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Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan headed Boeing’s civil aviation unit before his current job… The Boeing 737 Max 8 Scandal May Be the Tip of a Bloody Iceberg of Corruption

By Dave Lindorff Here’s Dave Lindorff being interviewed on Sputnik radio about the implications of the deadly Boeing 737 Max 8 avionics software flaw, the questionable delay in US regulators ordering grounding of the planes, and what it means that the man who oversaw Boeing’s civilian aircraft unit, Patrick Shanahan, has been undersecretary of defense and is not acting secretary of defense, where he’s being investigated by the Pentagon’s inspector general for possible corruption in pushing Boeing military contracts like the upgraded F-15… To hear this interview of Dave Lindorff, please go to: https://thiscantbehappening.net/the-boeing-737-max-8-scandal-may-be-the-tip-of-a-bloody-iceberg-of-corruption/
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Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, Turning Our Backs on Nuremberg

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

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The advent of sound recording deep-sixed this age-old thought experiment and offered a definitive answer: Yes!

I’ve got another one for you, though: if you water-torture someone at a secure military compound and no one is around to see it, is it a war crime?

Tricky, right?

Well, what if someone read more

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Congress Should Begin Impeachment, But Not the Way You Think

Back before Donald Trump was inaugurated, I wrote an article called “Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump.” Perhaps it is less quixotic, or perhaps it is more, to hope that, after more than two years of being barraged with those fantasies, but with their main focus having publicly flopped, more people will now be open to trying something else. That pre-inauguration article read:

“Trump should be impeached on Day 1, but the same Democrats who found the one nominee who could read more

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Tomgram: William deBuys, 12 Ways to Make Sense of the Border Mess

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

Who now remembers the classic 1956 sci-fi movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers? In it, alien spores drop to earth in… yes, California (undoubtedly not too far from the Mexican border)… and develop into seed pods that can replicate and then take over any nearby sleeping human being. What a nightmarish film. It certainly scared the hell out of 12-year-old read more

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When the Irish Ambassador Talks About Independence in Charlottesville

Here’s the description of an event planned for April 2nd at the University of Virginia:

“His Excellency Daniel Mulhall, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States, will speak as part of the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ Ambassador Series in the Rotunda Dome Room on April 2 from 3:30-4:45 p.m. Ambassador Mulhall will address the relationship between Ireland and the United States with emphasis on the countries’ Declarations of Independence for which Ireland celebrates its 100th read more

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Dear World, Here’s How to Close Your U.S. Military Bases

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

If you live among the Other 96% — that portion of humanity that the U.S. government does not claim to represent, but where the U.S. military maintains some 1,000 major military bases, here are some helpful tips and past examples of success.

First of all, do everything you can to let people in the United States know how much they are paying financially for the bases in your country. While some of us in the United States primarily object to bases because of their use in read more

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What Democratic Socialism Is and Is Not

In recent weeks, Donald Trump and other Republicans have begun to tar their Democratic opponents with the “socialist” brush, contending that the adoption of socialist policies will transform the United States into a land of dictatorship and poverty.  “Democrat lawmakers are now embracing socialism,” Trump warned the annual Conservative Political Action Conference read more

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US lets reporters fly but also know they’re being monitored The TSA’s Role as Journalist Harasser and Media ‘Watchdog’

By Dave Lindorff

Sometimes you have to leave the United States to understand how far this country has evolved towards becoming a police state.

I got a good example of this just last week on a trip with my harpsichordist wife to Vienna where she had been contracted to perform on Austrian State Radio in Vienna a concert of music by a leftist Jewish composer who settled in the US after fleeing from Austria just ahead of the Nazi Anschluss that took over and incorporated that country into Germany.

In read more

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Speaking Truth to Empire

Speaking Truth to Empire on KFCF 88.1 FM Dan Yaseen interviews Bruce Gagnon who serves as Secretary/Coordinator of the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. He has been working on space issues for the past 30 years and helped create the Global Network in 1992. The focus of the interview is US/Russia relations, No to NATO actions, and Global Network’s upcoming tour of Russia as citizen diplomats.

His website is http://www.space4peace.org. read more

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What the New York Times Will Not Tell You About Military Spending

I sent the New York Times this letter on March 20, 2019:

To the Editor,

Peter Navarro’s op-ed “Why America Needs a Stronger Defense Industry” argues that “Investing in the sector means more jobs at home and improved security abroad.” He praises the construction of tanks used in wars in Iraq.

Here is a study demonstrating that military spending produces fewer jobs than other types of public spending, or even than not taxing money from working people in the first place:
“The U.S. read more