The psychosis of our permanent war state. How the press goes limp before the military. The choice is between socialism and barbarism. Link to 31-Minute Video
Editor’s Note Advisory: Some in the west may find this challenging video unsettling and gross, but before problems can be addressed they must first be seen and understood. The kind of grotesque, criminal concentration of capitalist wealth in which eight men own as much wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion people on the planet makes this kind of daily injustice and degradation inevitable. (In the U.S. three men — Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet own as much wealth as the bottom half of the American population.) — Mark L. Taylor By Video journalist: Howard Johnson / Producer: Virma…
Who is next in Mueller’s barrel? By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/12/18) Dear Fellow Readers, With Trump-Russia corruption news, there are sometimes the easy to understand news items like former Trump political adviser Sam Nunberg’s almost six hour meeting with a grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller. We previously cited Nunberg’s statement that he would ignore a subpoena to appear. “Nunberg said his testimony focused on the campaign aides surrounding the president who were mentioned in the subpoena, like White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, former White House aide Steve Bannon, former campaign aides Corey Lewandowski and Carter Page, Trump’s personal attorney…
By David Remnick The New Yorker Radio Hour (3/6/18) The dossier—a secret report, made public after the 2016 election, alleging various corrupt dealings between Donald Trump, his campaign, and the government of Russia—is one of the most hotly debated documents in Washington. The dossier’s author, Christopher Steele, a former British spy working on contract, went into hiding after its publication. “The Man Behind the Dossier,” Jane Mayer’s report on Steele, was just published in The New Yorker. She reports that Steele is in the “unenviable predicament” of being hated by both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin—and that he documented more evidence…
CNN (2/28/18) Reporting legends Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward compared the drama surrounding President Donald Trump’s White House with the scandals that plagued the Nixon administration. The duo, formerly of The Washington Post, are best known for their reporting on the Watergate cover-up, an effort by former President Richard Nixon to interfere with the Democratic Party during his re-election bid in the early 1970s. Link to 21-Minute Video
“Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.” — Muckraking journalist Ida B. Wells Democracy Now! (3/9/18) As the world marked International Women’s Day on Wednesday, The New York Times began a new project highlighting the lives of remarkable women who never had an obituary in the paper, until now. The list might surprise you. It includes the pioneering anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells; the writer and poet Sylvia Plath; Qiu Jin, who was known as China’s Joan of Arc; the groundbreaking photographer…
Stop SESTA/FOSTA By Elliot Harmon Electronic Frontier Foundation (3/8/18) The U.S. Senate is about to vote on a bill that would be disastrous for online speech and communities. The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865) might sound appealing, but it would do nothing to fight sex traffickers. What it would do is silence a lot of legitimate speech online, shutting some voices out of online spaces. This dangerous bill has already passed the House of Representatives, and it’s expected to come up for a Senate vote in the next few days. If you care about preserving the Internet as…
By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (3/2/18) Cooperation between Republicans and Democrats has become something of a rarity in today’s polarized political environment—except when it comes to a select handful of objectives, like enriching Wall Street banks. In a Twitter thread on Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called attention to a massive bank deregulation bill (S.2155) that could reach the Senate floor for a final vote next week, and highlighted the fact that a dozen Democrats are providing crucial support for the measure. “It’s time for the rest of us to fight back and demand that Washington work for us, not the big…
By Julia Conely Common Dreams (3/6/18) Two Democratic challengers—including outspoken progressive Randy “Ironstache” Bryce—who hope to oust Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in his home Wisconsin district this November were among the nearly dozen immigrant rights advocates arrested outside Ryan’s offices in Racine on Monday. Bryce and Myers joined about 200 community members, including many high school students, to demand that Ryan allow representatives to vote on a clean Dream Act, which would allow young undocumented immigrants to attend school and work as part of a pathway to citizenship. When a local reporter asked Bryce if his support for immigrants…
By Jacqueline Leo Who.What.Why (2/28/18) Changing America’s anything-goes gun control laws is now the goal of many high school students across the nation who have banded together under the slogan, #NeverAgain. Chances are they’ll be joined by many of their millennial peers (millennials are the largest generation and voting group in the US) and their parents when they march on Washington on March 24. The movement was ignited on February 14 in Parkland, Florida, when a disturbed former student shot and killed 17 people, including 14 students. The surviving students’ reactions have been reminiscent of the Divergent Trilogy, where young people living in…
By Evan Dvorsack The La Crosse Tribune (2/18/18) There was a consensus among the crowd at Congressman Kind’s listening session last week [2/12] in La Crosse: The U.S. health care system needs radical change, and a Medicare for All system, as proposed in HR 676 “The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” is the best way forward. Even Rep. Kind admitted “it’s an aspiration I share,” but he expressed some concerns about the bill. I will address those concerns below. But first, what is Medicare for All, as laid out in HR 676? Medicare for All (also known…
By Rob Stein All Things Considered/NPR (3/6/18) There’s more bad news about the nation’s devastating opioid epidemic. In just one year, overdoses from opioids jumped by about 30 percent, according to a report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall increase in opioid overdoses seen in hospital emergency rooms between the third quarter of 2016 and the third quarter of 2017 occurred across the nation. Some parts of the country experienced far greater increases, while a few have reported declines, the analysis shows. “We have an emergency on our hands,” says acting CDC Director Anne Schuchat. “The fast-moving opioid overdose…
Democracy Now! (3/6/18) Trade wars are good, and easy to win.” That’s the message President Trump tweeted on Friday, sending shockwaves across the globe and sparking fear of impending economic volatility. On Thursday, world stock markets tumbled after Trump announced he plans to impose new tariffs on imports of foreign steel and aluminum. The new tariffs—25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum—will benefit U.S. producers of the metals, while raising prices for companies that manufacture everything from cars to airplanes to high-rise apartments. Prominent Republicans and business leaders have denounced Trump’s plan, saying the tariffs will hurt…
The Washington Post reports that the Democratic establishment tried to push one of our top progressive candidates — Bernie supporter and Reverend Greg Edwards — out of a key congressional race in Pennsylvania: “A black Democratic candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania is accusing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee of undermining his campaign and trying to nudge him out of the race in favor of white candidates. “As far as I know, they only targeted one candidate to leave this race — the most progressive candidate, the only candidate of color,” Edwards said.” Greg is the frontrunner in this district, which…
By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/8/18) Dear Fellow Readers, SO MUCH NEWS! Even staying within the Trump-Russia corruption guardrails and avoiding the distractions of a porn star suing a sitting president it would be a challenge. But to focus on Trump-Russia corruption it’s necessary to not stray into the Stormy Daniels’ suit showng Trump retaining all intellectual property including a specific provision for “certain still images and/or text messages”. It would be fine if Trump’s cult bails on him because they hear he is sad in the sack and small in the genitals. Not a victory based on facts over Trumputin…
By Rebecca Stoner In These Times (2/14/18) TAMPA, FLA.—In a fluorescent lit classroom with handmade posters covering one wall, approximately 15 high school students are chanting the words of black revolutionary Assata Shakur: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and we must support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” With some embarrassed giggling, they recite it once, twice, three times, led by their visiting speaker, Pamela Gomez of the Hillsborough Community Protection Coalition, an alliance of local progressive groups. These students…
Ku Klux Klan parade, Washington, D.C., in 1926. ( National Photo Company Collection / Wikimedia Commons ) On The Media (3/2/18) In the 1920s, the Second Klan exploded across the nation, thanks in part to the amount of media coverage it was receiving. Heated debates ensued about how the media should cover the Klan: whether they should treat it neutrally and risk normalizing it or denounce it constantly and risk losing readers and drawing the Klan’s ire, or whether they should be covering it at all. Sound familiar? Dr. Felix Harcourt is a professor of history at Austin College and author of “Ku Klux Kulture: America…
With all chaos and change swirling through Washington DC and tugging back and forth with Moscow it is easy to feel lost and confused and uncertain as to just what the hell is going on. In this series of short video talks Yale historian Timothy Snyder brings sense out of chaos and knits together an understanding of the patterns and personalities redefining our world and lives. Snyder is an expert on 20th century totalitarian regimes. His 2017 book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century” is an essential owners manual for anyone living in Trump’s Amerika. You can link…
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High activist Emma González. (Portrait by Seth L. Taylor, 2018) They embody the power of a comprehensive education. By Dahlia Lithwick Slate (2/28/18) The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School returned to class Wednesday morning two weeks and moral centuries after a tragic mass shooting ended the lives of 17 classmates and teachers. Sen. Marco Rubio marked their return by scolding them for being “infected” with “arrogance” and “boasting.” The Florida legislature marked their return by enacting a $67 million program to arm school staff, including teachers, over the objections of students and parents. Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill opted to welcome them back by…
Democracy Now! (3/3/18) As a student-led movement for gun control sweeps the country, we look back at a key moment in another historic student movement: desegregation. “As I look at these young people I think back on those days and I think their time has come to pick up the baton looking for justice and freedom.” On January 9, 1961, African-American students Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes walked onto the campus of the University of Georgia to register for classes, as a howling mob of white students screamed racial epithets at them. It was a pivotal moment in the…
By Matt Vasilobambro The HuffPo (3/2/18) In the two weeks since the Florida school massacre, state lawmakers around the country have introduced bills to ban bump stocks, ban assault weapons, and expand background checks — and also to arm teachers, lighten penalties for carrying without a permit, and waive handgun permit fees. If history foretells, the gun-rights bills will have a better chance at success. In the years since Sandy Hook, when 26 were slain in 2012, states have enacted nearly 600 new gun laws, according to data compiled separately by the National Rifle Association and the Giffords Law…
By Brad Tuttle Time 2/28/18) Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association for nearly 30 years, has often found himself at the center of controversy. But over the last week, in the wake of a deadly Florida high school shooting that left 17 dead, LaPierre and the NRA have been under especially strong scrutiny. A growing number of companies have cut ties to the gun rights organization, ending their discounts programs for NRA members. Others who haven’t done so, like FedEx, are facing boycott calls. At a conservative conference last week, LaPierre blamed the media and Washington insiders for exploiting “tragedy for…
By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/5/18) Dear Fellow Readers, White House chaos is a constant news stream but more important, Trump-Russia corruption, is… well, corruption. Corruption even in the form of selling out our foreign policy commitments for personal financial gain and fortune. There are two layers to this story. Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has used his position in the White House to seek new sources for funding to save the Kushner family business. We’ll come back to Kushner’s abuse of his government responsibilities but an even bigger outcome of his malpractice is the stick…
Heart & Soul/BBC (2/23/18) Libby Phelps is the granddaughter of the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps. Nicknamed “America’s Most Hated Family”, the church in Kansas became infamous for telling homosexuals they were going to hell and picketing the funerals of US soldiers. But it was after the church rejoiced in the attacks of 11 September, that Libby questioned her faith, packed her bags and left – she escaped from the church. Today she now advocates for the LGBT community, the people she once condemned to hell. As a young girl Libby would attend school and play with her…
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research (3/1/18) (First published on March 13, 2013, updated March 1, 2018.) Is it a coincidence? In recent history, from the Vietnam war to the present, the month of March has been chosen by Pentagon and NATO military planners as the “best month” to go to war. With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated…
“Hmmm, is this a coincidence or did Trump confidant Carl Icahn have insider information?” By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (3/2/18) Carl Icahn, a former special adviser to President Donald Trump, is facing allegations of possible insider trading after a federal filing revealed the billionaire investor started selling off millions of dollars in stock for a company that significantly depends on steel just a few days before the Trump administration started publicly considering a steel tariff, which the president officially announced Thursday. As Common Dreams reported Thursday, Trump flouted warnings of a trade war from several members of his cabinet and announced that he will impose…
By Nina Totenberg NPR (2/27/18) It’s not that uncommon to hear someone complaining that politicians are corrupt. But you wouldn’t expect to be thrown in jail for it. That’s exactly what happened to Fane Lozman at a city council meeting in Florida. On Tuesday, that arrest got to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it could have implications not just for Lozman, but for the limits of First Amendment protections of freedom of speech. Oddly, it’s not Lozman’s first trip to the nation’s highest court. Five years ago, the financial trader won his first case against the city of Riviera…
By Liz Wolfe Rare (2/9/18) Though most Americans are probably unaware of it, in most states it’s not illegal for police officers to have sex with people in their custody. Nationally, 35 states allow a strange legal loophole where cops can claim a sexual encounter between them and their detainee is consensual to avoid rape or assault charges. A recent Buzzfeed report brought attention to the case of 18-year-old Brooklyn native Anna Doe, who was allegedly raped while handcuffed during a traffic stop. “Inside, Anna said the detectives took turns raping her in the backseat as the van cruised the dark…
By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (3/1/18) Set aside the insanity and moral vacuum and political cowardice of an administration whose centerpiece response to yet another school shooting is to put forward the idea of arming up teachers and “hardening” our schools into closed bunkers. All of that is bizarre enough but then we get Donald ‘Sgt. Bone Spurs’ Trumputin pontificating about how things would have been different if he had been on hand at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus: “You don’t know until you’re tested, but I really believe I’d run in there even if…
By Julia Conley Common Dreams (2/27/18) Progressives found new reason for dismay on Tuesday after internal documents revealed efforts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to squash support for Medicare for All and a separate attempt to curtail demands for stricter gun control following the mass shooting in Las Vegas last year. “It’s becoming evident that the DCCC—and the billionaire donors and revolving door consultants that make up the Democratic Party establishment—believe Democrats can only take back Congress by running on a watered down message…instead of the basic values of decency and fairness that voters demand,” said Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats…
“Violence in America is not about the defense of liberty or radical change. It is an expression of domination, racism and hate. American vigilantes are the shock troops of capitalism. They butcher the weak on behalf of the strong.” By Chris Hedges TruthDig (2/25/18) The proliferation of guns in American society is not only profitable for gun manufacturers, it fools the disempowered into fetishizing weapons as a guarantor of political agency. Guns buttress the myth of a rugged individualism that atomizes Americans, disdains organization and obliterates community, compounding powerlessness. Gun ownership in the United States, largely criminalized for poor people of…
“To threaten to kill a 17 year old because he had the temerity to ask a question of a politician says a lot about the people making the threats.” — Online comment. By Luke Barnes ThinkProgress (2/23/18) At a town hall on Wednesday night, the survivors of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, made Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) squirm with a series of pointed questions about his support for the Second Amendment. One question that drew particularly loud cheers came from Cameron Kasky, when he asked Rubio, “Can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from…
By Rep. Melissa Sargent (2/28/18) MADISON – On the heels of the mass shooting in Parkville, Florida, today State Representatives Melissa Sargent (D-Madison) and David Crowley (D-Milwaukee) along with their colleagues, State Senators Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) and LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), introduced LRB-2543 creating a lethal violence protective order (LVPO) process in Wisconsin. Under the LVPO injunction process, if a person is likely to injure themselves or another person, a family member or law enforcement officer (among other specific parties specified under the bill) may petition to temporarily prevent the person from possessing or purchasing a firearm. “We’ve seen shooting after…
By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/1/18) Dear Fellow Readers, In a busy news cycle, the nod for most significant story goes to head of U.S. Cyber Command and National Security Agency Admiral Michael Rogers. Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner made a good (bad) case for himself, but priority of risk over noise of failure wins out. Rogers’ comment are a stunning indictment of Trump’s lack of leadership: Cyber Chief Says Trump Has Given Him No New Authority To Strike At Russian Interference Threat. In a damning portrait of Trump’s abject failure and dereliction of duty. Only the…
By Robert Reich Robert Reich’s Facebook Page The list above shows a growing number of companies severing their links with the NRA by ending their discounts to NRA members — discounts that had been used by the NRA to promote membership. Yesterday, Delta, United, Best Western Hotels ended their relationships as well. Unfortunately, FedEx, eHealth, Life Line Screening, and a few others continue to collaborate with the NRA. You might consider ending your own business dealings with these NRA collaborators. #BoycottNRA Students are also asking that tourists boycott Florida when it comes to taking a vacation, until Florida lawmakers…
“Don’t fool yourself, that money we have is blood money.” — Andrea Manfort to her sister Jessica. By Franklin Foer The Atlantic (March 2018) . The Wisdom of Friends The clinic permitted paul manafort one 10-minute call each day. And each day, he would use it to ring his wife from Arizona, his voice often soaked in tears. “Apparently he sobs daily,” his daughter Andrea, then 29, texted a friend. During the spring of 2015, Manafort’s life had tipped into a deep trough. A few months earlier, he had intimated to his other daughter, Jessica, that suicide was a possibility….
By Aaron Sankin & Will Carless Reveal/Hate Report (2/23/18) In this week’s roundup: the waning power of the KKK, the argument over whether a New Mexico school shooter was a racist finally seems settled, and a meme turns “Black Panther” hatred on its head. In 2017, the number of active Ku Klux Klan chapters dropped by nearly 45 percent, from 130 in 2016 to 72 the following year, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. These figures provide hard data for a trend we’ve been hearing about anecdotally: the rapidly waning importance of the KKK within the white supremacist…
TTBook/WPR (2/24/18) Dutch philosopher Rob Riemen [author of “To Fight Against This Age: On Fascism & Humanism”] warns that we’re just at the beginning of a new age of fascism. He says the trivialization of society and dumbing-down of liberal democracies is fueling a new generation of charismatic leaders whose doctrine of blame and resentment is just as toxic as it was in the last century. ***** Rob Riemen is a writer and the founder of the Nexus Institute. He studied Theology at Tilburg University and remembers this time as his magic mountain-era, after Thomas Mann’s masterpiece ‘The Magic…
By Matthew Avery Sutton The Guardian (2/21/18) When Billy Graham stands before the judgment seat of God, he may finally realize how badly he failed his country, and perhaps his God. On civil rights and the environmental crisis, the most important issues of his lifetime, he championed the wrong policies. Graham was on the wrong side of history. The world’s most famous evangelist let his apocalyptic anticipation of the coming kingdom of God blind him to the realities of living in this world. For Graham, the Bible had a clear message for Christians living in what he believed were humans’ last…
flickr photo In fact, he never even owned one. By Tony Dokoupil NBC News (6/16/16) The AR-15 is the most talked about gun in America. But the AR-15’s creator died before the weapon became a popular hit and his family has never spoken out. Until now. “Our father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47,” the Stoner family told NBC News late Wednesday. “He died long before any mass shootings occurred. But, we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more…