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* Ukraine Election Interference * Biden Corruption
“Shokin should be taken with a pound of salt. The man was infamously corrupt; his attempt to frame himself as an honest prosecutor punished for tackling shady dealings doesn’t hold water. Additionally, as Bloomberg reported, the Burisma case was utterly dormant. Biden didn’t need to protect Burisma because the company wasn’t under active investigation…In sum, Biden had no incentive to defend Burisma.”
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Why Aren’t Presidents Impeached for War Crimes?
“It’s certainly possible that Trump engaged in wrongdoing in his statements to the Ukrainian leader, but this is insignificant compared to totally criminal wrongdoing like bombings, assassinations, murders and war crimes conducted by Trump as well as prior presidents. A fidelity to the rule of law would act on the ample evidence to impeach Trump for such criminality. So, we’re seeing political power and calculation here by both Trump and Pelosi more than anything else.”
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White House Refusing Comment on O’Brien’s Ties to Apartheid South Africa
“This appointment is obscene. It is not just a matter of the school that O’Brien attended but his assessment of apartheid South Africa condemns him to be a person not from the 21st century, but from the 19th century. Coupled with the offensive and reactionary stand of the Trump administration when it comes to the Palestinian quest — against another apartheid system — for human rights, this appointment is not simply objectionable but displays the flag of the global right-wing populist movement with which Trump is aligned.”
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Climate: * Political Will * Candidates
“As of now we are confronted by two forms of denial: the open rejection of science by the Republicans vs. the ‘yes but’ approach of the establishment Democrats. These approaches reinforce each other in practice…The action of the Democrats in quashing the effort to have in-depth discussion of environmental policy is symptomatic of the corporate-inspired resistance that has to be overcome. They fear debate precisely because any thorough discussion would point toward the need for more radical steps than they are willing to have us even think about — let alone put into practice.”
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Trump and Modi
“The theatrical display of camaraderie between President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Modi in the ‘Howdy Mody’ event in Houston is representative of the shared bonds between two of the leading icons of ultra-right wing, xenophobic, quasi-fascist, nationalist tendencies emerging in the world today. The Hindu supremacist political party of Modi, the BJP, is a mirror image of the white supremacy that Trump’s ideology epitomizes. Modi and the BJP’s genealogy is of course based on a century of fascist mobilization and thought, inspired by European fascism.”
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Climate Protests: * Amazon * War
“The U.S. military is one of the biggest polluters on earth. Since 2001, the U.S. military has emitted 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases, equivalent to the annual emissions of 257 million cars on the road. The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest institutional consumer of oil ($17B/year) in the world, and the largest global landholder with 800 foreign military bases in 80 countries…As the environmental crisis worsens, thinking of war as a tool with which to address it threatens us with the ultimate vicious cycle. Declaring that climate change causes war misses the reality that human beings…
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Last Year Teachers, Now GM Strike
“A successful strike at General Motors could persuade UAW members that the union is willing to take significant risks to fight on behalf of its members, potentially opening the door to more organizing in the anti-union South, where many auto plants have migrated…’We are the architects of showing a better way, showing the light and that’s what I think would be really beneficial if UAW was successful,’ says UAW staff representative Mark Barbee.”
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Israel: “Apartheid Vote”
“…this was an apartheid vote with an apartheid outcome. Any conversation about the election needs to include the context of millions of Palestinians who have no vote over who rules them…While Netanyahu not being around is a pleasant prospect, Cahol Lavan [Blue and White] must be understood as a rightwing party with less corruption issues. It will be easy for people less deeply steeped in it all to feel complacent/less urgent if there is a less belligerent face on the government; And for those of us outside of Israel, who have gotten [accustomed] over 10 years to the Netanyahu playbook,…
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New Advisor is “Bolton Lite”
“Will O’Brien work to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan? Or will he expand/facilitate war with Iran? Track record suggests latter…This is still a triumph for Pompeo, who gets a State guy in there and a weaker NSA than [with] Bolton. Pompeo is achieving Kissingerian levels of power in national security…”
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Medicine for All
“Forcing pharmaceutical companies to compete with a public alternative that does not answer to Wall Street and its demands for profit extraction would transform the market in ways that empowering the federal government to negotiate prices for a subset of drugs would not. It would also mean that patients with chronic diseases like diabetes would not be forced to ration their medication because a drug company executive felt compelled to jack up its price hundreds of percentage points above cost.”
Blog
“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn