In the past, there have been many attempts at holding accused Israeli war criminals accountable. Particularly memorable is the case of the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, (known, among other nicknames, as the ‘Butcher of Sabra and Shatila’), whose victims attempted to try him in a Belgian Court in 2002. Continue reading
The chief cultural signifier of our times is this: Wearing a mask. Or not. Continue reading
On June 13, President Donald Trump told the graduating class at West Point, “We are ending the era of endless wars.” That is what Trump has promised since 2016, but the “endless” wars have not ended. Trump has dropped more bombs and missiles than George W. Bush or Barack Obama did in their first terms, and there are still roughly as many US bases and troops overseas as when he was elected. Continue reading
Hardly anyone—Jewish or otherwise—believes that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) genuinely cares about the welfare of Christian, Muslim, and other non-Jewish minorities in the Middle East. Continue reading
The visit by newly-elected Tunisian President Kais Saied to France on June 22 was intended to discuss bilateral relations, trade, etc. But it was also a missed opportunity, where Tunisia could have formally demanded an apology from France for the decades of French colonialism, which has shattered the social and political fabric of this North African Arab nation since the late 19th century. Continue reading
Everyone should wear a protective medical mask—but some ought to be in ski masks, like those favored by bank robbers and muggers. Continue reading
Major changes in society can be accomplished by a fast-emerging, broad-based civic jolt so obvious and persuasive that it overwhelms the entrenched powers. The most urgent job is for people to organize to get Trump and Pence to step aside from their bungling, making-matters-worse mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. The White House should let a professional pandemic control specialist with public health experience and an appreciation of science replace the current and ongoing Trump horror show. Continue reading
With the Trump administration planning to demand that Congress devote a large chunk of the state and local education funding in the next COVID-19 relief package to a new grant program for private and religious schools, the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers on Thursday accused Education Secretary Betsy DeVos of attempting to exploit the pandemic to advance her privatization agenda. Continue reading
Trump will do anything to be re-elected. His opponents are limited because they believe in democracy. Trump has no limits because he doesn’t. Continue reading
Had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants. Continue reading
In July 1864, Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early attacked Fort Stevens and Fort DeRussy on the outskirts of Washington, DC. Union forces drove them away after two days of skirmishes, but the battle threw a scare into the capital city and constituted a high point in the Confederacy’s Shenandoah Valley campaigns. Continue reading
A team of 85 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Peru on June 3 to help the Andean nation tackle the coronavirus pandemic. That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced another tightening of the sanctions screws. This time he targeted seven Cuban entities, including Fincimex, one of the principal financial institutions handling remittances to the country. Also targeted was Marriott International, which was ordered to cease operations in Cuba, and other companies in the tourism sector, an industry that constitutes 10 percent of Cuba’s GDP and has been devastated globally by the pandemic. Continue reading
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a ruling civil liberties advocates warned could make taxpayers “underwrite religious education”—opening a massive crack in the bedrock principle of church and state separation. Continue reading
Social media giant Twitter took the step of suspending the official account of MintPress News on Saturday. Without warning, the nine-year-old account with 64,000 followers was abruptly labeled as “fake” or “spam” and restricted. This move is becoming a frequent occurrence for alternative media, especially those that openly challenge U.S. power globally. Continue reading
I’ve bored family and friends with this story for years. Now it’s your turn. Continue reading
The painful truth is that the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has already ceased to exist as a political body that holds much sway or relevance, either to the Palestinian people or to Abbas’ former benefactors, namely the Israeli and the American governments. Continue reading
Since the United States initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela’s elected leftist government in January 2019, an estimated $24 billion worth of Venezuelan public assets have been stolen by Washington and member states of the European Union. Continue reading
The banning of deadly police practices by many American states and cities following the murder of an African American man, George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers is, once more, shedding light on US-Israeli collaboration in the fields of security and crowd-control. Continue reading
The U.S. State Department annually publishes an extremely biased report on human rights around the world. Conveniently, the report omits one of the most systemic violators of human rights on the planet. Under Donald Trump, the United States has graduated from systemic human rights violator to human rights pariah, as witnessed by recent murders and assaults by police of innocent people on the streets of America. Although the United States has historically been more than willing to criticize the human rights policies of other countries, including in the venue of the United Nations, it has bristled at attempts to have brought forth in the international body its own human rights outrages. Continue reading
Millions of white people glorify mass murderers because their sense of identity and place in society is deeply tied to white supremacy. Continue reading
The US emerged from WW II as the only major power unscathed by its ravages and more powerful than ever when world peace was restored. Continue reading
Imagine if Adolf Hitler had staged one of his infamous 1930s fascist Nuremberg hate-fests … and the stands were less than full, his speech fell flat, his flawless phalanxes dissolved into chaos, the fighting flags failed to unfurl. Continue reading
The system is rigged. Continue reading
There’s a famous episode from the very first season of the legendary “Twilight Zone” TV series. Its title: “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Continue reading
Under Boris Johnson’s leadership Britain has again been dubbed ‘The sick man of Europe’ due to his mismanagement of Covid-19, a failure of judgement that has propelled his nation to the top of Europe’s fatality charts. Continue reading
Words are inadequate to describe certain experiences that happen outside the law of cause and effect. Although they are universal, they are often so weird that to recount them makes most people uncomfortable, unless they are New Agers, spiritualists, or mind-curers who believe in the great American tradition of the happiness machine and revelations on every bathroom wall, Jesus’s face in cloud formations, or apparitions in every shadow. I am none of those. Continue reading
To most people, if they are familiar with it at all, BlackRock is an asset manager that helps pension funds and retirees manage their savings through “passive” investments that track the stock market. But working behind the scenes, it is much more than that. BlackRock has been called “the most powerful institution in the financial system,” “the most powerful company in the world” and the “secret power.” It is the world’s largest asset manager and “shadow bank,” larger than the world’s largest bank (which is in China), with over $7 trillion in assets under direct management and another $20 trillion managed through its Aladdin risk-monitoring software. BlackRock has also been called “the fourth branch of government” and “almost a shadow government”, but no part of it actually belongs to the government. Despite its size and global power, BlackRock is not even regulated as a “Systemically Important Financial Institution” under the Dodd-Frank Act, thanks to pressure from its CEO, Larry Fink, who has long had “cozy” relationships with government officials. Continue reading
In what has already become a parody of a shrinking empire’s habit of clutching at the vestiges of its Cold-War era mistakes, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and fellow war-hungry reactionaries in the United States Senate, Rick Scott (R-FL) and Ted Cruz ((R-TX) have put a bill on the Senate floor meant to undercut Cuba’s medical missions program, which sends trained medics all around the developing world to assist in general healthcare services and emergencies in more than 60 countries. Continue reading
John Bolton’s long-awaited book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” which Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr have attempted to suppress under the color of national security law, contains some very noteworthy quotes from others in their conversations with Bolton before and during the time he was Trump’s National Security Adviser. One thing is clear about the book. Bolton uses his “kiss and tell” offering to justify a boatload of discredited neoconservative policies directed against anti-imperialist nations, from Venezuela and Cuba to Iran, China, and North Korea. Bolton’s book is nothing more than a Heritage Foundation foreign policy white paper sprinkled with juicy tidbits exposing Trump and the coterie of back-biting criminals and jesters who surround him. Bolton spent a lot of ink on his favorite topics, including neocon regime change as seen in his photo with a veteran of the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Continue reading
Besides not being Trump, the Democrats offer nothing, but think they can win with a candidate who has no constituency, charisma or any platform positions that would attract more voters. Continue reading
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Alienating China damages Britain’s interests
Boris is optimistic about signing trade deals with EU and the US at favourable terms
Posted on July 7, 2020 by Linda S. Heard
It appears that the British prime minister is failing to grasp the big picture. Boris Johnson seems unaware that his country is no longer a big power or that its global influence has waned since the UK-Sino declaration on the future status of Hong Kong was signed in 1984 by the ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher. Continue reading →