Trumperial Presidency

A January 29th letter from the U.S. president’s lawyer Marc Kasowitz claims that the president cannot possibly obstruct justice, can refuse a subpoena to testify, and cannot be indicted while president. The letter also seems to claim that he can pardon himself for his crimes. The hope that such a reading misinterpreted the letter was pretty well smashed when the same president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said this weekend that the Constitution says the president can pardon himself.

Here’s what read more

Talk Nation Radio: Greg Shupak: Media Tells Wrong Story About Palestine

Greg Shupak is the author of The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media, which can be purchased on the website of OR Books. He has a PhD in Literary Studies and teaches Media Studies at the University of Guelph in Toronto. His fiction has appeared in a wide range of literary journals and he regularly writes analysis of politics and media for a variety of outlets including Electronic Intifada, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, In These Times, Jacobin, read more

Memorial Day THIS

“Memorial Day is a time to remember, appreciate, and honor the selfless patriots who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to freedom. At a time when our country seems so divided, we must not forget that it is because of their service and sacrifice that we live in the most free and prosperous nation on Earth.” —Congressman Tom Garrett

It would be difficult to count all of the lies in the above statement. Let’s just highlight a few.

Let’s start with “most free.”

The British-based Legatum read more

Talk Nation Radio: Gail Davidson on Lawlessness of U.S. Sanctioning of Torture

Gail Davidson is a legal activist working for a better world through advocacy and education to enhance understanding of and compliance with, international human rights and humanitarian law. She is the founder and Executive Director of Lawyers Rights Watch Canada a volunteer-run committee of lawyers and other human rights defenders in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN that promotes international human rights and the rule of law through advocacy, read more

Tim Kaine’s War Scam Hits a Speed Bump

Virginia ought to be in the running for worst U.S. senators in the country, a couple of walking catastrophes empowered in part by their status as Democrats and, in one case, the status of rightful Vice President if not for various outrages, real (the Electoral College, vote suppression) and imagined (Vladimir Putin’s evil manipulation of the time-space continuum). While Senator Mark Warner loves him some torturers he can confirm to high office, Tim Kaine has bigger plans.

Senator Tim Kaine has read more

War Is Love

Photo by Truthdig.

On Monday I was arrested along with many other people in the street in front of the U.S. Capitol, participating in the new Poor People’s Campaign, the first multi-issue coalition we’ve seen in years that properly takes on militarism rather than indulging the fantasy of a $1 trillion a year military coexisting with decent humanitarian and environmental policies.

Yet it was hard at this peaceful gathering and in the “training” before it not to notice people’s habitual read more

Talk Nation Radio: The Movement Music of Tom Neilson

This week on Talk Nation Radio we will be speaking with and listening to the music of Tom Neilson. He has received over two dozen awards, including two song of the year awards from Independent Musicians. In 2017, he received the Arab American Women Association Award for Education About Palestine Through Performance Art. In 2015 he was nominated for the United Nations Nelson Mandela Award for Lifetime Achievement in Peace and Justice. Tom and his partner Lynn Waldron will be performing this September read more

Forces of Corruption Are Horrified of a Trump Impeachment

If you do a daily web search for “impeachment,” here’s what you’ll get used to seeing. Most use of impeachment is outside the United States. Most use of impeachment within the United States is outside of Washington, D.C. Most media mention of impeachment in relation to Trump is strongly opposed to it and to the small-d democratic threat it holds for those in power. And the very worst members of both major parties (yes, including the “resistance”) are leading the charge against any read more

Militarism Mapped

World BEYOND War has just released an updated 2018 mapping of militarism in the world. The map system can be explored and adjusted to display what you’re looking for, as well as display precise data and its sources at http://bit.ly/mappingmilitarism

Here are some examples of what it can show:

Where wars are present that directly and violently killed over 1,000 people in 2017:

Where wars are present and where wars come from are two different questions. If we look at where money is spent on wars read more

Enough is Enough. The Time Has Come to BDS the US.

People, organizations, and governments around the world, and people and organizations in the United States, need to stand up at long last and nonviolently resist the lawless behavior of the rogue U.S. government.

The recent U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran is not an aberration. It parallels the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and numerous other disarmament agreements, the U.S. opposition to the International Criminal Court, its record-setting use of the read more