A million names yet a total failure: Time to Trash the Terrorist Watch List, a Police-State Frankenstein Gone Off the Rails

By Dave Lindorff

I have something in common with some of the brownshirt thugs who assaulted the Capitol, some reportedly intent on kidnapping and/or killing congressional leaders and members like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader and soon to be courseMajority leader Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vice President Mike Pence.  

No, I’m not a brownshirt fascist. I’m a politically leftist professional journalist, a former Business read more

(Re-)Joining the World

One of the many things we must rightly demand of the incoming U.S. government is the abandonment of rogue status, the serious participation in treaties, a cooperative and productive relationship with the rest of the world.

We’ve all heard about the Iran agreement, which ought to be re-joined and made into a treaty — and sanctions ought to be ended. Biden can do this alone, except for the ending sanctions part.

We’ve all heard about the Paris climate agreement, which ought to be re-joined and read more

Where Will Biden Get the Money?

“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

Tomgram: Michael Klare, Can the U.S. and China Cooperate on a Failing Planet?

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

For just a moment, let me try to look on the bright side of the storming of the Capitol last week by a mob incited and dispatched by President Trump. When George W. Bush, the president who launched the Global War on Terror and then invaded Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, read more

Tomgram: William Astore, We’re All Prisoners of War Now

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

America has essentially been at war, nonstop, since the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Those “forever wars,” as they’re now commonly called, have been both truly distant from and eerily close to us, far away and yet a deeply embedded part of American life. And here, to my mind, is the read more

Talk Nation Radio: Salam Sarhan: Banning the Malevolent Political Use of Religion

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

How to Beat a Capitol Police Officer With an American Flag Pole

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

25 Organizations: Victoria Nuland’s Nomination Should Be Rejected

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

Restoring the Threat of Impeachment for Future Office Holders

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