Earl Warren, steering the court in a liberal direction, began a national “Impeach Warren” campaign. Continue reading →