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Trump Republicans are a greater threat to democracy than Trump himself
Momentum is gaining to prosecute Trump, but scores of copycat election-denying candidates who want to interfere with fair elections are on the fall ballot.
Three months before the 2022 general election, momentum is tangibly growing for holding Donald Trump and Trump Republicans legally accountable for a range of criminal activities tied to their ultimately violent effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Continue reading
‘Distressing’: Republicans eyeing 2024 race support plot to purge federal workers
"Schedule F would burn down the civil service system," warned one public policy professor. "It would be a government of the lawless leading the incompetent."
Multiple potential candidates for the GOP’s 2024 presidential primary race support former President Donald Trump’s plot to make it easier to purge civil servants deemed disloyal to their prospective administrations, Axios revealed Wednesday. Continue reading
The three I’s of a police state education: indoctrination, intimidation & intolerance
This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today. Continue reading
Women and their supporters rise up against anti-abortion tyranny in Kansas
Kansas voters Tuesday reflected the refusal of people across America to accept the tyranny of right-wing Republicans determined to tell them when, where, and how to have and raise their families. The message was clear: No politicians, women said as they streamed to the polls in record numbers in Kansas, are going to make the decision about what they do with their bodies. Continue reading
‘Enormous victory’: Kansas voters resoundingly defeat anti-abortion amendment
"This is truly a historic day for Kansas and for America. Freedom has prevailed."
Kansans voted by a decisive margin on Tuesday to reject a proposed amendment that would have removed the right to abortion from the state’s constitution and empowered the Republican legislature to advance a total ban. Continue reading
Kentucky ‘now a forced-birth state’ after judge reinstates abortion bans
"We must codify the right to abortion in Congress," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "Pregnant people deserve to make their own healthcare decisions."
Reproductive freedom advocates across Kentucky and beyond vowed to keep fighting after a judge on Monday night allowed the GOP state attorney general to enforce a trigger law and six-week abortion ban. Continue reading
How Maasai women are resisting land grabs
In Mwanza, Tanzania, Nairukoki Leyian-Naisinyai tells me that here, “Corporations come with papers from the government claiming that they have the right to our land.” She points to the large corporations that have entered the lands of the Maasai people to mine rubies and tanzanite. The Maasai can neither assert their rights to the land nor benefit from the mining of these precious resources. Continue reading
Can a third party “fail Forward?”
Near the end of July, Andrew Yang—whose previous political projects include an unsuccessful run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, an unsuccessful run for the 2021 Democratic mayoral nomination in New York City, and what initially looked likely to be an unsuccessful new “third party,” the Forward Party—announced a re-launch of that last effort. Continue reading
The anti-China brainwashing is working: Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix
If someone criticizing the most dangerous agendas of the most powerful and destructive government on earth looks like “Russian propaganda” or “Chinese propaganda” to you, it’s because you yourself have been brainwashed by propaganda. Continue reading
Alito undermines U.S. in Rome speech mocking allied leaders
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito took it upon himself to mock the leaders of U.S. allies in a keynote speech delivered on July 21 in Rome, Italy. Acting like a mobbed-up comedian performing a churlish stand-up routine on the Las Vegas Strip, Alito lambasted foreign leaders for publicly criticizing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn abortion rights previously guaranteed by the 1973 Roe v. Wade case. Continue reading
To reduce inflation, control corporate profits
Everyone’s concerned about inflation these days. But politicians are blaming government benefits instead of rising inequality and corporate profits.
“Inflation” is the new buzzword of the year. It is the reason for the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes designed to increase the costs of some loans. It is the excuse given against renewing the expanded child tax credit program that briefly lifted millions of American families out of poverty. It forms the name of one of the key pieces of legislation that may salvage President Joe Biden’s first term: the Inflation Reduction Act. And, it is the basis of Republican complaints against Democrats heading toward the midterm elections this fall. Continue reading
Nancy Pelosi Taiwan visit could get us all killed
The consequences—far from being only economic and diplomatic—could be existential for all of humanity.
The arrogance of power is especially ominous and despicable when a government leader risks huge numbers of lives in order to make a provocative move on the world’s geopolitical chessboard. Nancy Pelosi’s plan to visit Taiwan is in that category. Thanks to her, the chances of a military confrontation between China and the United States have spiked upward. Continue reading
Chile’s lithium provides profit to the billionaires but exhausts the land and the people
The Atacama salt flat in northern Chile, which stretches 1,200 square miles, is the largest source of lithium in the world. We are standing on a bluff, looking over la gran fosa, the great pit that sits at the southern end of the flat, which is shielded from public view. It is where the major Chilean corporations have set up shop to extract lithium and export it—largely unprocessed—into the global market. “Do you know whose son-in-law is the lithium king of Chile?” asks Loreto, who took us to the salt flat to view these white sands from a vantage point. His response is not so shocking; it is Julio Ponce Lerou, who is the largest stakeholder in the lithium mining company Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) and the former son-in-law of the late military dictator Augusto Pinochet (who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990). Continue reading
Europe is at a tipping point, as the abyss is closer than we think
It’s Italy which will fire the starter’s gun on a turnaround on the EU’s policy on Russia and the Ukraine war.
It might well be Italy which marks the starting point of a demise of sorts of the EU, as the coalition government collapses. Mario Draghi, who might be remembering interest rate hikes like the ECB’s this week, which only happened previously when he was the boss overseeing the eurozone crisis, is out. Continue reading
Washington is the problem, not the solution: Why Mahmoud Abbas is seeking new ‘powerful’ sponsors
To judge US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a ‘failure’ in terms of activating the dormant ‘peace process’ is simply a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership. Continue reading
Welcome to the Anthropocene—can we prevent human die-offs?
The world today is on the verge of a major food emergency, provoked in part by Russia’s attack on Ukraine but more broadly by the damage heat from global warming is doing to crops worldwide. This is both a crisis and an opportunity. Continue reading
‘Beyond unacceptable’: Progressives rip Senate Republicans for blocking birth control bill
"Today, Republicans showed the American people where they stand: No abortions, and no birth control to prevent the need for one," said Sen. Ed Markey.
Democratic U.S. lawmakers and reproductive freedom advocates on Wednesday denounced Senate Republicans for blocking proposed legislation that would safeguard access to contraception as GOP-led states enact total abortion bans in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s reversal. Continue reading
Glen Ford’s irreplaceable journalism
I was very proud to write the preface to Glen Ford's book, The Black Agenda, which published posthumously by OR Books. I endeavored to explain why Glen was truly irreplaceable.
In the best sense of the word a journalist is someone who brings to the public sphere accurate, well sourced information, and rigorous analysis. Those individuals speak for the marginalized, who can’t speak for themselves, and they expose the privileged, who are always given opportunities for expression. They point out the faults of those deemed too authoritative to be questioned. If an outlet claims to write all the news that is fit to print or declares that democracy dies in darkness, their work should be given more scrutiny than credibility. The journalist should be truly independent and skeptical of official narratives. Glen Ford was such a person. His decades of work provide a blueprint for anyone who wants that word to have real meaning and integrity. Continue reading
The phoniest, most PR-intensive war of all time
The president and first lady of Ukraine have posed for a romantic photoshoot with Vogue magazine, wherein President Volodymyr Zelensky waxes poetical about his love for his darling wife. Continue reading
The WTO opts for greed and profits over providing vaccinations for all people worldwide
The health of all people is being sacrificed to Big Pharma profits and rich countries’ saber-rattling sanctions. Meanwhile, other countries are capable of meeting the world’s vaccine needs.
The UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima had appealed before the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva that the world would face a grim future if patent waivers did not take place. At a press conference, Byanyima had said, “In a pandemic, sharing technology is life or death, and we are choosing death.” Continue reading
The war ‘diplomat’: How Borrell and the West lost the ‘global battle of narratives’
In a blog entry, reflecting on the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Bali, Indonesia on July 7-8, the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, seems to have accepted the painful truth that the West is losing what he termed “the global battle of narratives”. Continue reading
The Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t go far enough
The sound of the US Supreme Court’s June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning half a century of abortion jurisprudence under Roe v. Wade, is the sound of multiple cans of worms popping open, particularly in light of associate justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence, which calls for the court to “correct the error” of “substantive due process” by overturning other previous court decisions based on it. Continue reading
The U.S. is a world outlier on abortion restrictions
The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade is part of a pattern of American exceptionalism that harms people in both the U.S. and the rest of the world.
We know the United States is an outlier in abortion restrictions, but it is still startling to realize just how much. Continue reading
America is occupied by a dangerous Second Amendment scam
America is now under armed assault, a tyranny that suppresses free speech and has produced almost-daily mass- and school-shootings, in a gun ownership frenzy fed by people who claim their power comes from the Constitution. Continue reading
America’s failed fascist coup… Steve Bannon’s high treason with Chinese patron and why the U.S. authorities ignore it
There’s an abundance of prima facie evidence that Bannon was a key plotter in a fascist coup to overturn the presidential election to keep Trump in power.
Steve Bannon, the former political guru to Donald Trump and architect of the false narrative over the stolen 2020 election, should be prosecuted for more than merely contempt of Congress. There’s an abundance of prima facie evidence that Bannon was a key plotter in a fascist coup to overturn the presidential election to keep Trump in power. Continue reading
About those missing Secret Service texts from Jan. 5 and 6
Donald Trump wanted to turn the Justice Department into his own private law firm, the FBI into his own political police force, the military into his own private security force, and the Secret Service into his own praetorian guard. He failed in all cases with the exception of the latter. Continue reading
Why Trader Joe’s workers are joining the fight to unionize
Workers at two stores among the hundreds of Trader Joe’s locations nationwide are hoping to join a newly formed independent union.
There was a big lie that modern corporations sold to American workers in the late 20th century and into the first decade of the 21st century: It was that profit-driven entities could make both employees and customers happy enough that no interventions like worker unions or strong federal regulations were needed. Continue reading
Digital authoritarianism: AI surveillance signals the death of privacy
Nothing is private. Continue reading
The shameful UN ‘List of Shame’: Equating between the Israeli perpetrator and the Palestinian victim
“We regret we failed to protect you.” This was part of a statement issued by United Nations human rights experts on July 14, urging the Israeli government to release Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra. Only 14 years old at the time of his arrest and torture by Israeli forces, Manasra is now 20 years old. His case is a representation of Israel’s overall inhumane treatment of Palestinian children. Continue reading
Food expiration dates don’t have much science behind them—a food safety researcher explains another way to know what’s too old to eat
Florida’s outbreak of listeria has so far led to at least one death, 22 hospitalizations and an ice cream recall since January. Humans get sick with listeria infections, or listeriosis, from eating soil-contaminated food, undercooked meat or dairy products that are raw, or unpasteurized. Listeria can cause convulsions, coma, miscarriage and birth defects. And it’s the third leading cause of food poisoning deaths in the U.S. Continue reading
The Kremlin seeks to exploit growing wariness over refugees in Europe
Instability and rising living costs have caused significant growth in refugee and other migrant numbers globally. The opportunity to exploit the crisis will not be missed by other countries, most notably Russia.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 7 million Ukrainian refugees have left the country till mid-June. While some 1.5 million ended up in Russia, the rest have mostly entered the European Union, where they have been granted the right to live and work for up to three years, in addition to receiving welfare, education, housing, food, and medical assistance. Continue reading
FBI attack on the Uhuru movement is a warning
The FBI targeted the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) because it is a Black organization that has dared to confront and oppose U.S. imperialism. APSP is the first but they will not be the last.
Posted on August 4, 2022 by Margaret Kimberley
On July 29, 2022, the FBI raided the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida and the Uhuru Solidarity Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The raids were connected with the indictment of a Russian national who is accused of attempting to “cause turmoil in the United States” by engaging with “Unindicted Co-Conspirators” to act as agents of the Russian Federation. Continue reading →