ALL ARTICLES, Media Hits & Misses March 7, 2019

Three Revelations From The New Yorker’s Explosive Article On The Fox News/Trump Connection

By Tessa Stuart Rolling Stone (3/4/19) Fox News and the Trump White House: a seamlessly integrated human centipede. Want proof? Look no further than the fact that Bill Shine, current White House communications director and the former president of Fox News, collects checks from both shops. (Shine, who resigned from Fox after the network was rocked by a series of sexual misconduct scandals, is still being paid out the remainder of a $7 million bonus.) Hope Hicks, who preceded Shine in his government gig, now works at his old network’s parent company, 21st Century Fox. In her latest piece for “It’s…

ALL ARTICLES, Media Hits & Misses March 7, 2019

Mainstream Media Silent As Trump Deports Groups Of Southeast Asian Refugees

Thousands of Southeast Asian refugees, are in a state of devastating limbo.  [Editor’s Note: Given the sizable Hmong population in La Crosse and the Twin Cities, this is an issue to pay attention to. — Mark L. Taylor] By Huiying B Chan Daily Kos (1/24/19) The National Week of Action to End Southeast Asian Deportations began on Saturday, Jan. 19. Thirteen organizations across the country are uniting in 15 cities to uplift Southeast Asian-American communities as they continue to be terrorized by mass deportations and incarceration. These grassroots groups are calling on local leaders and Congress to champion policies to protect immigrants and refugees and end…

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice March 7, 2019

Tired Of Winning, Yet? Trump’s Trade War Cost U.S. More Than $3 Billion A Month, Economists Report

Companies in America purchasing imported products pay the tariffs, and most if not all of those costs are typically passed onto U.S. consumers who buy the products.  By Mary Papenfuss HuffPost (3/4/19) President Donald Trump’s trade war cost American businesses and consumers  $3 billion a month last year in higher prices, according to a study by top economists. The U.S. “experienced substantial increases in the prices of … goods, dramatic changes to its supply-chain network, reductions in availability of imported varieties, and complete pass-through of the tariffs into domestic prices of imported goods,” noted the study issued Saturday by economists from the…

ALL ARTICLES, Health Care March 7, 2019

Rep. Pramila Jayapal Does An Excellent Job Of Explaining How Medicare For All Will Lower Costs & Expand Healthcare Coverage To Everyone

Is this a bold and ambitious plan? Damn straight it is, because it has to be. The scale of our healthcare crisis is enormous, and our plan has to tackle the deep sickness within our for-profit system.  Democracy Now! (3/6/19) More than 100 Democratic lawmakers are co-sponsoring a new House bill to dramatically revamp healthcare in the United States by creating a Medicare-for-all system funded by the federal government. This comes at a time when as many as 30 million Americans have no health insurance and tens of millions more are either underinsured or struggling to pay their health insurance…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism March 7, 2019

Our Criminal Neighbors: Beware The True Nature Of Corporations

“We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power.”  ― Chris Hedges, The Death of the Liberal Class

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor March 7, 2019

Russia Monitor: The Fox In The White House Reveals Deeper Levels Of Corruption & Questions

  “They are all shiny-suit banditos, relishing The Great American Heist. They would stuff the republic into a burlap sack if they could.” — Jack Holmes for Esquire re: the Trump kids. By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/7/19) Dear Fellow Readers, We will do two things in today’s edition: First we’ll consider a factor in the slow public embrace for impeachment; Then we’ll cover news of one Trump criminal act, exactly the parade of news that could fuel public support for impeachment. On Tuesday Quinnipiac University released a poll that said “only 35 percent favor starting the impeachment process, and…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America March 7, 2019

Silicon Valley Revolt Ripples In Response For Big Tech War Dept. Projects

  Should Big Tech partner with the War Department? The New York Times podcast “The Daily” looks back at the Vietnam era involvement of Dow Chemical in War Department  weapons development is a cautionary tale for America’s war industry. Link to 24-Minute Audio (Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )

ALL ARTICLES March 7, 2019

Tale Of Jamal Kashoggi Killing Only Getting More Brutally Gruesome

Meanwhile, the Saudi crown prince enjoys support of U.S. By Eoin Higgins Common Dreams (3/4/19) The tale of last year’s brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi took another disturbing turn Sunday. In a documentary that aired Sunday night,  Al Jazeera Arabic laid out evidence that the network says strongly indicates Khashoggi’s body was incinerated in an oven in the Istanbul, Turkey, home of the Saudi consulate general. The corpse was transported to the residence in multiple bags before being burned, the documentary claims. The story goes from bad to worse: Large quantities of barbeque [sic] meat were grilled in the oven after the killing in order…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism March 4, 2019

Trump Supporter Rants: The Left Is Intolerant For Not Accepting Mike Pence’s Intolerance Against Gays

By Eric W. Dolan The Raw Story (3/1/19) Conservative activist Matt Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes works in the White House as a communications adviser, lashed out at liberals during a Friday appearance on Fox News for criticizing Vice President Mike Pence. Fox News host Martha MacCallum noted that former Vice President Joe Biden had faced criticism for referring to Pence as a “decent guy.” Responding to the criticism, Biden later tweeted “there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights.” “It’s the radicalism of what is happening to the Democratic Party,” Schlapp told Fox News. “Look, the conservative movement in the Republican Party…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Economic Injustice, FEATURE March 4, 2019

Make No Mistake, Corporate ‘Third Way’ Dems Like Rep. Ron Kind Could Get Trump Re-elected in 2020

The New ‘Democracy’ PAC and other dem corporate-backed groups want us to learn all the wrong lessons from 2016. By Joel Bleifuss In These Times (2/25/19) In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected president with the help of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the powerhouse of centrist Democrats of which he had been president. The DLC shut down in 2011, but this creature of the Third Way did not slither into the sunset. Rather, it shed its skin and emerged in 2017 as New Democracy,a political action committee. New Democracy is coiled to strike in 2020. Its advisory board includes declared presidential candidate…

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ALL ARTICLES March 4, 2019

Not Here To Behave: What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & The Courageous Shirley Chisholm Have in Common

What scares the establishment is not that a single Black or Latinx or Arab-American or indigenous woman is allowed “inside” the corridors of power, but that she gives voice to the communities that elected her. By Barbara Ransby In These Times (2/27/19) The elections of Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were victories for social movements, and two progressive “outsiders” are now on the inside. But what can the Left expect from these insurgent Democrats? The lives of Shirley Chisholm and Ella Jo Baker, two 20th century political figures who challenged the establishment of their day while maintaining…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change, Democrats March 4, 2019

Dems Shunning Green New Deal Took Far More Money From Oil & Gas Interests

None of the top 25 Democratic recipients of oil- and gas-linked money in the 2018 election are among the 69 Democrats sponsoring the Green New Deal bill.  By Donald Shaw Sludge (2/28/19) House Democrats who so far have declined to co-sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) Green New Deal bill took, on average, 2.8 times more money from oil and gas PACs and individuals who work in the industry during the 2018 election than those co-sponsoring it, according to a Sludge analysis of campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The bill, which currently has 68 Democratic co-sponsors, calls…

ALL ARTICLES March 4, 2019

11 Million Taxpayers Losing $323 Billion In Deductions In Trump & Republican Middleclass Tax Hit

  By Mary Papenfuss HuffPost (3/2/19) There’s more bad news for taxpayers. A government report has revealed that 11 million taxpayers are losing out on $323 billion worth of deductions due to a punishing change in President Donald Trump’s tax law. The hard news comes after early filers were stunned by shrinking — to vanishing — tax refunds. The deduction wallop detailed in the government report centers on capped deductions for state and local taxes — including real estate taxes. Formerly, all  local taxes could be deducted from federal taxes; now it’s capped at $10,000, which particularly hurts homeowners in…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change March 4, 2019

Our Five Biggest Delusions About Climate Change

Climate change is not happening slowly, as we were once told, but terrifyingly fast. By David Wallace-Wells Los Angeles Times (2/27/19) The extreme weather of the last year has been so terrifying, and so very extreme, that it is tempting to look at the string of disasters around the world and think: Climate change is here. Certainly that’s what Jerry Brown meant when he described the wildfires ravaging California in the fall as “the new abnormal.” It will only get more so. We have already exited the environmental conditions that allowed the human animal to evolve in the first place, in…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor March 4, 2019

Russia Monitor: Follow The Transcript Right To The Family Money Man

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/4/19) Dear Fellow Readers, Convicted former Trump fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen’s open testimony before the House Oversight Committee has caused a raft of review and endgame roadmaps on Trump-Russia corruption. In what now seems like ancient history, Buzzfeed published the Steele dossier in January 2017. Controversial at the time and so non-controversial now it brings into focus how much the media has brought forward about Trump-Russia corruption and how Trump and the Russpublicans have protected him from the fallout. As a reminder, the dossier was a collection of memos compiled by former…

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ALL ARTICLES March 4, 2019

Imprisoned Asylum Seeker Wins Australia’s Biggest Literary Prize, But Can’t Accept It In Person

Author Behrouz Boochani just won Australia’s biggest literary prize, but couldn’t accept his award in person. He’s an asylum seeker who’s been held in purgatory for years on an Austrailian island prison camp. By Ari Shapiro All Things Considered / NPR (2/26/19) This year, Australia’s most prestigious literary prize went to a man who could not physically be there to accept the award. Behrouz Boochani is an Iranian-Kurd barred from entering Australia. Like more than 1,000 other asylum-seekers, he was turned away at the border, and he’s being held on Manus Island in Papua, New Guinea. That’s where he wrote…

ALL ARTICLES March 4, 2019

Notably Quotable From History & The News

“In the 2000 election, neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore spent more than $200 million, in today’s dollars. In 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the total spent by and for Barack Obama was $730 million. In 2016, total spending by Trump and Clinton came to around $1.16 billion.” — Robert Reich, “Howard’s End” (2/21/19) ***** “I have a few Republican friends tell me what upsets them is people who they feel should work more sit back and collect $200 for food stamps to feed child and parent. I tell them what bothers me is companies like…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE March 4, 2019

Eyewitness To A War Criminal: The Torturous Career Of Trump’s Man In Venezuela Elliot Abrams

    The face of American policy in Latin America. By Dennis J Bernstein Reader Supported News (3/3/19) Through the 1980s, I wrote extensively about the impact of US policies in Central America, particularly in El Salvador and Guatemala, which included the training and funding of brutal dictators, corrupt politicians, and paramilitary death squads — iron-fisted rulers who ravaged and tortured their people, and murdered tens of thousands of those who tried to resist — teachers, farmers, campesinos union people, priests and nuns and church workers, and generally speaking the very poorest of the poor. In El Salvador, US-supported neo-Nazis…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America February 28, 2019

An Ocean Of Lies On Venezuela: Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur Expose American-Led Coup

  The Empire Files (2/22/19) On the eve of another US war for oil, Abby Martin debunks the most repeated myths about Venezuela and uncovers how US sanctions are crimes against humanity with UN Investigator and Human Rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas. Link to 39-Minute Video (Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2019. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org ) ***** The Coup Has Failed So Now The U.S. Is Looking To Wage Yet Another War For Oil: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Speaks Out Democracy Now! (2/25/19) Venezuela’s opposition is calling on the United States…

ALL ARTICLES, Mike McCabe for Gov February 28, 2019

Will We Ever Learn? Crony Capitalism Deals Like Foxconn Sells Us Off To The Corporate Scammers

  By Mike McCabe Blue Jean Nation (2/27/19) America worships at the altar of free markets. Except we don’t actually have free markets. We have politically manipulated markets. We have crony capitalism. Corporate titans schmooze politicians and play the elected representatives of the American people for chumps. They play states off against others, they pit communities against each other, promising investments and jobs in exchange for tax breaks, outright subsidy payments and exemptions from environmental regulations. Whoever is the highest bidder, whoever serves up the juiciest cuts of corporate welfare, is declared the winner. The real winners are the big corporations who…

ALL ARTICLES February 28, 2019

Elijah Cummings’ Stunning Closing Remarks At Cohen Hearing Poses Question For Nation: Are We Better Than This?

“We have got to get back to normal.” CNN (2/27/19) Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) concluded the House Oversight Committee’s questioning of President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen by delivering a call to “keep democracy in tact” and a return to normalcy in the political arena. Link to 8-Minute Video ***** Specter Of Fascism: Cohen Says Trump Won’t Leave Peacefully In 2020 The Real News (2/27/19) Hearings reveal deepening systemic corruption, further degeneration of GOP, progressive members standout in questioning. Link to 32-Minute Video

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats February 28, 2019

We Really Need To Talk: To Win & Exercise Power, Dems Need To Confront Power & Corruption Within The Ranks

  The idea that Republicans have a monopoly on all the seedy operators is naive. By Zach Carter HuffPost (2/25/19) It should not be difficult for Democrats to defeat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by nearly 3 million votes. His overall approval rating has never ― not for one day ― eclipsed 50 percent. His main political tactic, scapegoating immigrants,  doesn’t work very well. After making the 2018 midterms a referendum on a migrant caravan, Trump ended up ceding 41 House seats to the Democratic Party ― the worst result for…

ALL ARTICLES, Media Hits & Misses February 28, 2019

The View From ‘The Storm Lake Times’ — Resilience, Hope & A Feisty Pulitzer Winning Small Town Newspaper In Rural America

Westminster Town Hall Forum / MPR (2/26/19) Art Cullen is editor and co-owner of The Storm Lake Times, a flourishing, family-owned, twice-weekly newspaper founded in 1990 in Northwest Iowa. In 2017, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for a series of columns indicting corporate agri-business for polluting the rivers and lakes in the most-intensively farmed land in the world. His recently published book, Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper, chronicles his 40-year career in journalism and describes changes in politics, agriculture, climate, and immigration in his rural community. A graduate of the University of…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Rethuglicans, Trumpenstan February 28, 2019

Assault Tally Climbs At Trump/Republican Child Sexual Abuse Camps

By Julia Conley Common Dreams (2/26/19) A House hearing on the Trump administration’s family separation policy on Tuesday revealed that thousands of children in U.S. custody over the past five years have been subjected to sexual abuse in migrant detention centers. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) released documents from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) showing that more than 4,500 complaints of sexual abuse against minors were filed between 2014 and 2018. More than 1,300 complaints were referred to the Department of Justice. “I am deeply concerned with documents that have been turned over by HHS that record a high number…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor February 28, 2019

Russia Monitor: Truth From A Convicted Man Dominates A Historic Day

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (2/28/19) Dear Fellow Readers, Convicted Trump lawyer and ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen completed his second day of Congressional hearings and by the time you are reading this he will likely be engaged in his third. The second of three days, Wednesday (2/27), was the only hearing open to the public. Cohen appeared before the House Oversight Committee chaired by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD). Congressional hearings rarely live up to advance billing, as an example, acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker’s recent appearance before the House Judiciary Committee was a nothing-burger as he ran out the…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change February 28, 2019

‘A World Without Clouds. Think About That a Minute’: New Study Details Possibility Of Devastating Climate Crisis Feedback Loop

  By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (2/25/19) As people across the globe mobilize to demand bold action to combat the climate crisis and scientific findings about looming “environmental breakdown” pile up, a startling new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience warns that human-caused global warming could cause stratocumulus clouds to totally disappear in as little as a century, triggering up to 8°C (14°F) of additional warming. Stratocumulus clouds cover about two-thirds of the Earth and help keep it cool by reflecting solar radiation back to space. Recent research has suggested that planetary warming correlates with greater cloud loss, stoking fears about a feedback loop that could spell disaster. “There are…

ALL ARTICLES, Media Hits & Misses February 28, 2019

Facebook Shutting Down & Censoring Citizens Tracking Bad Cops

RT America (1/18/19) RT America’s Rachel Blevins reports for the News with Rick Sanchez on how Facebook and other social media platforms are purging the watchdog organizations that track police brutality and advocate for greater police accountability in the US. Link to 4-Minute Video (Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2019. Open source and free to use with link to www.thecommonercall.org ) ***** “Friendly Fraud” — Facebook Knowingly Duped Game-playing Kids & Their Parents Out Of Money   By Nathan Halverson Reveal / Center for Investigative Reporting (1/24/19) Facebook orchestrated a multi-year effort that duped children and their parents out…

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ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, Good News, Resist! February 28, 2019

A Dark Humored Word (Or Two) — Our Nation Brought To You By Billionaires

    “The revolution will not be sponsored.” By Anand Giridharadas (12/17/18) Gratitude is my task tonight. I’m here to thank our sponsors. Not of this show. I’m here to thank America’s sponsors. Because what was supposed to be a republic by, for, and of the people is increasingly a nation brought to you by billionaires. And when billionaires are in charge of our schools, our politics, our arts, our news, and our public conversation, it’s important to keep them happy by thanking them for ruling us. Link to 7-Minute Video ***** Anand Giridharadas — A letter To All Who Have Lost…

ALL ARTICLES February 26, 2019

‘Putin’s World’ And We’re Just Living In It? The Modern Influence Of Russia Twists The World

  On Point (2/25/19) With Meghna Chakrabarti Are we all in a paranoid and polarized world of Vladimir Putin’s making? A longtime Russia analyst chronicles how Moscow has become the world’s most disruptive superpower. Guests Angela Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and professor of government and foreign service and at Georgetown University. Author of “Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest.” (@AngelaStent) She served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council from 2004 to 2006.   Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs correspondent for Politico. (@joshgerstein)…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Police State America February 25, 2019

Law Enforcement In Whack-a-Doodle Modern America

Officer Unfriendly ***** Hardworking Teen Harassed, Threatened By Cops For The Audacity Of Shoveling Snow From Grandma’s Driveway Without A Permit Police Chief Michael Jannone noted that “We don’t make the laws but we have to uphold them.” By Matt Agorist Activist Post (1/23/19) Normandy, MO — Residents in Normandy, Missouri are questioning a new ordinance they are calling ridiculous which requires anyone who wishes to shovel snow for money—to have a permit. To be clear, this is not just for adults running businesses, but as the following case illustrates, it’s being enforced against children trying to earn some extra money. Charles…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Trumpenstan February 25, 2019

Do We Take Trump’s Twitter Tirades Seriously? We’d Better

“Any institution that is run democratically takes a huge amount of work. All too often, what Americans mean by ‘freedom’ is ‘freedom from the burden of having to make decisions.’” — Jason Stanley, author of “How Fascism Works: The Politics Of Us & Them” and “How Propaganda Works”. ***** By Bob Cesca Salon (2/21/19) At this point, I’d almost prefer that Donald Trump act on at least one of his tweet-threats instead of constantly hurling his rage-gasms into the void, keeping us all perpetually in a state of awkward panic. Observing Trump’s ongoing series of thirst-traps for dictators feels like…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, CIA, Police State America February 25, 2019

CIA Provided Details Of 9/11 Suspect’s Secret Torture To Film-Makers But Not To His Lawyers

By Julian Borger The Guardian (2/23/19) The makers of the film Zero Dark Thirty were given detailed information about the torture of an inmate at a CIA “black site” that had been denied to the prisoner’s own defence counsel at his trial in Guantánamo Bay, his lawyers claim. Members of defence team for Ammar al-Baluchi, undergoing pre-trial proceedings for his alleged role in the 9/11 attacks before a military tribunal at the US base, said they were stunned to see the portrayal of his torture, including beatings, suspension from manacles and waterboarding, in the Oscar-winning 2012 film. Ammar al-Baluchi’s defense team said they…

ALL ARTICLES February 25, 2019

The Challenge Of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Run Will Put Concentrated Wealth On Trial

  If you want substantive progressive change, but believe we can get there without a massive social movement, you are the idealist. By Sam Adler-Bell In These Times (2/19/19) Bernie Sanders, the independent democratic socialist senator from Vermont, is running for president. In an interview with CBS This Morning on Tuesday, Sanders told co-host John Dickerson that he planned to launch a massive grassroots effort to transform “the economic and political life of this country,” adding: “We’re gonna win.” Unlike his last run in 2016, however, this time Sanders will join a large field of Democratic candidates who have expressed support for…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE February 25, 2019

So How’s Your Tax Refund, Trumpsters? Thanks To GOP Tax Scam, Big Banks Pocketed An Extra $28 Billion Of Our Money Last Year

Sucker By Jon Queally Common Dreams (2/21/19) While headlines continue to proliferate about average Americans discovering they will not receive the tax return they were expecting—and in many cases, depending on—new federal date released Thursday showed that major U.S. banks earned an extra $28 billion in profits last year thanks to the tax scam bill passed by the Republican Party and signed by President Donald Trump at the end of 2017. As was said by critics of the new tax law at the time, the rich and corporations were given an “early Christmas gift” when the bill was signed, but according to new…

ALL ARTICLES, Bomb Trains, Climate Change, Worker Notes by Tom Crofton February 25, 2019

Climate Crisis & Environmental Risk Is The Externalized Cost Of A Rigged Energy Industry

We need a new politics that creates a new economy. By Tom Crofton The Commoner Call (2/25/19) Now that the Green New Deal has been widely discussed the naysayers are lining up to trash the idea. This has been expected. Outside of the climate crisis deniers — fortunately an increasingly small group — the largest push is coming from the “free market” advocates who do not want to lose their gravy train of “return on investment” on fossil fuels and its related industry. When modern capitalists bring out the old saw about markets being the best way to regulate business…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change, FEATURE February 25, 2019

‘Terrifying’: Rapid Loss Of Biodiversity Placing Global Food Supplies At Risk Of ‘Irreversible Collapse’

“This should be at the top of every news bulletin and every government’s agenda around the world.” By Julia Conley Common Dreams (2/22/19) A groundbreaking report by the United Nations highlighting the rapid, widespread loss of many of the world’s plant and animal species should be on the front page of every newspaper in the world, argued climate action and food access advocates on Friday. The global grassroots organization Slow Food was among the groups that called for far greater attention by world leaders to the “debilitating” loss of biodiversity and the disastrous effects the decline is having on food…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor February 25, 2019

Russia Monitor: Among The ‘Knowns’ & ‘Unknowns’ Impeachment Talk Grows

  “People have normalcy bias. They thought: ‘If Manafort is really such a criminal, clearly someone would do something.’ Well guess what? No one did anything and now we have a Russian asset as POTUS backed up by a transnational crime syndicate!” — Sarah Kendzior, writer, co-host Gaslit Nation podcast expert on authoritarian states. Tweet following MSNBC appearance (2/23/19) By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (2/25/19) Dear Fellow Readers, Late on Friday [2/22] evening special counsel Robert Mueller’s office filed a sentencing memo regarding convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort with the DC District Court. Manafort has already been…

ALL ARTICLES February 25, 2019

Thom Hartmann & Economist Dr. Richard Wolff On The GOP Lies On Economics & How The US Helped Churn Up The Crisis In Venezuela

  In this episode (2/21/19) of the Thom Hartmann Program socialist economist Richard Wolff Pd.D. and Hartmann present a thought-provoking 12 minutes on the myths and failures of corporate-friendly republican and democratic neoliberal austerity economics and some of the Washington D.C.-based roots of the current economic crisis in Venezuela. Hartmann also brings up the unspoken reality of the clearly racial aspect of Trump administration threats of military action in Venezuela. Link to 12-Minute Video ***** This Is Not Humanitarian Aid: A Maduro Critic In Venezuela Slams U.S. Plan to Push Regime Change “This is clearly a coup carried out by the United States…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Media Hits & Misses February 25, 2019

Transformation: The Making Of An Alt-Right Internet Troll

  By Jared Holt Right Wing Watch (2/23/19) Beneath every far-right internet troll is a person with a name and a life offline. Across the United States and abroad, there are otherwise normal people living out secret lives on the internet where they are engaging in a culture of harassment, hate-spreading, and radicalizing themselves with extremist ideologies. Many of the people existing in this space online do so behind pseudonymous display names and social media accounts they believe conceal their identity. But it doesn’t always work, and sometimes we get an opportunity to examine under the hood and try to understand…

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ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, Media Hits & Misses February 25, 2019

Interview Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Want You To See Shows ‘How Angry Elites Get’ When Their Corruption Is Called Out

Fox’s Tucker Carlson at his measured, reasoned, eloquent best. “You’re not part of the solution, Mr. Carlson, you’re part of the problem.” By Julia Conley Common Dreams (2/20/19) Weeks after footage of him slamming the rich at the World Economic Summit at Davos became one of the most watched online videos of the past year, Dutch historian Rutger Bregman joined Tucker Carlson for a discussion on the subject, only to have the right-wing Fox News host lose his cool in epic fashion when called out for being a “millionaire who works for billionaires,” yelled obscenities at his guest, and pulled the plug…