New
MIT graduate workers win precedent-setting first contract
Source: Liberation News
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
On September 22, 2023 the MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU) - UE Local 256 ratified their first contract by a margin of 95.8%. After years of building their union and a year of contract negotiations, MIT graduate workers won a historic victory including protections from harassment, discrimination and bullying, an economic package with a net compensation improvement of more than 10% on average, and union security, which will allow for a strong union that can effectively enforce their contract.
North Carolina GOP-Passed Budget Creates “Secret Police,” Critics Warn
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
“This consolidation of force and coercion is very worrying,” one critic of the provision said.
Advocacy Groups Call for Juror Protection as Trump’s Civil Fraud Trial Begins
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
Past, present, and future jurors are under attack from Donald Trump and those who do his bidding, a joint letter says.
California Chamber of Commerce Targets Meager Paid Sick Leave Bill
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
SB 616 would change state law to require that workers be allowed 40 hours or five days of paid sick leave per year.
Slovakia accuses Russia of election interference, summons Russian embassy official
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Agence France-Presse
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
Russia’s foreign chief said the US had ‘increased its interference’ in Slovakia’s political situation. Slovakia’s foreign ministry called on Moscow to ‘stop disinformation activities; aimed at Slovakia.
Criminalized Survivor Tracy McCarter Discusses the Movement to Free Her
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
McCarter, who is Black, describes being a criminalized survivor of both domestic violence and the legal system.
Democrats to McCarthy: No Help on Speakership Vote Without Concessions
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
"It’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said.
Could This Supreme Court Case Gut the Americans With Disabilities Act?
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
Civil rights advocates fear the court’s decision could have a far-reaching impact on other civil rights law as well.
Are We Experiencing a “New Cold War” on an Ever-Warming Planet?
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
It’s time for the U.S. and China's leadership to cut the war-like posturing and face a world in danger together.

Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

The post appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

Newsom Appoints Laphonza Butler, Not Barbara Lee, to Fill Feinstein’s Seat
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
The selection rebuffs calls from progressives and some Democratic lawmakers to nominate Lee to fill the vacancy.
Thousands return home to Hong Kong after enjoying good deals in ‘no-brainer’ Shenzhen over National Day long break
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Oscar Liu
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
Futian checkpoint in Shenzhen packed with travellers on the last day of the break but customs clearance took only about 15 minutes for Post reporter.
Hong Kong police officer draws gun in attempt to stop driver over suspected traffic violation, before car rams into vehicles, injuring 2 people
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Sammy Heung
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
Online video shows officer drawing his gun and another his baton before car flees scene.
Typhoon Koinu to intensify on approach to South China Sea, come within 400km of Hong Kong by Friday
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Ezra Cheung
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023
Observatory says Koinu will hit southern Taiwan first before weakening as storm draws closer Hong Kong.
Kids Shouldn’t Have to Pay for School Lunches
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

The United States federal government in 2020 embarked on a grand and beautiful experiment: expanding the use of tax dollars to help stave off poverty. That experiment has now largely ended in a shocking return to business-as-usual. One critical component of the experiment was to ensure that public school students had free lunches via the More

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The Interrogation Psychologists Come Home to Roost
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

Even to the extent the Bush Administration torture program was just a desperate and ill-considered attempt to create an effective bureaucratic legally-protected apparatus of medicalized abuse and torture to “save American lives”, the details of the program’s more shameful horrors have weighed down any benevolent intentions the program may once have had (or not). These details include health professionals subjecting minor children to “enhanced interrogation”, the occasional homicide-by-torture, calculated sexual humiliation and abuse, and even the systematic infliction of medical rape—with forced enemas, “rectal feeding”, and “rectal rehydration” on the menu of medically unnecessary traumatizing procedures to be used as “control measures.” More

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The Slow-Motion Equivalent of a Nuclear War?
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

Tell me, what planet are we actually on? All these decades later, are we really involved in a “second” or “new” Cold War? It’s certainly true that, as late as the 1980s, the superpowers (or so they then liked to think of themselves), the United States and the Soviet Union, were still engaged in just More

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Washington Post Columnist Charles Lane Wants Autoworkers to Lose Their Jobs
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

The Washington Post, like other elite news outlets, is always happy to beat up any real or perceived market intervention that benefits ordinary workers, however, it insists it cannot see the more costly interventions that benefit many corporations and highly-educated workers. Specifically, it virtually never raises any questions, either in news articles or opinion pieces, about the costs imposed by government-granted patent monopolies and related protections. More

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The Red Nation Responds to Racist Attack on Indigenous People
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

CONTACT editortherednation[at]gmail.com WHAT THE RED NATION RESPONDS TO RACIST ATTACK ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WHERE/WHEN SEPTEMBER 28, 2023 RIO ARRIBA COUNTY ANNEX BUILDING WHO CALLING ON ALL NATIONAL, STATE, TRIBAL, COUNTY, AND CITY OFFICIALS, AND MOVEMENT ALLIES, TO CONDEMN THIS RACIST ATTACK AND DEMAND THE PROTECTION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WHY An agitator opened fire on a prayerful celebration More

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The Holocaust Becomes a Palestinian Issue
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

A commotion (more like a tempest in a teapot) has broken out over a recent Holocaust-related statement by President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is head of Fatah, the secular nationalist party that runs the Palestine Authority (PA). It should be noted that Fatah is practically powerless, often functioning as a client of the Israelis and much More

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Cruel Prerogatives: Braverman on Refugees at the AEI
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

Suella Braverman has made beastliness a trait in British politics. The UK Home Secretary, fed on the mush and mash of anti-refugee sentiment, has been frantically trying to find her spot in the darkness of inhumanity. Audaciously, and with grinding ignorance, she persists in her rather grisly attempts to kill the central assumptions of international More

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The Dog That Didn’t Bark: Nazi in the House
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

A dog was kept in the stables, and yet, though someone had been in and had fetched out a horse, he had not barked. Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well. ~ Sherlock Holmes A reader of the “news” should pay as much attention to omissions as to what is reported. More

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Captain Kirk’s “Obsession”
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

Many consider the second season of Star Trek TOS to be its finest, and one of my favorite episodes from this season is “Obsession”, the story of Kirk’s desire to get revenge on “a strange gaseous creature” composed of dikironium that killed more than 50% of the crew of Kirk’s former starship, the USS Farragut, More

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Good News – Big Opportunities on the Horizon
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Monday, October 2nd, 2023

In the midst of so much bad news in the media, it is always good to be alert to rays of sunlight that civic action can build upon. First, let’s start with the sun, which is receiving increased respect these days by Earthlings. Various forms of solar energy – thermal, photovoltaic, wind, and passive (architecture) More

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Chinese-led research team finds evidence of spinning black hole
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Ling Xin
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
Using data from radio telescopes around the world, researchers found that a black hole in Galaxy M87 had tilted
Cruel Prerogatives: Braverman on Refugees at the AEI
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023

Suella Braverman has made beastliness a trait in British politics. The UK Home Secretary, fed on the mush and mash of anti-refugee sentiment, has been frantically trying to find her spot in the darkness of inhumanity. Audaciously, and with grinding ignorance, she persists in her rather grisly attempts to kill the central assumptions of international More

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Announcing the Winners of the 3rd Annual Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
The prize honors the work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated authors who are writing toward a more just world.
As Incarcerated Women, We’re Subjected to State Rape
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
We are often told that DOC policies are for our safety, yet these policies still play a part in retraumatizing us.
As a Black Woman Accused of Killing a White Man, I Was Never Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
If we left behind the oppressive systems that deprive people of their very freedom, what could we create instead?
SenseTime says a former IP rights employee is under police investigation in China
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Dylan Butts
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
The person previously worked at the company’s intellectual property unit, the Hong Kong-listed company said.
Afghanistan’s embassy in India suspends operations
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Agence France-Presse
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
Most foreign nations – including India – do not officially recognise Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which seized power following the collapse of the Western-backed government more than two years ago.
One million people join opposition protest two weeks before Polish election
Source: News - South China Morning Post
dpa
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
During the march through Warsaw on Sunday protesters carried placards with slogans including ‘We have had enough and want change.’ Parliamentary elections will be held on October 15.
UK Authorities Prosecuted Just 11 Wealthy People for Tax Fraud Last Year
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
In both the U.K. and the U.S., tax authorities avoid prosecuting the wealthy for fear of legal and political backlash.
Gas Storage Plant and New Pipeline Threaten Health of Black Houston Community
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
As climate crisis threatens Texas's energy grid, the government's response is putting Black communities at greater risk.
Dianne Feinstein Leaves Behind Conflicted Legacy on Climate Crisis
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
The California senator fought for conservation but refused to back ambitious climate legislation in the Green New Deal.
Congress Avoids Government Shutdown and Far Right Budget Demands — For Now
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
The agreement funds the government for 45 days and includes $16 billion in disaster relief for New York City flooding.
Shaken America Syndrome
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023

Shaken America Syndrome. Image: JSC and AI Art Generator.

In 2002, Robert Roberson raced his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, to a hospital emergency room in the east Texas town of Palestine.  Nikki was limp, her skin blue.  Roberson told the emergency room doctors and nurses that the two had been sleeping when he awoke and found Nikki on the floor, having fallen off the bed. The child was unresponsive. Nikki Curtis never regained consciousness and died a few days later.

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Trump’s Death Wish For “Disloyal” Military General Is Textbook Totalitarianism
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
Trump’s fascist congressional sidekick, Paul Gosar, wrote that “in a better society … General Milley would be hung.”
Chicago Nixed Its Racist Database of Gangs. Other Cities Should Follow.
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
Six years of tireless organizing by a coalition of grassroots activists led to this month’s victory in Chicago.
Slow start for Hong Kong restaurants with National Day deals as residents lament they were unaware of discounts
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Connor Mycroft
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
Post visit found some restaurants did not have any in-store advertising for the deals, while many residents were unaware of promotions.
It’s a Capitalist World
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Sunday, October 1st, 2023
Image of a worker protest.

Image by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona.

Conditions for working people continue to get worse. The right to strike, or to join a union, is denied by increasing numbers of the world’s governments. The 2023 Global Rights Index report issued by the International Trade Union Confederation makes for grim reading, as has consistently been the case for the decade that the ITUC has issued its yearly reports.

Once again, there is no country on Earth that fully protects workers’ rights, the Global Rights Index report informs us. Nothing new here, as this was the case in the 2022 report, and all the reports before that. Neoliberalism does not have a human face.

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GOP Waging Coordinated Effort to Undermine US Elections, Says Leading Official
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
Election workers are leaving their work in large numbers due to increasing harassment and threats.
Federal Judge Blocks Big Pharma Attempt to Stop Medicare Drug Price Negotiation
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
The judge noted that drug companies are not forced to participate in Medicare.
Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers set to strike
Source: Liberation News
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
More than 60,000 California healthcare workers have authorized a strike at Kaiser Permanente – signaling the possibility of the largest healthcare strike in United States history. 
Kentucky Governor’s Race Surges Towards Record-Breaking Fundraising Milestone
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
The Democratic incumbent has a hefty cash advantage, but his challenger has won races where he's been outraised before.
Hong Kong police arrest 2 men in connection with JPEX crypto scandal after they are returned by Macau authorities
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Wynna Wong
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
Police earlier described them, and 2 others, as being ‘relatively close to the core’ of under-investigation crypto platform JPEX.
Twenty-Five Thousand Auto Workers Are Now Striking Against the Big 3 Automakers
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
In a first in recent history, the union has played the three auto companies against each other with its strike strategy.
Disastrous Flooding in Libya Is Result of Both Climate Crisis and 2011 NATO War
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
Richard Falk discusses Libya's vulnerability to disaster due to internal and external forces.
Right-Dominated Supreme Court Is Poised to Do Grave Harm in Upcoming Term
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
Voting rights and the protection of workers, consumers, health, safety and the environment are on the court's docket.
China says US is an ‘empire of lies’ as it hits back at report into information manipulation
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Reuters
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
US State Department report said Beijing was spending billions of dollars each year to manipulate the global media.
700 mainland tour groups to arrive in Hong Kong over National Day break, such travellers typically account for only 5% of all visitors from across the border: minister
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Kahon Chan
Publish date: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
Tourism minister Kevin Yeung says city is well prepared for influx of visitors, urging residents to play their part as friendly hosts.
National Day long weekend expected to put HK$1.2 billion sparkle back into Hong Kong restaurants
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Laura Westbrook,Ambrose Li
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
Restaurant industry figures predict the National Day long weekend take will be 50 per cent up on last year.
China’s next multi-nation space mission is set to reveal secrets from the far side of the moon
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Holly Chik
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
Chang’e 6, the next mission in China’s moon programme, is on schedule for launch in 2024.
The FCC Restores Its Responsibility to Oversee Corporate Control of Internet
Source: FAIR: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Net neutrality is the ability to monitor and regulate hugely powerful companies’ control over an essential element of public life.

The post The FCC Restores Its Responsibility to Oversee Corporate Control of Internet appeared first on FAIR.

‘These Are Demands for the Whole Working Class’
Source: FAIR: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

"The whole thing is designed to make you think anytime workers take action, they're the ones at fault. They're the ones causing trouble."

The post ‘These Are Demands for the Whole Working Class’ appeared first on FAIR.

Bloomberg Muddies Climate Protests’ Vital Message: End Fossil Fuels
Source: FAIR: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

News media muddy the waters, encouraging public apathy by focusing on protesters’ tactics at the expense of their demands.

The post Bloomberg Muddies Climate Protests’ Vital Message: End Fossil Fuels appeared first on FAIR.

Far Right Republicans Are Considering Ousting McCarthy From Speaker Role
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
It's not a matter of if, but when, Freedom Caucus members try to boot McCarthy, sources say.
18 Youth Sunrise Movement Activists Arrested for Occupying McCarthy’s Office
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
"We are fed up and we won't take it anymore," one activist said.
90,000 Armenians Flee Nagorno-Karabakh After Azerbaijan Seizes Region by Force
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
“Armenia has been warning about this for years," says an editor of Armenia-based independent news outlet EVN Report.
Expiration of Pandemic-Era Funding Threatens to Devastate US Child Care Industry
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
If child care legislation isn’t passed soon, the funding cliff could decimate care sites and erase decades of progress.
Judge Rules Starbucks Illegally Withheld Raises, Benefits from Union Workers
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
The ruling is sweeping, affecting stores nationwide.
GOP Presidential Contenders Cling to Drug War Policies Fueling Overdose Crisis
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
Overdoses spike when police get involved, but the "war on drugs" remains potent political theater on the right.
Gavin Newsom Signs Bill Protecting Doctors Sending Abortion Medication Elsewhere
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
The new law offers "a lifeline to people in states" where abortion medication is regulated, the bill's author said.
Teachers Are Leaving Jobs in Kentucky and Florida as Anti-LGBTQ Laws Proliferate
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
Laws restricting discussion about race, gender and sexuality have prompted some teachers to leave these states entirely.
Stephen Zunes on Menendez Indictment
Source: FAIR: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The story is mostly about the political fortunes of an individual; the huge numbers of less powerful people impacted are, at best, backdrop.

The post Stephen Zunes on Menendez Indictment appeared first on FAIR.

In Canada, Denialism Grows Over Residential Schools Ahead of Orange Shirt Day
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
As the U.S. and Canada observe days to reckon with their history of Native genocide, racist backlash is growing.
Dem-Led Caucuses Slam GOP for Adding Anti-Immigration Agenda to Funding Bill
Source: TruthOut
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
"It is not appropriate to establish new immigration and border policy" in this way, they said in a joint statement.
Flu outbreaks spike at Hong Kong schools with doctors warning winter will bring more serious cases
Source: News - South China Morning Post
Elizabeth Cheung
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023
More than 220 flu outbreaks have been recorded in primary and secondary schools since late August.
Roaming Charges: Our Man in Jersey
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

I’ve been re-reading with great pleasure John Le Carré’s mid-80s novel A Perfect Spy, which is a kind of roman à clef about the writer’s turbulent relationship with his father, Ronnie Cornwell, an extravagant trickster and confidence artist, who, in one of his most elaborate hoaxes, ended up running for Parliament. But Le Carré’s twisty tale of fraud and duplicity among the English moneyed classes (and those who would exploit their greed) can’t really hold up to the career of New Jersey’s own apex con man, Robert Menendez, whose personal embellishments and political fictions have become so labyrinthine that now that he’s been caught with gold bars in his closet, he can’t even get his own life story straight. More

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“I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been”:  Musings on Communism and Anti-Communism
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

March 2024 will be the seventieth anniversary of Edward R. Murrow’s 1954 See It Now program that kicked McCarthy’s butt all over the TV screen. Murrow ended with these words: “The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it – and rather successfully.” My father woke me that evening—I was 12—to tell me about Murrow’s blast and to predict McCarthy’s downfall. He would indeed be censored by his colleagues in the US Senate, but “McCarthyism” and anti-communism survived and even thrived all through the 1960s. They followed me and millions of other Americans. More

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More at Stake for Auto Workers Than Wages and Benefits
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The United Auto Workers have struck now for two weeks. Using a novel strategy to keep management on its toes, namely walking out at various plants at unexpected times, a new, different union leadership hopes to wrest some benefits from the claws of a monstrously greedy industry that has already raked in $21 billion this year. Its CEOs pull down millions of dollars annually, while the average worker’s pay has long stagnated. More

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The Trial of Subhas Nair: Race, Class, and Ideology in Singapore
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

On Tuesday, July 18, 2023, Subhas Govin Prabhakar Nair, the Indian Singaporean rapper more commonly known as Subhas, was found guilty on four counts of “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of race and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony” under section 298A(a) of the Penal Code 1871. On September 5, 2023, Subhas More

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Empty Chair Diplomacy 2.0 at the United Nations
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The game of musical chairs is popular with children. If the child’s game is based on successfully sitting on a chair when the music stops, recent diplomacy at the U.N. has been focused on empty chairs. Empty chair diplomacy goes back to French President Charles de Gaulle when the French boycotted European institutions in July More

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Antarctica Hits Records as Global Heat Looms Large for 2024
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

“Climate breakdown has begun. Our climate is imploding faster than we can cope,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. (Source: 2024 Likely to be Hottest Year on Record, Phys.org, September 6, 2023) A report from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) released by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Berlin in the spring of 2023 More

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Welcome to the US, Land of Unvetted Occupiers
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

All too often Black, brown, indigenous and Muslim passport holders have been denied admission to the US long before arriving at its shores when their applications for visas have been denied by US consulates and embassies in their native lands following interrogations by junior State Department staff. This is particularly true for the stateless and other refugees fleeing oppression at the hands of their own governments (often US proxies) or, in the case of Palestinians, by an occupier which seeks to eradicate them in their entirety and which, once again, has been amply rewarded for it.   More

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Responsibility to Protect the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

If the “doctrine” of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) means anything[1], then it applies to the tragedy unfolding since 2020 in the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, better known as Nagorno Karabakh. The illegal aggression by Azerbaijan in 2020, accompanied by war crimes and crimes against humanity, as documented among others by Human Rights Watch[2], constituted a More

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Taylor Swift and the End of the Hollywood Writers Strike: a Tale of Two Media Narratives
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

This fall, I’ve been starting my sociology classes by asking my students to share some uplifting news they’ve come across. On Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, they were abuzz about Taylor Swift’s appearance at the Kansas City Chiefs game on Sunday. Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce had left Arrowhead Stadium together in Kelce’s convertible, More

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America and the Drowning of Derna
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Two weeks ago cyclone  Daniel swept across northern Africa. In Libya, it obliterated two dams above  Derna, sweeping away the Libyan city, and drowning unknown thousands of people. The dams were built by  Muammar Ghadaffi, who was born a  goat-herder, near Derna. Rising through the military, he engineered a  successful coup in 1969 against colonially-appointed King Idris. Gaddafi was a More

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The Beef Industry is Destroying the American West and Worsening the Climate Crisis
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

When conservationist Aldo Leopold persuaded the U.S. Forest Service in 1924 to establish the nation’s first federally approved wilderness of more than 500,000 acres around the headwaters of the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico, he did not anticipate that this priceless pristine land would be invaded by cattle. This problem would take root around More

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Vegan Cats Do Not Exist
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Photo by Paola Andrea Cats may get health benefits from vegan diet, study suggests. So says a recent column by a science correspondent at the Guardian, describing new research comparing how cats fare when eating “vegan versus meat-based cat food.” In that research, published through PLOS One, authors Andrew Knight, Alexander Bauer, and Hazel Brown More

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The Political Power of Conspiracies 
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The promotion of illusionary conspiracies remains a vital means by which the ruling-class throws sand in the eyes of ordinary people – a history taken up in Colin Dickey’s enlightening book Under the Eye of Power: ​How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy (2023). In introducing this legacy of elite-backed paranoia Dickey argues that: “At nearly More

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Return to Bosnia-Herzegovina: Night Train Across Melania’s Slovenia
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

This is the third part in a series about Bosnia-Herzegovina thirty years after its civil wars. During the two years of the pandemic, I did not return to Sarajevo, although our informal band of brothers in Geneva shipped thousands of books there amid the global gloom. A New Life for the European Enlightenment One collection More

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The Science is Clear: Marijuana is Safer Than Tobacco
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Nearly twice as many Americans believe that smoking cigarettes is more hazardous to your health than smoking marijuana. They’re right. Numerous studies assessing the long-term health impacts of cannabis smoke exposure belie the myth that marijuana is associated with the same sort of well established, adverse respiratory hazards as tobacco. For example, federally funded research at the University of California, Los Angeles More

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Suing for a Livable Climate
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Across the globe, people are turning to the courts to combat the worsening climate emergency. Since 2015, cases around the world have doubled to over 2,000, according to a recent United Nations report. They are also on the rise in the United States. In a landmark trial in Montana, a judge ruled this summer that the state had violated the young plaintiffs’ More

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Americans Have had it with Our Broken, Dysfunctional Political System
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The nation and its 335 million citizens are facing a federal government shutdown due to the inability of Congress to govern. But if politicians think the people support their endless bickering and inability to do their job, they best check a new poll from the Pew Research Center with shocking results that show Americans have More

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Fighting Banal Evil with the Truth of Trauma  
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Few serve truth in truth because only a few have a pure will to be just, and of those again very few have the will to justice; and the most terrible sufferings have come upon man precisely from a drive to justice which lacks power of judgment. – Nietzsche Separated from the sphere of labor More

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Outlaws in OKC
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

“I’ve seen lots of funny men,” Oklahoma troubadour Woody Guthrie once sang about outlaws. “Some’ll rob you with a six gun / Some with a fountain pen.” That could apply today to Clayton Bennett, a multimillionaire Oklahoma City banker who’s regularly wielded his fountain pen to loot public funds for his private gain. Bennett is More

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Ghosts of the Past: For Israel, War on UNESCO is an Existential Battle
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Jericho does not belong to the Palestinians alone. It belongs to the whole of humanity. For Israel, however, the recognition by UNESCO of Jericho as a “World Heritage Site in Palestine” complicates its mission of erasing Palestine, physically and figuratively, from existence. The decision was described by Israel’s foreign ministry as a “cynical” ploy by More

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The United States in the World:  Making Sense of the Past Forty Years
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The United States of America has been the pre-eminent country on Earth for over 40 years.[1]  There are many competing analyses of these developments, different understandings, etc., and with all kinds of various intellectual ramifications from these.  However, along with genuine efforts to accurately understand this period, there is much misinformation, obfuscation, and plain lying More

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What to Do With the Old Piano?
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The National Association of Piano Dealers reported 364,545 sales of new instruments in the United States in 1909. That was four times the number of automobiles manufactured in the country that same year. This output of pianos is an astounding figure, especially when measured against America’s population of 80 million. The majority of these instruments More

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The Lesser of Two Evils is a Democracy for Psychopaths
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Donald Trump has to be stopped. The man is a menace to democracy with an insatiable appetite for debauchery, a geriatric career gangster with a rap sheet longer than his Freudian phallic tie. The bastard has left a gruesome trail of mutilated corpses in shallow graves from Atlantic City to Jerusalem and has grievously molested More

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80 Years Ago Denmark Miraculously Saved 8,000 Jews From Nazi Murder
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Human history is all-too-full of ghastly acts of cruelty and torment. They are our ultimate downfall. But 80 years ago, the people of Denmark—-often a great personal risk—-saved some 8,000 Jewish Danes from occupying Nazi murderers. On October 1– 1943’s Jewish New Year– Denmark’s King and its underground resistance helped mobilize the nation to ferry More

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Yes, Trump’s Lies on Financial Statements Did Cost Businesses Money
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Donald Trump claims that no one was harmed when he lied about the value of his assets on statements he made to lenders, because loans were paid off with interest. New York Times columnist, Peter Coy takes this claim far more seriously than he should. The key point that Coy misses is that lenders base More

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Alliance for the Wild Rockies Challenges Massive Clearcutting and Burning Project in Montana Grizzly Bear Corridor
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

One might think after losing a number of lawsuits in a row for blatant violations of the law the Forest Service might think twice about going forward with illegal logging, burning, and road-building projects. But no, this rogue agency plows ahead to serve the timber industry and denude what’s left of the old growth forests in the More

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The Death of Expertise
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” –Upton Sinclair Whose Expertise Is Dead? In The Death of Expertise, national security expert Tom Nichols warns that knowledge is under attack by an ill-informed public determined to replace it with popular ignorance. Though this is not More

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Bam Bam Bamboozled
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

It was a growing season for the record books, globally the hottest since we’ve been measuring such things: Featuring too much heat and too much rain—— nearly a year’s worth over one summer. And as a capper, Covid came calling again. My wife caught it and so I tended to the customers at the vegetable More

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Democracy at Stake
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

“We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would were we at war.” –Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president 1933-1945, in a fireside More

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The Truth May Hurt, But We Still Have to Face It
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

If the right gets its way, maybe in a decade or two, the United States will be free of its slave-owning past. All gone – gone with the wind. It’s just not taught anymore. Yeah, we had a civil war – about “states’ rights” – and then we moved on: We conquered the West, saved More

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Who Needs Nonviolence? Everyone.
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

Done with violence? So are we. October 2nd marks Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday and the International Day of Nonviolence. Known for achieving India’s independence from British colonial rule, Mohandas K. Gandhi brought the philosophy and practice of nonviolence to global recognition. Close to 100 years later, nonviolence is an idea whose time has surely come. There More

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Lost in the Forest
Source: Counterpunch
Publish date: Friday, September 29th, 2023

The news headlines these days could give the impression that the world is falling apart. Subtending it all is a sense that we humans have reached a tipping point in terms of our impact on the planet and on each other, due to a combination of our sheer numbers and the power of our technology, both of which have More

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