Новости за 10.09.2018

The frightening letter from a senior official in the Trump administration that appeared in the New York Times begs questions about the possibility of additional “misguided impulses” from the President that cannot be blocked.  Unfortunately, there is a terrible precedent from the Nixon administration in 1973 during the October War, when President Richard M. Nixon was incapacitated More

As if on special at Metaphors-R-Us, and just in time for the primary elections, CNN published an article on fake buttons that are provided to give people the illusion of control. It seems psychologists determined that fake buttons at crosswalks, in elevators and in other public and quasi-public places convey a sense of control without the power of control. In the space between upcoming elections and the creeping realization that connected capitalists still control the country, the question is of what reform candidates can really accomplish? Читать дальше...

The place is in Honduras, a so-called free-trade zone or maquiladora—little more than a ragged swath hacked out of the rainforest and ringed by a tall fence, tipped with razor-sharp wire. Inside a clump of factories produce cut-rate apparel for American companies. Armed guards, many of them veterans of the Honduran defense forces (accused by human right groups of assassinations, drug-running, and torture of political prisoners), patrol the borders. More

As though we had any ground for doubt heretofore, we can now clearly see — in light of his end to $350 million in annual humanitarian assistance to five million Palestinian refugees — Donald Trump’s cruel and spiteful nature. It was not enough to stack the so-called peace process against the Palestinians in every possible way, More

In their 1979 book The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Noam Chomsky and the late Edward S. Herman drew a distinction between retail and wholesale acts of terrorism. Retail acts were those carried out by individuals or small groups; wholesale, those committed by vast national military forces. Tom Engelhardt, in a recent column explaining More

Argentines are facing difficult days. Simmering social unrest, aggravated by increasing economic hardship, threatens to run amok and deal a death blow to the government of President Mauricio Macri. In the last week of August, a drastic devaluation of the Argentine peso from about 30 to 40 pesos per U.S. dollar spread panic in the More

The events in the Saxon city of Chemnitz were truly frightening. The sight of thick-skulled, Nazi-tattooed thugs growling threats as they stormed through the city center, chasing and beating up presumed “foreigners”, unfriendly journalists or any other foes; invoked memories of Charlottesville a year ago – or Germany in the 1930’s; stretched-arm Hitler salutes from More

The Trump presidency has proven to be a set of publicity driven punctuations and blows, riddled by distractions contrived and accidental.  Controversy and accusation characterise the next revelation, the next announcement that might throw journalists off the scent, confounded enemies off the trail. The presidency as spectacle, the White House as erratic film studio, is the More

Wars are dodgy things to predict. And the vast plain below the battlefield of Idlib – not to mention the Syrian artillery battery of four 130mm guns on the heights of Mount Akrad pointing at the hot fields and deserted villages held by the Islamists to the east – bake under the white sun in silence. In More

It’s no secret that the federal government needs more revenue going forward. Congress could put the Treasury on autopilot to raise billions (and ultimately tens of billions) year after year. Guided by fairness, it could enact spend-down rules for non-retirement accounts that mirror those for retirement accounts: at age 70 ½, require minimum distributions and tax all gains at More

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has once again demonstrated that he understands the struggle facing millions of low-paid workers. On Wednesday, Sanders introduced legislation targeted at Amazon that illuminates the contradiction at the heart of America’s long economic expansion — workers paid too little to put food on their tables are building successful, cutting-edge companies that are More