The War on Drugs Has Failed. It’s Time to Rethink Our Prison System.
The need for systemic changes in drug policy and the criminal justice system is not just a moral imperative. It's an economic necessity.
The need for systemic changes in drug policy and the criminal justice system is not just a moral imperative. It's an economic necessity.
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision concludes a protracted legal fight over the travel ban, which critics on the left argued was discriminatory toward Muslims. The Trump White House consistently contended that the ban was a national security issues, and a continuation of a ban first enacted under the Obama administration.
The Supreme Court delivered a major victory to the Trump administration, as the court justices affirmed the US President’s vast powers over matters of national security.
The British Intelligence and Security Committee has released a report detailing how the British government and intelligence participated in and/or turned a blind eye to torture programs aimed at obtaining intelligence from ‘suspected’ terrorists. British intelligence and government personnel were complicit in or else willingly overlooked the inhumane treatment of these persons, who were being held and tortured without going through any due process, even while at least some of the persons who were enduring the harsh treatment and torture were British citizens.
Seven years ago a Thomson Reuters Foundation experts’ survey found the five most dangerous countries for women were seen to be Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia. This year we set out to see if the situation had changed. We wanted to find out whether more was being done to address the overall risks faced by women,[Read More...]
© The New York Times By Danielle Ryan | RT | June 28, 2018 A recent cartoon produced by the New York Times depicts Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as gay lovers. It was clearly intended to be hilariously funny while also making a salient political point. In reality, it does neither. The cartoon is […]
The Government of Venezuela called an international Presidential Economic Advisory Commission, 14-16 June, 2018 – to debate the current foreign injected economic disturbances and seeking solutions to overcome them. I was privileged and honored to be part of this commission. Venezuela is literally being strangled by economic sanctions, by infiltrated elements of unrest, foreign trained opposition leaders, trained to disrupt[Read More...]
I do not hold any brief for Indira Gandhi as far her decision to impose emergency is concerned. There is no doubt that emergency period will be recorded as a black chapter in the democratic history of the country. But certainly I have every reason to differ with Arun Jaitely when he compares Indira Gandhi with Hitler. Hitler perhaps was[Read More...]
After Boris Johnson got busted lying about the results on the nerve agent tests at Porton Down, asserting that the scientists were ‘absolutely categorical’ that the Russians were behind it, he has been on a political downside. .
He even got pranked on a call with Ukrainian pranksters pretending to be Armenia’s new Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan
The recent removal of a total of 13 checkpoints in the center of Damascus that followed the liberation of the Eastern and Southern Ghouta from radical jihadists that tormented the civilian population of the Syrian capital with their never-ending shelling, provoked a positive response in the Middle East media.
Despite all the deep divisions on many issues, the planned summit could produce concrete and tangible results, contrary to what is generally believed.
America is getting tired of RussiaGate. President Trump is tired of RussiaGate. That is why he sent John Bolton, the National Security Adviser, on over to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin to plan an upcoming summit. The meeting, as reported here, was a clear success. The summit itself is to be held on July 16 in Helsinki, Finland.
French President Emmanuel Macron is floating the idea of reintroducing compulsory military service. The plan intends on introducing youths to military life and service from the age of 16 for both girls and boys. The unpopular programme is expected to cost the French government nearly $2 billion.
The BBC reports:
Green groups are not David with a slingshot. They are Goliath. Please support the scrutiny & skepticism I bring to environmental issues.
In their greatest moment of triumph the Israelis have actually revealed their undoing. Hubris is pride before a fall and the Israelis are the best in the world at hubris.
Putin himself sees benefits in the meeting as does Trump. Putin sees hope of improving relations between the two governments. Of course, the “strained relations” are entirely due to Washington, which has demonized both Russia and Putin with false accusations and hostile acts such as illegal sanctions.
The “unofficial CIA” is where “plausible deniability” for US intelligence actions is of paramount importance.
Europe’s enemy is within in the form of undemocratic elitist politics that seem to be more about satisfying Washington’s interests than the needs of ordinary European citizens.
The Democrats apparently didn’t learn any lessons from their defeat in the 2016 elections. Instead of realizing their defeat as the loss of politics as usual, they preferred to simply point the finger at pretty much anything else, from fake news to bigotry, to ignorance, to you name it. Corporate owned politics in the Democratic Party is now realizing another defeat as a millennial has managed to upset a major congressional election by defeating one of the Democratic Party’s finest, Joseph Crowley.
While key members of his administration oppose him, Donald Trump seems intent on forging ahead with plans to create a sixth military branch–in outer space, as Renee Parsons reports.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a report this week describing a family income of $117,000 as ‘low income’ in San Francisco’s Bay area. The classification earns its justification off of rising property prices, where even crumby and tiny burned out homes are selling for near or in excess of $1 million, due to the high demand and limited supply of properties. If tech companies like Facebook and Google are compensating their employees well, and they want to find properties in the area, they had better be prepared to shell out some big bucks for it.
It's rare - very rare - that I have anything good to say about the Bank of International Settlements, the central banksters' central racketeeri... […]
The post BIS TAKES AIM AT CRYPTO-CURRENCIES appeared first on Giza Death Star.
When it comes to “pursuing veto authority” over others, to borrow James Mattis’ lexicon, Washington is a thug-nation par excellence.
Such a historical twist, but one that deserves its iniquitous slot in the history books. No secret has been made about US policy towards Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, which continues its trajectory to seek his apprehension and shutter the organisation. Despite its cables being used for political effect by interested parties; despite the exposures of corruption within the ranks of[Read More...]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek and Mira Lubis Would you ever think of the third largest island on Earth – Borneo (known as Kalimantan in Indonesia) – as one of the cradles of the world’s democracy? Perhaps you wouldn’t, but you should. While Europe was engaged in myriads of internal as well as expansionist wars, in the once lush, tropical[Read More...]
This column is the fourth and final one in this series. Last week’s dealt with some of the overarching problems that need to be worked through as the Resistance develops and gathers force. This one presents some specifics on some of the large set of tasks that need to be undertaken, if this “Repeal and Replace” movement is to be[Read More...]
1) Anthony Kennedy was a so-called “moderate” Supreme Court justice who voted against voting rights for Black people, who voted against union rights, who voted for unlimited corporate financing of political campaigns, and on down the line. In other words, he could only be called “moderate” in the context of the Dark Ages fascists that now make up the solid[Read More...]
The Supreme Court is the most important judicial body in the country. The decisions it reaches impact all Americans, even the ones that end up five votes to four. Since the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court has taken a radical rightward turn. In the past 72 hours alone, it sided with big money interests against working people in[Read More...]
Let me tell you about the time that my daughter Skye was separated from me, and what it did to her. In November 2001, I took my family on a trip to West Africa. We had a six-year-old (my daughter Skye), a three-year-old and a one-year-old with us. We landed in Nigeria, and crossed overland to Benin, Togo and Ghana.[Read More...]
Stunned by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, the Democratic Party establishment is trying to contain the rebellion challenging its class interests and may try to stem the tide with a compromise on super-delegates, as Norman Solomon reports. By Norman Solomon Conventional wisdom…Read more →
Sunday morning, I flew to McAllen, Texas to find out what’s really happening to immigrant families ripped apart by the Trump administration. There’s one thing that’s very clear: The crisis at our border isn’t over. I went straight from the airport to the McAllen Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processing center that is the epicenter of Donald Trump’s so-called “zero-tolerance”[Read More...]
The Pakistani government’s removal of a virulently anti-Shiite militant from its terrorism list at the very moment that an international money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog was deciding to put the country on a watchlist highlights Pakistan’s struggle to come to grips with militancy. The decision by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that was reported by Pakistani media but[Read More...]
Quotes from Karl Marx’s works reverberated in the unprecedented 5-day long conference organized by the Asian Development and Research Institute (ADRI), participated by the delegates from 18 countries across the 5 oceans, held in Patna, the capital of Bihar that has witnessed many revolutionary and counter revolutionary movements and uprisings. Gist and the central message of the conference in one[Read More...]
(MPN) — Immigrant children as young as three years old are being forced to hold their own in deportation proceedings in federal court, judges have reported, further confirming how the cruelties of the U.S. immigrant enforcement regime have been largely unhindered by the local and global controversy it’s provoked. The practice began under former President Barack Obama, but has […]
Suchitra Dey, formerly known as Hiranmey Dey, underwent a sex-reassignment surgery last year. She has an MA degree in Geography as well as in English and has also done her B.Ed. She teaches in a private school in Kolkata. In a recent interview, she talked to The Indian Express about her job interview experiences with some schools around Kolkata. Recounting[Read More...]
Donald Trump promised Americans he would make the US great again, a center of a world that is becoming increasingly multipolar, yet the US appears to be withdrawing from the world at an alarming rate.
The US has found itself increasingly alienated from its traditional allies (and some would say vassals) in the EU.
Vassals no longer: Merkel, Macron advocate European sovereignty
(MEMO) — Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the withdrawal of some equipment and troops from Syria. He said that 13 warplanes, 14 helicopters, and 1140 Russian soldiers have left Syria in the past few days. Russia Today (RT) reported, today, that at a ceremony in honour of Russian military university graduates, Putin said that, “during its fight against […]
I write not with expectations, because expectations are meant to be shattered, just like promises are meant to be broken. Nevertheless, my intention is to stir some thoughts of yours. This might be one of the weird thoughts you would have ever come across, and, I wonder if anybody else had thought or would think this way… Why we are[Read More...]
As atrocities on women are rising, it is becoming increasing unsafe for women to live without fear. The foindings of a global perception poll conducted by Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity which surveyed 558 experts on women’s issues in order to assess nations on overall safety of women found that India is the least safe country. ( Tish Sanghera, June[Read More...]
Only a simpleton will not understand that in a “mutual admiration group” members generally degenerate themselves to a sophistry by exchange of pretended or exaggerated reciprocal praise. In this narcissist group, each member is mostly concerned with his own self-good. In philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher, calls it self-downgrading way of making money, when [people] have to resort to sophism[Read More...]
(CW) — Amid Amazon’s ongoing collusion with government organizations, company employees circulated an open letter to CEO Jeff Bezos this week demanding he cancel the internet monolith’s contracts with law enforcement and Palantir, a tech firm that has helped the NSA expand its surveillance capabilities. Gizmodo reported Wednesday that the internal letter circulated on a mailing list titled, “we-won’t-build-it,” calls on […]
(CD) — In a nationally televised incident that “should disturb every single person living in the United States,” agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General’s Office on Wednesday interrupted an interview with former ICE spokesperson James Schwab, who resigned from his position in March after he was asked to perpetuate lies on behalf of the Trump […]
Federal officers in riot gear reopened the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building that protesters shut down 11 days ago. Law enforcement began driving out demonstrators at 5:30 am and detained at least 9 protesters who refused to cooperate. Police did not remove all the protesters, merely those occupying federal property. [...]
Nearly 600 people were arrested at a protest organized by the Women's March in opposition to the separation of migrant families and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many protesters in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building wore foil blankets similar to those given to migrants housed at US detention facilities. Protests are expected to spread across the country over the weekend. [...]
The International Institute for Strategic Studies’s (IISS) annual Shangri-La Dialogue brings together diplomats, ministers, and representatives from around the world to discuss Asian security.
Researchers at Western think tanks including from the IISS itself have been promoting this year’s forum as an opportunity to sell Washington’s re-branded “Indo-Pacific” strategy and the continued primacy of the US and its “rules-based international order” across the region.
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | June 28, 2018 The U.S. military’s treatment of Army Lt. Spenser Rapone provides additional circumstantial evidence that the official story about accused lone-nut presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is pure bunk. Rapone is a West Point graduate who was admitted to West Point after serving as an enlisted […]
(ZHE) — Conservative pundit Milo Yiannopoulos on Thursday defended himself against accusations that “private” comments he made to journalists were responsible for the Annapolis newsroom shooting earlier in the day which left five dead and several others injured. Yiannapolous was asked by the Observer and Daily Beast to comment on two unrelated articles published Tuesday, Milo Yiannopoulos – who is known as a provocateur – texted the Observer’s Davis […]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacked Crowley for being white and male, in a classic Marxist strategy of pitting groups against each other. She won by promising free college, Medicare-for-all, a federal jobs guarantee, opening our prisons and abolishing ICE. Transferring all the money from those who work to those who don't work may force more people to wake up. [...]