Blogosphere

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Trump and Pelosi Lovefest
Margaret Kimberley: Trump and Pelosi are birds of a feather when it comes to beating up on dissident women of color. ... Pelosi trashed her members in an interview with the New York Times. “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.” Like a true gangster Pelosi conducted the beatdown in public. ... Trump knows that Pelosi is his friend. She is in no way part of an opposition to his administration. She is the rainmaker for the Democratic Party and the wielder of discipline against progressives. The two tasks are linked, of course. The very wealthy speaker brings in the cash from her equally wealthy friends. They give with the expectation that nothing even vaguely resembling progressive policy will ever see the light of day... [ Visit Website ]
Jul 17, 2019, 5:29pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Time for Russiagate to End
Margaret Kimberley: Russiagate is a scheme meant to give Democrats popular support without doing anything the public want them to do. ... Mueller’s report on charges of Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government shows that nothing of the sort took place. All he could muster was a useless indictment against Russians he claims are intelligence operatives. ... All the drama is needless because Trump has left a vast trail of impeachable offenses in the wake of his career. He was a corrupt businessman and has personally profited from his presidency. There are many roads that can lead to the same result but that is not what Democrats want to do. .... Impeachment without removal could do the same for the Democrats but they want no part of a political fight. ... They like the system just fine the way it is and don’t want to give the public any ideas about change... [ Visit Website ]
Jul 10, 2019, 4:06pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: U.S. Prisons are Concentration Camps
Margaret Kimberley: There were already thousands of concentration camps in the United States before Donald Trump began his reign of terror over asylum seekers. They are called prisons. ... “All of the horrors meted out to Hondurans fleeing the government imposed upon them by the United States are already experienced by the two million people living behind bars.” ... Most Americans are loathe to condemn their own country. Even when they do they refuse to acknowledge its vast history of criminality and prefer to behave as if the latest outrage is an outlier event. ... The disgraceful treatment meted out to asylum seekers at the southern border must be condemned unequivocally. ... There is nothing new going on at the border. All of the horrors meted out to Hondurans fleeing the government imposed upon them by the United States are already experienced by the two million people living behind bars... [ Visit Website ]
Jul 4, 2019, 4:48pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The Central Park Five and the Limits of Suffering
Margaret Kimberley: As a New Yorker this columnist will never forget the awful events that unfolded in 1989. When a white woman was raped, beaten and left unconscious in Central Park, five teenagers were swept up in a police dragnet. Anton McCray, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana confessed on video after hours of food and sleep deprivation and in some cases separation from their parents or other adults. ... None had legal representation. ... They were all convicted and spent between 7 and 13 years in prison. ... They should have been released immediately when DNA testing proved that none of them had assaulted the victim. ... But they were condemned by people like Donald Trump who paid for a full-page newspaper ad asserting their guilt and demanding the death penalty. ... Trump was part of a very large and influential lynch mob. ... As for delayed justice, the City of New York did not compensate the men until 2014, twelve years after they were exonerated. ... The payment wasn’t made for the simple reason that mayor Michael Bloomberg refused to allow it... [ Visit Website ]
Jun 12, 2019, 5:00pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: How to Protest Trump
Maargaret Kimberley: If the British really oppose Trump’s policies they should dump their own government, which backs Washington to the hilt – and then they should apologize to the world for Britain’s crimes. ... The British government is nothing but a United States vassal. ... Both nations are among the most criminal that ever existed and if protesters want to show their bona fides they should not shrink from pointing out this easily provable fact. ... The two nations are partners in crime. Both stay on the path of austerity and endless war. Anyone who challenges the system on either side of the Atlantic ocean is beaten down and slandered. ... Because of their collusion with the deep state both the British and American people are lied to and rendered powerless by deliberate misinformation... [ Visit Website ]
Jun 5, 2019, 4:46pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: No Chemical Attacks in Syria
Margaret Kimberley: The corporate media is concealing a leaked UN agency report that shows Syrian government innocence in an alleged chemical attack. ... The corporate media march in lock step with the United States and its allies around the world. ... Claims of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government are but one example of this tactic. ... In 2013 we were told that president Assad waged a chemical weapons attack on the same day that United Nations weapons inspectors arrived in the country. It is an understatement to say that this scenario is unlikely to be true. ... “...there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at both locations rather than being delivered by aircraft.” ... The public are mostly hapless dupes who give approval for destruction and carnage just like the state want them to... [ Visit Website ]
May 29, 2019, 3:01pm

Blogosphere
Yemen: On Memorial Day, Remember the 233,000 Dead in US-Backed Saudi War
Juan Cole: Memorial Day should be rethought, as a day to mourn the death and destruction caused by war. ... Trump is using a legal loophole to declare an emergency in the Gulf and sell Saudi Arabia and its allies $8 billion in weaponry ... The US provides logistical help, including in-air refueling, and strategic advice on targeting. ... The UN Development Program says that by the end of this year 233,000 Yemenis will have died as a result of this US-backed war, and as we speak 250,000 Yemenis are on the brink of starvation. ... In addition, deadly cholera outbreaks have infected over a million people, though most have survived... [ Visit Website ]
May 27, 2019, 4:59pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Abortion Rights and the Power of Protest
Margaret Kimberley: An abortion rights crisis looms, but Americans have lost their fighting tools, lulled to sleep by the corporate fixers of the Democratic Party. ... After the collapse of its communist government Poland enacted some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. When that nation’s parliament proposed making the procedure completely illegal thousands of Poles rose up in protest in 2016 and repeated the process in 2018. They didn’t just gather thousands of people in the streets of Warsaw on a rainy day. They held a general strike too. The creation of a political crisis forced the government to back down and withdraw the legislation not once, but twice. ... Abortion is as much a right as any other medical procedure. No person, man or woman, should be able to restrict medical choices for another. ... There is still time for effective action if we seize it... [ Visit Website ]
May 22, 2019, 4:14pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: U.S. Wages War Against the World
Margaret Kimberley: Donald Trump is deep in the thrall of Saudi Arabia and Israel, the two nations that pose the greatest risk to Iran. He happily does their bidding and is in a position to bring the sick neocon fantasy to reality. ... But the U.S. excels at nothing except creating misery for millions of people and raising the risk of an all out hot war. ... The U.S. “troika of tyranny,” Trump, Bolton and Pompeo, are making things up as they go along. They picked a trade fight with China that they could not win. They want regime change in Iran and Venezuela but they won’t get the results they want even if they carry out military attacks. ... Unintended consequences have already lead to two world wars and millions of dead. Unfortunately no one who ought to educate the public on this subject are doing what they should. The corporate media always support presidents at war... [ Visit Website ]
May 15, 2019, 2:31pm

Blogosphere
US hits milestone of 2 Million Home Solar Installations, to double by 2023
Juan Cole: Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) just released a report showing that there are 2 million solar home installations in the United States. That is enough to power 12 million homes. (There are 127 million households in the US, and about 64% of Americans own a home). ... By two years from now, the number of solar home installations will climb to 3 million, and in 2023 it will climb to 4 million, having doubled in 4 years. By 2024, new home panels will be installed at the rate of one a minute. ... Starting in 2020, all new homes built in California will have to come with solar panels on the roof. ... The cost of solar panels has dropped 70% since 2010, and dropped 5% just in the past year. ... Zillow estimates that putting up panels increases the value of your home by 4.1%, so some of the cost would be payed for that way. ... [ Visit Website ]
May 11, 2019, 1:54pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Facebook and the Farrakhan Distraction
Margaret Kimberley: In banning the only living person who can summon a million Black people to a meeting, Facebook is doing the bidding of the real fascists in the deep imperial state. ... Facebook and other social media platforms are an indispensable means of communicating with people all over the world. They are vital tools for anyone wanting to share or receive information. That is why their surrender to the dictates of the state is so very dangerous. ... The real targets of Facebook and the rest of corporate run social media are on the left. That is the group most hated and feared by the Democrats, the people responsible for this censorship. ... The problem is political. Corporations and the security state now have popular support to attack the free flow of information. They used Russiagate to whip up sentiment in favor of corporate control and right wing ideological bias. ... Farrakhan won’t be the last victim... [ Visit Website ]
May 8, 2019, 3:07pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Solidarity with Venezuela
Margaret Kimberley: When the US targets a government for regime change it brings all its coercive forces into play: military threats, economic sanctions, media slander and treasonous Quislings from the theater of the absurd. ... The troika of tyranny, Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, may have been stymied in their effort to bring down the elected Nicolas Maduro government, but they have not given up. All of their machinations are conducted with the goal of creating as much stress on the Venezuelan state, its economy and on the Venezuelan people as they can muster. .... Venezuela is not alone. The U.S. coup plotters have targeted Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina. Nations are bribed with money or the right wing get support at a crucial moment... But the United States and its puppets care nothing for international law, the sovereignty of other nations, or human rights... [ Visit Website ]
May 1, 2019, 1:48pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Pompeo’s Truth About Lies
Margaret Kimberley: The Secretary of State’s candid remarks remind us that US foreign policy is intended to punish those targeted as enemies, keep friends as vassal states, and disregard international law. ... "When I was a cadet -- What’s the cadet motto at West Point? You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do. I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s – it was like – we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.” -- Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State ... Pompeo said what anyone who has ever paid attention already knew. The intelligence agencies of the United States government are masters of deception and one should always assume that they are lying, cheating, and or stealing. ... Pompeo’s speech was entitled, “Why Diplomacy Matters.” But he couldn’t help himself and blurted out that diplomacy is of no importance to the United States. Pompeo didn’t tell the truth until he admitted how often he lies... [ Visit Website ]
Apr 24, 2019, 2:39pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: The “Resistance” is Silent on Julian Assange
Margaret Kimberley: Ever since Donald Trump was elected president we have heard a lot about people who call themselves the “resistance.” That word has very significant meaning and should not be used frivolously. The enslaved Haitian people resisted the French 200 years ago. Harriet Tubman resisted and so did Tecumseh. Brave people all over the world have resisted colonial invasion, occupation, and racist violence. ... But resistance for the anti-Trump group doesn’t amount to very much. ... The so-called resistance have been conspicuously silent ever since Julian Assange was arrested after Ecuador withdrew his asylum from its London embassy. ... Liberals are just as much true believers in imperialism as the right wing they claim to oppose. They are nothing if not consistent. When the Trump administration announced the coup attempt against the Venezuelan government the resistance didn’t resist at all. ... Perhaps this group needs a new name. They should be honest and call themselves the conformists... [ Visit Website ]
Apr 17, 2019, 3:45pm

Blogosphere
How Classic Anti-Semitic Tropes are being Marshaled against Ilhan Omar and Muslim-Americans
Juan Cole: The attacks on Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim-American women to serve in Congress and the first of Black African heritage who veils, by the Rupert Murdoch press (Fox, New York Post, etc.) and the US Republican Party are frightening for many reasons, but most of all because they repeat classic anti-Semitic charges made by the Nazis in Germany against Jews. ... Racism is not that complicated, and is always simple-minded and stupid, and so it is not a surprise that contemporary racists can’t come up with new tropes for demeaning minorities. ... The implication ... is that Omar is not outraged enough about the 9/11 attacks, is insufficiently patriotic, is “stabbing us in the back.” ... It is quite the opposite, of course. She is saying that American Muslims are patriotic and devoted to their country and should not be confused with a tiny Saudi-Egyptian terrorist clique based in Afghanistan in the 1990s... [ Visit Website ]
Apr 15, 2019, 11:41am

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