Articles
Articles
Deep History of America’s Deep State
Jada Thacker: The idea of an elitist Deep State – erasing a “mistake” by the people – pervades current efforts to remove buffoonish President Trump, but the concept has deep historical roots dating from the Founding ... (Deep State – loosely defined as an unelected elite that manipulates the elected government to serve its own interests.) ... 230 years ago, an unelected group of elite Americans held a secretive meeting with an undisclosed agenda. Their purpose was not merely to manipulate lawful government in their own interests, but to abolish it altogether. In its place, they would install a radically undemocratic government – a “more perfect” government, they said – better suited to their investment portfolios...
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Jun 23, 2017, 12:51pm
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Watergate and the Downing of Nixon, Part 2
Russ Baker: Nixon’s presence in Dallas on November 22, 1963, along with LBJ’s — and Poppy Bush’s quieter presence on the periphery — created a rather remarkable situation. Three future presidents of the United States were all present in a single American city on the day when their predecessor was assassinated there. Within days, a fourth — Gerald Ford — would be asked by LBJ to join the Warren Commission investigating the event. ... (Nixon was in Dallas for the Pepsi bottlers convention - its early reservation of one large venue helped determine Kennedy’s ultimate destination and thus the motorcade route.)...
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Jun 22, 2017, 4:34pm
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Watergate and the Downing of Nixon, Part 1
Russ Baker: With President Donald Trump and his administration facing investigation by a special counsel, we increasingly see parallels being drawn with Watergate, and the investigation and removal of Richard Nixon. ... This brings to mind claims that “deep state” elements are seeking to undo Donald Trump. Given Trump’s own track record, it’s hard to see how it would require the machinations of enemies to seal his doom. Nonetheless, the question of how elements of the dominant establishment — including allies in intelligence agencies, the military, and high finance, might move against a president...
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Jun 17, 2017, 3:38pm
Articles
Wikileaks Unveils ‘Cherry Blossom’ — Wireless Hacking System Used By CIA
Swati Khandelwal: WikiLeaks has published a new batch of the ongoing Vault 7 leak, this time detailing a framework – which is being used by the CIA for monitoring the Internet activity of the targeted systems by exploiting vulnerabilities in Wi-Fi devices. ... Dubbed "Cherry Blossom," the framework was allegedly designed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with the help of Stanford Research Institute (SRI International), an American nonprofit research institute, as part of its ‘Cherry Bomb’ project. ... Cherry Blossom is basically a remotely controllable firmware-based implant for wireless networking devices...
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Jun 16, 2017, 3:42pm
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Standing Rock Documents Expose Inner Workings of “Surveillance-Industrial Complex”
The Intercept-TigerSwan Tactics Part 2: Leaked documents and public records reveal a troubling fusion of private security, public law enforcement, and corporate money in the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline. ... Overall, TigerSwan depicted the situation on the ground as volatile, at times painting the anti-pipeline camps as rife with drug use and “sexual deviance,” its inhabitants likely to stir violence. The security company found ways to interpret even the most benign social gatherings as potentially dangerous....
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Jun 3, 2017, 11:39am
Articles
The Untold Story of Memorial Day: How Former Slaves Honored the Civil War Dead
Sarah Lazare: During the spring of 1865, African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina—most of them former slaves—held a series of memorials and rituals to honor unnamed fallen Union soldiers and boldly celebrate the struggle against slavery. One of the largest such events took place on May first of that year but had been largely forgotten until David Blight, a history professor at Yale University, found records at a Harvard archive. ... The procession was led by 3,000 black schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses and singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body.” Several hundred black women followed with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantrymen...
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May 29, 2017, 2:24pm
 Articles
Why the Right is Morally Wrong
Ken Levy: Underlying all of this bitter polarization and emotional partisanship are two profoundly opposing views about government’s moral obligations to the most vulnerable and historically oppressed members of society. While the left regards government as a force for good, a powerful institution that should be used primarily to help improve such people’s lives and thereby expand their liberty, the right regards government as a necessary evil, an inherently despotic, liberty-diminishing institution that should be used only for the more minimal purposes of maintaining order and security...
May 6, 2017, 2:25pm
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PA Dept. of Corrections Tells Court It Will Finally Treat Mumia Hep-C infection, But Only Because DOC Neglect has Caused Cirrhosis
Dave Lindorff: After two years of being denied appropriate treatment for his active Hepatitis-C infection, Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black journalist and activist who has been in a Pennsylvania jail for 35 years, 29 of them on death row, will finally receive the latest medicine to treat the deadly disease ... Abu-Jamal’s supporters around the world believe that Pennsylvania, under pressure from the powerful police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, which was long calling for the state to “fry Mumia!”, has been trying to “execute” him by medical neglect...
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Apr 1, 2017, 3:36pm
Articles
Hiroshima, August 6, 1945
"A bright light filled the plane," wrote Col. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. "We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud...boiling up, mushrooming." (Previously Published)
Aug 6, 2016, 11:36am
Articles
What you need to know about the oil price war
Eric Ruder: THE DRAMATIC crash in the price of oil is rewiring the circuits of global capitalism by creating enormous volatility in the world's stock exchanges, hammering banks that made billions of dollars in loans to energy firms, and ravaging the budgets of the world's largest oil-producing countries...
Feb 1, 2016, 3:47pm
Articles
Winston Churchill: Britain's Greatest Briton Left a Legacy of Global Conflict and Crimes Against Humanity
Garikai Chengu: The myth of Churchill is Britain's greatest propaganda tool because it rewrites Churchill's true history in order to whitewash Britain's past imperialist crimes against humanity. The Churchill myth also perpetuates Britain's ongoing neo-colonial and neo-liberal policies, that still, to the is day, hurt the very people around the world that Churchill was alleged to have helped civilise...
Jan 25, 2016, 1:03pm
Articles
Who does Malheur belong to?
Brian Ward considers the Malheur occupation in the context of Native resistance spanning centuries to federal government land seizures... it's safe to say that these right-wing protesters with a penchant for military tactical gear don't intend to restore the sovereignty of the Paiute tribe, from whom Uncle Sam stole a massive swath of eastern Oregon, including the Malheur refuge, in the 19th century...
Jan 13, 2016, 2:14pm
Articles
Can a Local Ballot Reform Measure Help Reverse the Path Toward Oligarchy?
Voters in Seattle, a city that has led the nation in many innovations, has approved a ballot initiative that if applied nationally could finally break the logjam on campaign finance — and banish big money... Seattle residents who are registered to vote will receive four $25 "democracy vouchers", which they can donate to a political campaign at no cost to themselves. Campaigns that opt to receive funding in this way can then redeem them for cash...
Nov 10, 2015, 1:23pm
Articles
The Spy That Quit and Ran - Domestic surveillance blimp goes AWOL
Dave Lindorff: Most Americans living in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic region of the country probably didn't realize that for the last year or so they've been being spied on from the sky by a sophisticated 'eye-in-the-sky' blimp tethered to the ground in Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground...
Oct 30, 2015, 11:58am
Articles
In most states, even $15 an hour is not enough
Mark Gruenberg: Low-wage workers nationwide have been campaigning for a $15 hourly "living wage" and the right to organize without employer labor law-breaking. But a new think tank report says that in most states, $15 is not enough - even for one person...
Oct 22, 2015, 10:40am
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