Making the social media rounds at the moment is a transcription of Rachel Maddow’s “utterly terrifying” and “deeply chilling” take on one tidbit from Trump’s surreal and probably drug-addled rambling in front of his Cabinet this week. At one point, Trump said the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in order to fight Islamic terrorism. But Maddow assures us, in great detail, that no one, anywhere — not even among Trump’s most rabid supporters, not even the bug-eyed goobers on Fox and Friends — has ever advanced the notion that the Soviet incursion had anything to do with terrorism. In fact, the only

As the Trumps Dodged Taxes, Their Tenants Paid a Price (NYT) A cheap, greedy crook damaging the lives of ordinary people: that’s what Trump always was, that’s what he is today — albeit on a monstrously larger scale. Of course, his MAGA mooks will just pull their red caps (made in China) down a little further over their eyes when confronted with this news. Then again, most of them will never hear it, because it won’t be on FOX or its equally sinister propaganda partner, the vast web of Sinclair-own local TV stations. Meanwhile, the happy, hypocritical few at the top of

The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules (NYT)   It doesn’t matter if the planet burns and our children choke to death on dirty air. The only thing that matters is that the Koch Brothers and their cronies make a bit more money to add to their already-monstrous piles of wealth (much of it inherited) which they could never spend in a thousand lifetimes. The earth will fry, our children and grandchildren will suffer and die in an utterly degraded and destabilized world, because these bloated, well-wadded, manipulative “malefactors of great wealth” (to quote an old Republican

As the newly dead George Herbert Walker Bush luxuriates in the accolades of America’s bipartisan political/media establishment, I thought it meet to look again at the article below, which I wrote in 2006, detailing one of the great glories of his great and glorious reign: the thwarting of the investigation into BCCI, “one of the largest criminal organizations in history.” Strangely enough, I saw a now-familiar name popping up as one of the key figures in this nefarious cover-up operation by the Bush crime family (who make the Trump Gang look like the two-bit pikers they are): one Robert Mueller, champion of

Here are my last-minute predictions for Election 2018. Rather gloomy ones, I’m afraid — but as with almost everything else I’ve written about politics in this century, I hope I’m badly, embarrassingly wrong. Anyway, here goes. The Republicans will hold the Senate, as most people expect. They will hold the House as well, although with a reduced — perhaps greatly reduced — majority. (This despite the fact that, as in 2016, more Americans across the country will vote for Democrats in congressional elections.)  Given this result, in the months afterward the mainstream news media will begin to slowly evince a

Exclusive: Trump to terminate birthright citizenship (Axios.com) Even in a straightforward news story, which gives valuable information about the latest planned Trump outrage on immigration, we can see how the “objective” language is weighted toward inflammatory interpretation. The story notes: Between 1980 and 2006, the number of births to unauthorized immigrants — which opponents of birthright citizenship call “anchor babies” — skyrocketed to a peak of 370,000, according to a 2016 study by Pew Research. It then declined slightly during and following the Great Recession. You scarcely notice the scarifying language on a first reading. But look again: “skyrocketed.” We are talking about the

This piece appeared first on CounterPunch earlier this week. It’s odd. A few months ago, I made a prediction that Donald Trump would bring the “n-word” back into public use by the end of this year, or next year at the latest. At the time, I thought it would play out like this: some right-wing figure would use the insult, and Trump would come to his defense, e.g. “Bad word choice by X, but it’s just a word. He’s no racist, he’s a great guy, loves all Americans. No need for this lynching by the PC brigade!” And then we’d

Female Activist in Saudi Arabia Faces Death Penalty A nation led by violent extremists is moving to behead a woman for taking part in peaceful demonstrations for human rights. It’s not Iran, not North Korea, not Syria, not Russia. It’s Saudi Arabia, the firm and friendly ally of the US & UK. The same nation we are supplying with bombs, planes, targeting and intelligence to kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people in Yemen. Now our good friends are going to cut off a woman’s head for talking about freedom.  Where is the right-wing outrage machine over these Islamic extremists

  Hudaydah ‘one airstrike away from unstoppable epidemic’: UN humanitarian chief in Yemen. (UN News) In the US and UK, the war in Yemen is only ever mentioned (and that rarely) as a “humanitarian crisis”: “Oh, those poor people starving and suffering and dying from epidemics. Hey, what did Trump tweet? What’s Mueller up to?” There is no acknowledgement that the US & UK are directly involved in the prolonged mass slaughter of civilians in Yemen and the destruction of the nation’s infrastructure, which has led to famine and epidemic on a horrendous scale. No mention that the US & UK are