The Bomb at 78 - August 6
Seventy-eight years ago, in the greatest single act of terrorism the world has ever seen, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In August 1945, the US thus unleashed a new and ultimate weapon of mass destruction on the world and, in so doing, sowed the seeds of mistrust in the Soviet Union, our ally in the fight against fascism. That mistrust would lead to the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, and the bizarre theory of Mutually Assured Destruction...Russia suspends participation in New START, Ukraine and the Doomsday Clock, banning the bomb...
Some wins for Democracy - August 13
Over the past couple of months, there have been several wins for voting rights' advocates and democracy defenders. Republicans are fighting back, and their efforts to thwart the will of the voters and defy decisions of the courts continue unabated...Moore v Harper, the Trump Indictments, Alabama and Mississippi rulings, Ohio Issue 1 vote...
World News Updates - August 24
Niger's coup, Sudan's civil war, Guatemalan progressives' election victory, and the war in Ukraine at 18 months
GOP extremists are threatening a government shutdown in October - August 31
This coming Tuesday, the 118th Congress returns to Washington after its summer recess. What can we expect from the clown show masquerading as the Republican House majority? An October government shutdown? An announcemnt of a Biden impeachemnt? Cheer-leading for the insurrectionist-in-chief? All of the above?
The assault on democracy continues - September 7
Though our democratic institutions are still functioning, they won't be for much longer, warns Tom Nichols at The Atlantic, "if enough Americans continue to support authoritarianism." An incredible three-quarters of Republican voters support the seditionist Donald Trump as their presidential candidate for 2024. With Biden's job approval rating at 39%, there is a reasonable chance that the nation will elect a 31-felony-indicted insurrection-promoter with authoritarian leanings as its next president. Meanwhile the assault on democracy continues in the states what's been happening in Alabama, Georgia, and Wisconsin....what a Trump second term might look like...the Brennan Center on how swing states can prevent election subversion
Poverty by America (an update) - September 15
As the various Congressional committees and sub-committees attempt to pass their 2024 fiscal year budgets, we take a look at ways that the United States of America continues to choose poverty for many of its people. Child poverty doubled in 2022 thanks to business lobbyists, Republicans and Joe Manchin...child poverty and the war budget; poverty, health care, and the difference between being "pro-birth" and "pro-life"
Government Shutdown Threat Focuses on Spending Cuts and the Border - September 28
With a partial government shutdown just days away, House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts to social spending programs and new harsh legislation to stop the flow of immigrants at the U.S. southern border with Mexico...who and what is affected by a shutdown, and a reminder of how decades of US military interventions, sanctions, and the war on drugs are driving the migration from South and Central America.