Embedded Files
A right-wing resurgence? Part I - January 3
Last year, as the Left continued to pile up electoral victories across Latin America, the Right made significant gains across Europe. And at year-end, topping off the year for the Right, Israel put in power the most far-right, extremist government in its history. What should we make of these developments? Is there really any threat of fascism becoming "a thing" again? A look at the French, Italian, and Israeli elections. (World News)
A right-wing resurgence? Part II - Brazil's "January 6" Moment and the International Far-Right - January 9
Brazil just had its January 6 moment. Stirred up by false allegations of voting irregularities, a crowd of supporters of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the Brazilian Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace Sunday January 8 in a scene reminiscent of the U.S. Capitol insurrection. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon praised the Brazilian rioters. In a Democracy Now! interview, reporter Michael Fox pointed to the connection between Bolsonaro, Trump, far-right Trump supporters and Steve Bannon. Bolsonaro's son "Eduardo Bolsonaro is the head of Steve Bannon’s The Movement, his international far-right group, to try and foment exactly what’s happening in Brazil right now across Latin America." (World News)
The US just breached the debt ceiling - now what? - January 20
In what is shaping up as the first big political fight of the 118th Congress, GOP Congressmembers are poised to demand cuts in social programs as the price for increasing the debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Treasury Department has started to use some of its extraordinary measures after the current debt limit of $31.4 trillion was hit. The consequences of a default if a deal is not reached would be catastrophic...the options available to prevent the United States from defaulting for the first time in our history
Preventing mass shootings - January 25
Mass shootings are, for the most part, an American phenomenon. There have been 40 such shootings so far this year in the United States, with two recent shootings in California resulting in at least 18 dead. Are mass shootings inevitable? Given our 400 million guns, patchwork and inadequate gun laws, misguided Supreme Court rulings, an intransigent Republican Party, an entrenched "gun culture" and a powerful gun lobby, one might be tempted to think so. Nevertheless, there is hope that we can stop mass shootings, but it will require us to change the narrative and pass the laws.
World News Updates - January 27
Ethiopia's fragile ceasefire, Israeli military's deadly operations in the West Bank, Haiti's armed gangs, Iran's antigovernment protests
Tyre Nichols' death and the demand for police accountability - February 1
Policing reform is critical to healing our country's soul. The brutal beating death of an unresisting Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers last month drove the point home to anyone with the slightest amount of humanity still flowing through their veins. Increasing police accountability and reforming their training are two essential steps to reduce the number of police killings. Protests demanding police accountability are once again sweeping the country while the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act languishes in Congress due to Republican opposition.
Nice speech, Joe...now, if you could change your abhorrent foreign policies, you may deserve a second term - February 8
In what some have called the kickoff to his 2024 presidential campaign, President Biden delivered a State of the Union in which he focused on the economy, touting the economic achievements since he came into office and calling for a bipartisan effort to rebuild the middle class. Little mention was made of foreign policy and it was probably just as well. President Biden's foreign policy continues to disappoint. Instead of an imaginative diplomacy-oriented approach, Biden has continued the decades-old blunders of the foreign policy establishment and even many of Trump's abhorrent policies, which now have become Joe's abhorrent policies. Foreign policy
World News Update: Protests - February 16
Protests do not always succeed. Speaking truth to power is not easy. Opposing an unjust war, demonstrating against the overthrow of an elected government, or protesting the killing of an innocent person can be met with tone-deaf indifference or with brutal repression. A look at a forgotten cause, some ongoing protests, and some lessons from our own past...Myanmar, Russia, Peru, Iran
The war in Ukraine at the one-year mark - February 23
A war that could have been avoided by negotiation over NATO's expansion into Russia's sphere of influence continues after a year of bloody fighting. With both sides fighting to an apparent stalemate, the need for a negotiated settlement is clear. Demonstrations for such a negotiated settlement have erupted across Europe including Germany, Poland, France, Italy, and Great Britain. Meanwhile, in the United States, a new Right-Left coalition has emerged to oppose US policy...Code Pink on the erroneous triumphalist narrative dominating Western media, Jeffrer Sachs on what a negotiated settlement might look like, The Nation on obtaining cease-fire and armistice
The Continuing Sad State of US Immigration Policy - Mar 10
Immigration policy was one of the signature cruelties of the Trump years. Unfortunately, more than two years into the Biden presidency, those policies and their effects endure. Rulings by conservative justices, inaction and regression on the part of the Biden Administration, obstruction by Congressional Republicans, and the politics of xenophobia are perpetuating the trauma of those policies. A look at the status of some of those policies and at a new Biden policy that resurrects one of the worst of Trump's immigration policies .
The Iraq Invasion, the AUMF, and America's Forever Wars - Mar 19
Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq, our biggest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam. It was, like Russia's more recent invasion of Ukraine, unjustifiable and in violation of international law. The neocon "War on Terror" found its way to Iraq based on false allegations of weapons of mass destruction. Worldwide protests against the imminent invasion proved fruitless. America, in its hubris, was going to do whatever it liked, and the war remade the Middle East for the worse. The human and economic costs have been staggering, and the instability unleashed in the Middle East remains to this day..."How the Iraq War Changed the World"
World News Updates - Mar 30
Mexico's migrant detention center fire, Haiti's gun violence, Israeli and French protests...how lax US gun laws is fueling violence in the Caribbean, the Israeli judiciary and the whitewashing of war crimes against Palestinians
Google Sites
Report abuse