The U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors—which is controlled by appointees of President Donald Trump—announced late Wednesday that it has unanimously selected a top Trump and GOP donor to serve as postmaster general, installing an ally of the White House to lead a popular agency that has long been a target of right-wing reforms and is currently under severe threat of collapse due to the Covid-19 crisis. Continue reading
Ohio officials are encouraging employers to report what they’ve designated “COVID-19 fraud” as the state begins reopening some industries. Workers who refuse to report to work in light of the pandemic, which has killed more than 1,300 Ohio residents so far, can be reported via a government website and have their unemployment benefits taken away. Continue reading
It was nearly twenty years ago at a Muslim conference in Washington, D.C., that I heard the distressing argument that Palestine should not be made a central topic in the American Muslim political agenda. Continue reading
On May 3, a group of around 60 mercenaries attempted an amphibious landing at Macuto, on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. They were quickly defeated and 13 of them—including two Americans, Airan Berry and Luke Denman—captured. Continue reading
We are fast becoming a nation—nay, a world—of book burners. Continue reading
Taking time off from mismanaging a pandemic and turning lifesaving masks sent from all over the country into an art installation, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared yesterday that he would use the deadly COVID-19 virus as an opportunity to “revolutionize” the state’s school system, inviting Microsoft founder Bill Gates to implement his controversial ideas about education statewide. Cuomo did not divulge many details of what his imagined education revolution would look like but did mention virtual education and remote learning. However, Gates is best known for one thing in education: charter schools. Continue reading
What’s the gimmick in Trump’s plan to “rescue” the public Postal Service? Continue reading
Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back. Continue reading
One hundred years ago, representatives from a few powerful countries convened at San Remo, a sleepy town on the Italian Riviera. Together, they sealed the fate of the massive territories confiscated from the Ottoman Empire following its defeat in World War I. Continue reading
Author David Foster Wallace once said that America is, “One enormous engine and temple of self-gratification and self-advancement.” The spectacle of American consumerism comes galloping to mind. But the pageant of gluttony with which we sate ourselves on a weekly basis is a pale reflection, at least in its intensity, of American foreign policy. Continue reading
The black misleadership class has no shame, only narrow ambitions. They are now called out to rescue the man who looks very much like a loser. Continue reading
Critics decried a failed attempt Sunday by a group of mercenaries, including two Americans, to invade Venezuela as an “unacceptable” act of aggression by the U.S. and Colombia in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading
Last August, the Business Roundtable—an association of CEOs of America’s biggest corporations—announced with great fanfare a “fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders” and not just their shareholders. Continue reading
There is a lot of conflicting information about Sweden. Some claim that “open” Sweden has no higher infection and death rates than its neighbors, a claim contradicted by this report. Continue reading
Congress seems to be at war with the states. Only $150 billion of its nearly $3 trillion coronavirus relief package—a mere 5%—has been allocated to the 50 states; and they are not allowed to use it where they need it most, to plug the holes in their budgets caused by the mandatory shutdown. On April 22, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was opposed to additional federal aid to the states, and that his preference was to allow states to go bankrupt. Continue reading
In 1982, former Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement for the US Department of Education, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, blew the whistle on the Reagan Administration’s Project BEST (Better Education Skills through Technology): a techno-fascist plan to privatize the American school system by selling it out to Big Tech corporations that deliver B. F. Skinner’s operant-conditioning method of “programmed instruction” through computerized “teaching machines.” Almost thirty years later, the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act” is primed to pump a flood of federal education funds into online charter school corporations, such as K12 Inc., KIPP, and Connections Academy, which deploy “adaptive learning” software that replace human teachers with artificial-intelligence courseware programmed with “Skinner-box” cognitive-behavioral algorithms geared to condition students for workforce training. Continue reading
As President Trump has complained, the U.S. does not win wars anymore. In fact, since 1945, the only 4 wars it has won were over the small neocolonial outposts of Grenada, Panama, Kuwait and Kosovo. Americans across the political spectrum refer to the wars the U.S. has launched since 2001 as “endless” or “unwinnable” wars. We know by now that there is no elusive victory around the corner that will redeem the criminal futility of the U.S.’s opportunistic decision to use military force more aggressively and illegally after the end of the Cold War and the horrific crimes of September 11. But all wars have to end one day, so how will these wars end? Continue reading
There are certain events in the life of the nation we revisit whenever there’s a significant anniversary. The assassination of President Kennedy, 9/11, the moon landing, even Woodstock—these are iconic milestones we think are worthy of remembrance and reflection—especially because so many of us experienced them together. Continue reading
On this May Day, the world was witnessing 3 pandemics simultaneously. The first is the Coronavirus Pandemic. The second is the Hunger Pandemic. The third is Pandemic of Destruction of Livelihoods. Continue reading
There will likely be a US Commission on the Pandemic of 2020, the verbiage of which will mirror the 911 Commission Report. Fault will be placed on a lack of federal, state and local coordination and sharing of medical intelligence among the three levels of American government. The US federal administration will be admonished with a few tough words and that, as they say, will be that. Continue reading
President Donald Trump on Sunday said he will not approve another badly needed COVID-19 stimulus package if it doesn’t include a payroll tax cut, a policy that would strike a blow to Social Security and Medicare funding while offering no relief for the more than 30 million people who have lost their jobs over the past six weeks. Continue reading
How much longer will global leaderships permit Israel and the United States together with its sycophant across the pond to ride roughshod over international law and basic human decency? Continue reading
In this horrible time of economic collapse, it is truly touching to see so many corporate chieftains reaching out in solidarity with the hard-hit working class. Continue reading
As soon as the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading its tentacles throughout China and eventually to the rest of the world, the World Health Organization (WHO), along with other international groups, sounded the alarm that refugees and migrants are particularly vulnerable to the deadly disease. Continue reading
After pulling out of multiple international treaties designed to limit the global threat of atomic weapons, the Trump administration is now strongly indicating that it will also let the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expire in February 2021. START is commonly described as “the last remaining arms control agreement constraining the arsenals of the two major nuclear weapons powers,” the United States and Russia. Continue reading
Meat processing plants are high risk for spreading COVID-19, and many are shutting down. Animals due for processing have nowhere to go, and they are being culled. Continue reading
Donald Trump has spent a lifetime exploiting chaos for personal gain and blaming others for his losses. The pure madness in America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic—shortages of equipment to protect hospital workers, dwindling supplies of ventilators and critical medications, jaw-dropping confusion over how $2.2 trillion of aid in the recent coronavirus law will be distributed—has given him the perfect cover to hoard power and boost his chances of reelection. Continue reading
Over the years Noam Chomsky has advanced a scathing indictment of U.S. elections, saying that they are really more “public relations extravaganzas” than ideological contests, that they therefore mean very little, especially at the national level; that he himself votes “less and less” at that level; that the system is not generating issues that resonate with the public; that there really aren’t any political parties, but only “candidate producing organizations” driven by marketing concerns; that the quadrennial farce that plays out at the presidential level is worth no more than “five minutes time,” and this, only to determine which candidate represents the greater threat, in order to vote against him; and that, in view of all this we should reserve our main political energy for vastly more meaningful work, such as popular education, union organizing, and cultural resistance. Continue reading
The “reopenings” underway in 30 states in the US might be in words only just as the ballyhooed “open” Swedish economy is not open in fact and has been closed by non-participation. The Swedish Riksbank reports that attendance at cinema, events, and sports is off 90%. Business at restaurants and cafes is down 70%, and the hotel occupancy rate is a meager 10%. The overall Swedish economy has declined 11%—more than the current estimate for the US—and consumer confidence surveys have plunged more in Sweden than in Europe as a whole. Continue reading
You pay little attention to the systems of your body—circulatory, digestive, pulmonary—unless something goes wrong. Continue reading
Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups are accusing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of endangering the health of members of Congress and Capitol Hill employees for political gain as the Kentucky Republican presses forward with plans to reconvene the chamber next week for the sole purpose of confirming more right-wing judges—including his unqualified 38-year-old protégé. Continue reading
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Effects of US lockdowns v. lifting them
Posted on May 11, 2020 by Stephen Lendman
A University of Pennsylvania Wharton School model isn’t encouraging. Continue reading →