Skip to content
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel.
Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%: Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.
Images of the Day:
Quotes of the Day:
All of the Western nations have been caught in a lie, the lie of pretended humanism; this means that their history has no moral justification, and that the West has no moral authority. — James Baldwin, To Be Baptized, No Name in the Street
“Narrow, rigid, unimaginative, sly, secretive and wholly lacking in the political skills necessary to win over voters or build alliances, rarely can a leader have looked less suited to the task before them. This is the consensus view of the British prime minister….”— Kenneth Surin, “Narrow, rigid, unimaginative and sly.” And an armistice in return for continuing conflict. Is that our PM?
Now Republicans in the state legislator are moving to frustrate the will of citizens, adding a new burden to exclude voters, a new form of one of the most loathsome Jim Crow tactics — the poll tax. Republicans in a House committee have voted — contrary to the intent and the text of the referendum passed by voters — to exclude from voting those who haven’t paid their fines (even including those on a court-approved payment plan). Fines are imposed not by judges as part of the sentence, but by administrative clerks. They do not block any other voters from voting. If Republicans have their way — and they have a majority in the House legislature — they will likely use these fines to block a substantial portion of African Americans from voting. Despite the will of its people, Florida Republicans want to impose a racially biased poll tax to strip citizens of the right to vote — and to tilt elections in their favor. — Jesse Jackson, Florida’s Poll Tax is a New Low
Videos of the Day:
Russia Defies US Threats Over VenezuelaTrump insists Russia ‘get out’ of Venezuela; Vijay Prashad says Russia is protecting its own economic interests, billions in outstanding loans
U.S.:
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.— The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace!
Who is paying for the Wall?: Millions of Americans Flood Into Mexico for Health Care — the Human Caravan You Haven’t Heard AboutIt’s true that Latin and Central Americans are coming to the US fleeing violence and poverty, much of it caused by destructive US trade policy over the course of decades. But there’s another massive “border crossing” phenomenon afoot — and Trump has not said a word about it. We’re talking about thousands of US citizens crossing the border each day in search of affordable health care. By Mark Provost
Braceros Then and Now: Brutality and Pathological Dishonesty Greet Immigrants in the Age of Trump Do a Google search of braceros and you’ll find a picture of a line of shirtless young men being sprayed with DDT as they pass through a gate of a farm labor intake center. In another photo, naked men are lined up in a large room being inspected by men in white coats. The photos tell a story the name bracero (from the word brazos, or arms) itself implies.By Bruce Neuburger
Deconstructed Prodcast: The Case Against Aipac This Week Aipac held its annual policy conference in the capital, with speakers including Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the biggest name at this year’s event wasn’t even in the room. Speaker after speaker took turns taking veiled (and not so veiled) jabs at freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar for comments she made on Twitter in February about the nature of AIPAC’s influence in Washington. Chuck Schumer equated Oma’s critique of AIPAC with Donald Trump’s praising of neo-nis in Charlottesville. Others including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attacked Omar for her claim at a public event in D.C. last month that AIPAC promotes “allegiance to a foreign country.” Inconveniently for AIPAC, one of their biggest donors, Adam Milstein, had recently accused Rep. Omar and her fellow Muslim American lawmaker Rep. Rashida Tlaib of being representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that their values “clash with American values.” Yousef Munayyer of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Debra Shushan of Americans for Peace Now join Mehdi Hasan to discuss AIPAC’s obsession with Rep. Omar and its Islamophobia problem.
Trump’s 2020 Budget Rewards the Wealthiest IndividualsDonald Trump’s 2020 budget proposal represents the wildest version of neoliberalism yet. It is just the latest evidence that the United States has become a plutocracy run by an oligarchical elite bent on destroying the last vestiges of a democratic polity. Trump’s fiscal budget proposal threatens to exacerbate all of the major problems facing the U.S. economy and society today “in order to fund more goodies for the wealthy,” according to radical political economist Gerald Epstein. In this interview with Truthout, Epstein — the co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute and a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst — discusses why the Trump budget proposal is a blatant power grab, why we need to think about economics beyond GDP growth, and why the U.S. government is incurring more debt that does not even begin to address the problems the country faces. By C.J. Polychroniou
Trump’s Attacks on the ACA Could Worsen the Opioid Crisis Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway seemed to be playing damage control last week during a press call highlighting the White House’s efforts to address the nation’s opioid woes. While President Trump was busy defending his decision to declare a “national emergency” on the southern border, his administration came under fire for its milquetoast response to the overdose crisis. Trump declared a public health emergency back in 2017, but the White House did not release a national drug control strategy until January 2019, and federal auditors said it lacked measurable objectives for reducing opioid-related deaths and other hard numbers required by Congress. Lawmakers were furious, demanding the administration explain just what it is doing about the epidemic. By Mike Ludwig
The Actual Collusion In 2002 and 2003 corporate media idiots speculated that secular socialist Saddam Hussein might give nukes that he didn’t and couldn’t have to radical Islamists who wanted to kill him. That story wasn’t true. Worse than that, it couldn’t have been true. I said it over and over and over. So did others. But we skeptics were outsiders. Corporate media’s strict idiot— only hiring policy keeps journalists-as-stenographers, propagandists and broken-brain logic-haters employed by censoring those of us who are always right. The idiots’ idiotic lies about WMDs justified a war that left more than a million Iraqis dead. By Ted Rall
Environment:
Bleeding Trees for Forest Health? The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation is arguing that we need more logging/thinning as a panacea for wildfire and forest health. It reminds me of the same approach that Medieval doctors took to illness. If a patient was sick, the solution was to “bleed” the “bad” blood from the individual. If the patient recovered, it was attributed to the removal of the tainted blood. If the patient died, apparently not enough blood was removed. By George Wuerthner
‘Verdict Is In’: Monsanto Found Liable for Man’s Cancer, Ordered to Pay $80 Million in Damages “The jury resoundingly held Monsanto accountable for its 40 years of corporate malfeasance.””Bayer-Monsanto has known for decades the cancer-causing properties of Roundup, and I applaud the jury for holding the company accountable for failing to warn consumers of the known danger.” —Ken Cook, Environmental Working Group By Jacke Johnson 
Oil Industry Ponders Getting ‘Dragged into Low-Carbon Future’ While Claiming it ‘Stepped up’ on ClimateThe fossil fuel industry’s faith that the modern world economy will be powered by its products for the indefinite future is usually unwavering. But cracks in that faith recently appeared in Houston at the top annual oil industry conference, known as CERAweek. The trade publication Platts S&P Global noted that “talk of oil at CERAWeek felt a bit more lackluster this time around,” according to several attendees. Various pressures — from climate-anxious investors to competition from renewables — apparently are tempering the oil and gas industry’s usual optimism. By Justin Mikulka
Thirty years after Exxon Valdez, the response to oil spills is still all wrong Chemicals used to clean up spills have harmed marine wildlife, response workers, and coastal residents. The EPA must act
hirty years ago, on 24 March 1989, communities in Prince William Sound, Alaska, awoke to horrific news: the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, had run aground and leaked 11m gallons of oil into the sound. Chaos ensued. Fishermen desperately began collecting oil in five-gallon buckets. Exxon, meanwhile, responded by burning floating oil and dumping toxic oil-based chemicals called “dispersants”. Dispersants break oil apart into smaller droplets, and this was assumed to enhance natural dispersion and degradation of oil, thereby “cleaning up” a spill. Instead, the dispersants formed chemically enhanced oil particles that proved to be more toxic to humans and the environment than the oil alone. By Riki Ott and Jack Siddoway 
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Russiagate Implodes, Pleasing Trump But Leaving the Left in the Cold The “Deep State” escalated a dispute within the U.S. corporate electoral duopoly into a geopolitical crisis, an “attack on America” “Russia and Wikileaks were framed in a media show trial.” Robert Mueller has finally put a plug in the noxious fart that has oozed for almost three years from the conjoined bowels of the Democratic Party and the national security state — but the stain remains, and may yet be lethal to us all. By Glen Ford, Bar Executive Manager
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Algeria: wave of strikes terrifies the ruling class As strikes get underway throughout Algeria, the ruling class is yet again retreating in the face of the revolutionary masses. More and more top officials are calling for the resignation of Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Following yet another million-man march last Friday, a wave of strikes has been spreading in since Monday. The call for a general strike started gaining group last week on social media, and via a series of trade union organisations. In particular: the UGTA chapters in Bejaia and Tizi Ouzou, as well as the independent public sector union SNAPAP, which called for a three-day general strike for all public sector workers. The strike was also most effective within the sector represented by these organisations. By Hamid Alizadeh
EU leaders complicit in torture of refugees and migrants, Amnesty saysRights group claims EU is financing Libyan system that routinely acts in collusion with militia groups and people traffickers European leaders stand accused by Amnesty International of being knowingly complicit in the torture and exploitation of thousands of migrants and refugees by the EU-financed Libyan coastguard and officials running the country’s detention camps. By Daniel Boffey
Reporter Locked Up in Ecuador Embassy Room During Assange Visit Cassandra Fairbanks, a journalist from the United States said she was locked in a room in the Ecuadorean embassy in London when she went to interview WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who has been staying in the embassy for the past seven years and has been treated as a prisoner for the past two years under the government of Lenin Moreno. Fairbanks also said she heard an intense argument between Assange and the staff when the later prevented Assange from talking to the journalist.
Israel elections: Netanyahu leans on the far-right to hold on to powerOn 9 April, a new parliament will be elected in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister from the nationalist Likud party, has to face corruption charges. In order to hold on to power, Netanyahu is trying to lean on the support of several far-right parties. At the same time, Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan, a more moderate and liberal, but still nationalist alliance is leading the polls. Our correspondent in Tel Aviv
Health, Education, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘govern’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let The People Vote on Healthcare!
The Onion: Innovative Progressive Charter School with No StudentsThe Onion reports on an exciting and innovative concept in the world of charter schools: a school without students! “One year into its founding as the purported “bold next step in education reform,” administrators on Monday sang the praises of Forest Gates Academy, a progressive new charter school that practices an innovative philosophy of not admitting any students. “We’ve done something here at Forest Gates that is truly special, combining modern, cutting-edge pedagogical methods with a refreshingly non-pupil-centric approach,” said academy president Diane Blanchard, who claimed that the experimental school boasts state-of-the-art facilities, a diverse and challenging syllabus, absolutely zero students, a world-class library, and the highest faculty-student ratio in the nation. “ By Diane Ravitch
The 1% NFL Ownors Have their Own Rules:
