Where were Senators during the Standing Rock?: Sanctimonious US Senators Condemn Hong Kong Police Ignoring Far More Brutal US Cops

By Dave Lindorff

The Senate, by a voice vote with no opposition yesterday passed a bill condemning the Hong Kong government and Hong Kong police for their brutal treatment of students in the supposedly autonomous Chinese city protesting threats to Hong Kong’s freedoms and it’s promise from China of self rule until 2047. The bill, if signed into law, would assess trade and other penalties on Hong Kong for its treatment of Hong Kong protesters.

Now while I have no problem condemning police read more

Morales made unforced errors: Bolivia’s Foreseeable Coup

By Ron Ridenour

Did a coup d´état take place in Bolivia with the removal of President Evo Morales? Certainly, an internal coup was a major cause, along with a rebellion calling for Morales’ resignation. When the commander of the armed forces, backed by many generals, publically calls for the president to abdicate, that is an internal coup. Did the US orchestrate this coup? Well, it would be nothing new.

The 1823 “Monroe Doctrine” asserted that Latin America belonged in the US’s backyard. read more

Revolution on a short leash: Student Protesters are Walking a Tightrope in Hong Kong

By Dave Lindorff

It’s hard to know what to think about the student protests in Hong Kong.

On the one hand they are incredibly inspiring.  The courage, determination, brilliant organizing in the face of corporate blocking of the social media platforms that have been so  critical early on to coordinating actions and rallying support, and the links that these masses of students have been able build with the broader Hong Kong community, have been amazing to witness. So to is the massive support read more

Fighting words for young workers from a radical elder: You Will Have Social Security Just Like Your Parents and Grandparents — If You Fight to Keep It!

By Dave Lindorff

I was explaining to my 26-year-old son recently that while I’m continuing to work as a writer, because I waited until age 70 to begin collecting my Social Security benefits, I am now collecting almost $29,000 on top of what I earn doing my freelance journalism thing.

He said, matter-of-factly, “Well, I and most of my millennial friends don’t expect Social Security to be around when we reach your age…if we ever do.”

If that gloomy sentiment is widespread, and read more

Democrats Make a Huge Mistake If They Just Focus Impeachment on the Ukraine Scandal

By Dave Lindorff

The impeachment theater on display today in the House, bracketed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s maudlin reading of Article I of the Constitution, and by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s ludicrous evocation of the Stalin purge trials to characterize the full House vote to establish impeachment rules and procedures, is increasingly looking like the first act of an almost certain impeachment of President Trump.

Unfortunately, if Democrats impeaching Trump on just the effort read more

Life Without Parole Sentences Rob Taxpayers and Pervert Justice

By Linn Washington, Jr.

Hundreds from across Pennsylvania rallied inside the Rotunda of the Capitol in Harrisburg recently to offer a solution for resolving an enormously expensive problem in state law that plagues the state’s prison system

That expensive problem arises from Pennsylvania’s Life Without Parole (LWOP) sentences that keep inmates in prison until they die.

Every year Pennsylvania’s prison system spends “roughly $460 million” to incarcerate LWOP inmates, stated a report released read more

Drones and the weapons of the future must be regulated: Donald Trump and the New, New World Order

By John Grant

“When the going gets weird, the weird go pro.” 

                           — Hunter Thompson

For weeks, I’ve been reading New York Times stories that, as a military veteran of the anti-war movement for the past 35 years, really blow my mind. For one thing, President Trump is in a domestic, political war with what he and his allies call “the deep state” — a conspiratorial construction that comes out of the far left. To really understand the true read more

By Dave Lindorff

Something very unusual happened on Thursday, Oct. 17. The New York Times suddenly ran an article on its opinion page explaining how to cut $300 billion from the $1-trillion military budget — enough, the article explained, to fund Bernie Sanders’ proposed program for an expanded Medicare program to cover all Americans without raising a dime in new taxes.

The read more

US’s sordid history of betraying minority groups that do its fighting: Sure Trump is ‘Betraying the Kurds!’ but What’s New about That?

By Dave Lindorff

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is attacking President Trump for pulling US troops out of Syria, where they’ve been engaging in an illegal and bloody war against the Syrian government and its military for at least five years (not counting the three prior years when the US was providing arms and training to Syrian rebels, including groups associated with Al Qaeda).

McConnell and other Republicans, as well as most leading Democrats, are calling Trump’s move “precipitous read more

Applause meter gives it to Sanders: Faux ‘Working Man’s’ Candidate Biden Looking Like a Loser after Philly AFL-CIO Presidential Summit

By Dave Lindorff

Philadelphia — At a packed ‘Presidential Summit’ on Tuesday organized and sponsored by this city’s AFL-CIO Labor Council, former Delaware Senator and Vice-President and repeat Democratic presidential primary contender Joe Biden’s oft-touted claim to be the “working-class,” or alternatively “middle-class” favorite looked pretty exaggerated.

Assigned pole position as the first candidate read more