Author: David Swanson

“But where will you get the money?” is usually a right-wing question, completely forbidden during all discussions of the military and corporate bailouts and fossil-fuel subsidies and prison-building rampages, yet somehow immediately front-and-center with the pretense that it was always there whenever something good is proposed. “We have always been at war with East-Asia, er, with the Deficit.”

Biden’s new spending proposal (details here, read more

Salam Sarhan is Founder & Secretary-General of BPUR international ( https://bpur.org ). BPUR stands for Ban the Political Use of Religion. Salam Sarhan is a well published writer and journalist with three books and over one thousand articles on a wide range of subjects in Arabic and English. He has worked as a TV presenter, producer, business editor, and TV commentator for numerous leading media establishments, including read more

Eleven years ago, the Onion reported that the U.S. flag had been recalled after causing 143 million deaths. Last week, a Trumpy beat a Capitol Police officer with a pole holding a U.S. flag.

At first glance this seems like an amateur move. If you want the flag to maintain its power to mobilize the slaughter of men, women, children, and infants abroad, you shouldn’t actually beat cops with it at the U.S. Capitol. That might be so bad for the brand that major reliable supporters start deserting.

But read more

Victoria Nuland, former foreign policy adviser to vice president Dick Cheney, should not be nominated for Undersecretary of State, and if nominated should be rejected by the Senate.

Nuland played a key role in facilitating a coup in Ukraine that created a civil war costing 10,000 lives and displacing over a million people. She played a key role in arming Ukraine as well. She advocates radically increased military spending, NATO expansion, hostility toward Russia, and efforts to overthrow the Russian read more

In the past 150 years, U.S. presidents have lied, cheated, stolen, warmongered, incited hatred and violence, driven inequality and corruption through the roof, taken over major powers from the Congress and abused them, gained the power of nuclear war and abused it through numerous threats, accelerated the destruction of the earth’s environment, failed to protect the basic rights of people, pardoned their cronies for outrageous crimes, committed thousands of specific, open, public, and indisputable read more

This week on Talk Nation Radio: U.S.-China relations. Our guest is Jodie Evans. She is co-founder of CODEPINK, which works to stop U.S. Military interventions overseas, and promotes diplomatic solutions and divestiture from war. She served in the administration of Governor Jerry Brown and ran his presidential campaigns. She has published two books, Stop the Next War Now and Twilight of Empire, and produced several documentary films, including the Oscar and Emmy-nominated “The read more

As we get ready to celebrate the treaty banning nuclear weapons becoming law in over 50 countries (with hopefully many more to soon be added), another effort to create a global treaty is getting started. This one would ban the political use of religion. Or rather, it would ban the malevolent political use of religion. To be specific, here is part of the draft text (which I imagine may evolve a bit as the process develops):

Article 1
Equality in Respect and Dignity
Each read more

Before Antony Blinken can become Secretary of State, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.

1. Second to the war on Iraq, which of the disasters you’ve helped facilitate do you most regret, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, or something else? And what have you learned that would improve your record going forward?

2. You once supported dividing Iraq into three nations. I’ve asked an Iraqi friend to draw up a plan read more

Before Avril Haines can become Director of National Intelligence, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.

1. What are the most extreme measures that should be considered in extreme situations to protect open democratic government?

2. Would those, excuse me, would, reclaiming my time, would those measures not be more extreme than refusing to confirm for high office someone like yourself who opposes open read more

Before Neera Tanden can become Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.

1. You supported an attack on Libya that proved fraudulently marketed, illegal, and catastrophic in results, after which you argued in an email to your colleagues for trying to force Libya to pay via oil profits read more