Is it any coincidence that while a record number of billionaires enjoy unprecedented wealth and power, US homelessness and child poverty rates are at all time highs? Did you know that according to the RAND Corporation, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% of Americans to the wealthiest 1%, over the last 40 years? And that according to Oxfam, “there will be at least 5 TRILLIONAIRES a decade from now”? The levels of inequality and injustice at home, and abroad are staggering. Let’s not forget too that over 828 MILLION people worldwide go to bed HUNGRY every night! Add to that an unchecked US government that blames marginalized groups for domestic woes, while it also spends 62% of the US federal discretionary budget on military programs (that include Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE in Gaza), and you have the makings of a failing, criminal empire. How can I feel anything other than helplessness, contempt, and disgust, knowing that the majority of my tax dollars are in large part, being spent on Israel’s GENOCIDE in Gaza (where nearly 70% of the deaths are women, and CHILDREN). Like thousands of others, I feel responsible on some level for one of the biggest, and most heinous crimes in human history, and it is one of the many reasons why I will never shut up. Due to US hegemony, and America’s vapid culture of indifference, US led Mass Murder campaigns, Wars, and GENOCIDES, will continue, and ultimately lead to nuclear annihilation. These are amongst the darkest days of my lifetime, and I am one of the lucky ones.
If it wasn’t for China’s remarkable achievement of pulling 800 MILLION people out of poverty over the last 20 years, global poverty rates would be at all time highs too (the World Bank has reported that China alone is responsible for three quarters of global extreme poverty reduction). As per Oxfam International, “Billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024 alone, equivalent to roughly $5.7 billion a day, at a rate three times faster than the year before. An average of nearly four new billionaires were minted every week. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, according to World Bank data. In 2024, the number of billionaires rose to 2,769, up from 2,565 in 2023. Their combined wealth surged from $13 trillion to $15 trillion in just 12 months. Inequality is out of control…Oxfam publishes “Takers Not Makers” today as business elites gather in the Swiss resort town of Davos and billionaire Donald Trump, backed by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, is inaugurated as President of the United States. “The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable. The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated, by three times, but so too has their power…The crown jewel of this oligarchy is a billionaire president, backed and bought by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, running the world’s largest economy. We present this report as a stark wake up-call that ordinary people the world over are being crushed by the enormous wealth of a tiny few,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
Click here to learn more from Oxfam International.
Click here for Oxfam’s excellent report, Takers Not Makers: The Unjust Poverty and Unearned Wealth of Colonialism.
Billionaires surround Donald Trump.
Image: Stephen Semler
Click here for another excellent piece from Stephen Semler.
We Fight Back, National Day of Action!
I was proud to join my fellow New York brothers and sisters for Monday’s “We Fight Back, National Day of Action”, which was a nationwide mobilization effort to oppose Trump’s ultra-right, billionaire agenda.
“Migrants are not a danger – they are in danger.” – Pope Francis
As per the We Fight Back website:
We Can Defeat Trump’s Extreme Right, Billionaire Agenda
“Trump ran a con game during the election. His real agenda is to destroy worker’s rights, deport millions of immigrant families, and pave the way for a complete corporate capitalist takeover by ending regulations to protect the environment, firing thousands of public sector workers, and transferring ever-larger parts of the National Treasury to the military industrial complex. He is 100 % behind Netanyahu’s genocidal war against the Palestinian and Arab people. The Trump victory in the 2024 election represents the complete failure of the Democratic Party to stop the rise of the ultra-right. In fact, they have contributed to it by adopting much of the program of the extreme right while embracing endless war. Instead of responding to the needs of the people, both the Democrats and the Republicans have moved further and further to the right. Trump’s agenda is the culmination of this right-ward spiral, and his administration will move to make major gains for the billionaire class at the expense of the millions of everyday people in the US and across the world. But we can defeat the Trump program. Not by following the Democratic Party establishment, but by building a massive movement against the ruling class and the political system that gives everything to billionaires while impoverishing an ever larger section of the population. This fight starts right now. Tens of thousands of people are taking action on January 20th all across the country. Join this new national movement. Find a demonstration or an action near you, organize one in your area, and share the call.”
Click here to learn more from CODEPINK.
“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all of the people.”
– Noam Chomsky
According to the People’s Forum, “In his first days in the White House, President Donald Trump has signed numerous executive orders that attack workers, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community. Trump removed the US from the Paris Agreement, the World Health Organization, and rescinded a previous order that lowered the cost of prescription drugs. On immigration, Trump declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, vowing to deploy troops to the region; ended birthright citizenship, which is protected by the 14th Amendment; suspended the Refugee Admissions Program; and also revived the discriminatory “Muslim Ban” act. These actions reflect his plan to conduct the “largest mass deportation campaign” in US history. In response to Trump’s measures, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has announced a nationwide program that will provide healthcare, employment, and financial assistance to migrants who are deported to Mexico…On January 20, while the world’s richest individuals such as Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk attended Donald Trump’s inauguration, people in over 80 cities and 40 states across the US took to the streets to launch a mass movement against Trump’s billionaire agenda that prioritizes wealth for a few over the needs of the people. People everywhere reaffirmed their commitment to the workers, immigrant families, Palestine, and communities who face the brunt of the ruling class’ brutal policies.”
Click here to learn more from The People’s Forum.
Click here to learn more about deportation fears in NYC schools.
As per Margaret Flowers (from the always excellent Clearing the Fog podcast), “People’s Dispatch has an excellent article by Natalia Marquez looking at the economic legacy of President Biden and how the Biden administration, which promised to pursue a science-based approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, actually rolled back COVID-19 protections and allowed a lot of the programs to expire. These are programs that were turning out to be very effective in decreasing poverty. Poverty went down in 2021. The end of these COVID-19 programs means that 25 million people in the United States lost health coverage under Medicaid. That includes 5 million children. Also during the Biden Presidency, inflation ran rampant and we know that a lot of this was due to just price gouging and not necessarily something that needed to happen and could have been controlled. Groceries are now 22 percent more expensive than they were before the Biden Presidency. Currently, 69 percent of people in the United States are reporting that they have difficulty covering their basic needs from week to week. We know the housing crisis has worsened during Biden’s tenure with housing prices up and more than half of renters of the United States spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Homelessness in the United States increased 18% in 2024 over what it was in 2023.
Click here for the entire piece from Natalia Marquez.
Here are more excerpts from Natalie Marquez’s superb piece:
Biden’s Legacy: Genocide Abroad, Economic Despair at Home
– From rolling back the pandemic-era social safety net, to overseeing the largest inflationary crisis in decades, Biden’s legacy was one of economic despair.
– According to US Census data from August 20 to September 16, over 93% of those polled had some level of stress over the last two months’ price increases, with over 45% reporting they found these price increases to be “very stressful”.
– Corporate greed has exacerbated the crisis. Reports indicate that grocery stores have “price gouged”, or raised the prices of goods beyond inflation. A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report from March of 2024 found that “food and beverage retailer revenues increased to more than 6 percent over total costs in 2021, substantially higher than their recent peak of 5.6 percent in 2015. In the first three-quarters of 2023, grocery retailer profits rose even more, with revenue reaching 7 percent over total costs.”
– A recent report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development revealed that over 770,000 people were homeless on a single night in January of 2024, an 18% increase from January of 2023.
– Throughout Israel’s fifteen-month long genocide in Gaza…Biden’s administration supplied Israel with billions in aid, while US officials threatened international institutions that sought to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against humanity.
– Biden’s administration has also been the chief obstacle to a peaceful negotiation between Russia and Ukraine, while continuing to send billions of dollars in military supplies to further escalate the war in the region. In November, Biden issued a significant provocation against Russia by authorizing Ukraine to use US-made long-range missiles, called Army Tactical Missile Systems.
– Biden continued the ongoing Cold War against China, with the US escalating military exercises in East Asia with an eye on both China and Chinese ally North Korea.
– In the final days of his presidency, Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered remarks on the long-awaited ceasefire agreement that was recently reached in Gaza. Two journalists interrupted Blinken’s remarks: Palestinian journalist Sam Husseini was dragged away by security while yelling “Why aren’t you at The Hague?” and Max Blumenthal interrupted Blinken to ask “How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?”
Click here for the complete article from the People’s Dispatch.
Click here to learn more on the homelessness crisis from People’s Dispatch.
“If you are at war with Gaza, why are you shooting children in the skull, and in the chest? Why are you killing journalists, medics, and UN workers? Does that sound like a war, or does that sound like a Genocide? – Professor Norman Finkelstein
Click here to learn more from Norman Finkelstein.
Artist: Soni Lopez-Chavez
I was marveling at the US corporate media’s obsessive coverage of the wildfires in California. Every talking head, on every network, couldn’t seem to get enough. They kept gasping at the number of people dead, 5 on the first day, then 12, and 16, and ultimately, 28. It is of course awful (save for the million dollar mansions being burned to the ground), but let’s not forget that these are the same racist, warmongering bubbleheads, who have LIED us into illegal wars, and have been SILENT, or worse, about the ongoing US backed Israeli GENOCIDE of our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Noam Chomsky, and Edward Herman, referred to this dynamic as Worthy Victims (mostly white, and often wealthy), vs. Unworthy Victims (mostly non-white, and typically “poor” by western standards). As per Chris Hedges, “Rulers divide the world into worthy and unworthy victims, those we are allowed to pity, such as Ukrainians enduring the hell of modern warfare, and those whose suffering is minimized, dismissed, or ignored. The terror we and our allies carry out against Iraqi, Palestinian, Syrian, Libyan, Somali, and Yemeni civilians is part of the regrettable cost of war.”
Interestingly, I divided the estimated number of Palestinians who have been killed over the last 15 months (300,000), by the number of months of Israel’s ongoing US backed Genocide in Palestine (15), by the typical number of days in a month (30), and I came up with the following result: 666.666. I am not religious, or an expert, but it did give me pause. For those unfamiliar, 666 is typically associated with EVIL, and what the Bible refers to as the devil. This is what the United States represents to not just many of its citizens, including myself, but also to the rest of the world as well (for the most part). In other words, the United States and Israel have MURDERED over 666 Palestinians (70% of whom are Women & CHILDREN), PER DAY, over the last 15 months, and the US corporate media has NOT uttered a PEEP! In fact, it has not only remained SILENT on the GENOCIDE (and the hundreds of thousands of people killed), but it has also been complicit, as a propaganda arm, in promoting all of the LIES (see beheaded babies, mass rapes, etc.), and disinformation of both the US and Israeli governments. The US corporate media is disgusting, and guilty of War Crimes too. It needs to be held accountable.
Artist: Carlos Latuff
“All warfare is based on deception.” – Sun Tzu
If you watch CNN, or any major US corporate media outlet on a regular basis, you will be grossly misinformed. The recent “coverage” by CNN of the two brave journalists who exposed Antony “Bloody” Blinken, for his War Crimes, and acts of GENOCIDE, was disgraceful, and exemplifies the criminality of the US corporate media. CNN has a decades long history of lying, and being a cheerleader for US mass murder campaigns, wars, and now Genocide. CNN is nothing more than a propaganda arm for the US government, and it needs to be tried for War Crimes, and GENOCIDE as well. CNN on-air personality, Pamela Brown, is the daughter of a John Young Brown, the former governor of Kentucky, who made a fortune by creating the Kentucky Fried Cruelty (KFC), restaurant chain (which, in addition to making people sick, and harming our planet, tortures, and slaughters, over 1 BILLION chickens per year). It seems that Pamela Brown is married to a former navy seal, who works in “national security” for something called the Charles Bolden Group. Do you think Pamela Brown has any incentive to report the truth? Highly unlikely. If she was interested in truth or justice, she wouldn’t have her job with CNN (where lying, and obfuscating, are part of the daily routine). Brown’s CNN partner in crime (or Himbo) is an Alex Marquardt, and apparently he is CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent. Wow, what an impressive title. Too bad he too is nothing more than a soulless, witless shill, for the US government. And there you have it. The ongoing sh*t-show that is CNN, and the US corporate media.
Images Below: The always excellent Journalists Max Blumenthal, and Sam Husseini, posed factual, hard-hitting questions, and were forcefully carried out of Antony Blinken’s press conference. As per the mindless CNN correspondent mentioned above, this was democracy at work. If we lived in a just society, War Criminal & Genocidist, Antony Blinken, would be HANGED. Kudos to the superb journalists Max Blumenthal, and Sam Husseini, for exposing the despicable Antony Blinken.
Click here to learn more from the always superb Electronic Intifada.
Click here to learn more from Briahna Joy Gray’s Bad Faith podcast.
Click here to learn more from Katie Halper about how Max Blumenthal & Sam Husseini humiliated Antony Blinken.
Click here to learn more from the Grayzone.
Sam Husseini being forcibly removed from Presser.
Max Blumenthal Exposes Antony “Bloody” Blinken.
Manufacturing Consent
Are you familiar with Edward S. Herman, and Noam Chomsky’s seminal book, Manufacturing Consent? The authors show how the corporate “news” media pretends to report the truth, so that people can make sense of the world, but in actual practice, defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the wealthy elite, who dominate society, the state, and the global order.
Click here for an outstanding 4+ minute video that explains the five filters of Manufacturing Consent.
As per Noam Chomsky, media operate through five filters: Ownership, Advertising, the Media Elite, Flak, and the Common Enemy.
1. OWNERSHIP
The first has to do with ownership. Mass media firms are big corporations. Often, they are part of even bigger conglomerates. Their end game? Profit. And so it’s in their interests to push for whatever guarantees that profit. Naturally, critical journalism must take second place to the needs and interests of the corporation.
2. ADVERTISING
The second filter exposes the real role of advertising. Media costs a lot more than consumers will ever pay. So who fills the gap? Advertisers. And what are the advertisers paying for? Audiences. And so it isn’t so much that the media are selling you a product, their output. They are also selling advertisers a product, YOU.
3. THE MEDIA ELITE
The establishment manages the media through the third filter. Journalism cannot be a check on power because the very system encourages complicity. Governments, corporations, big institutions know how to play the media game. They know how to influence the news narrative. They feed media scoops, official accounts, interviews with the ‘experts’. They make themselves crucial to the process of journalism. So, those in power and those who report on them are in bed with each other.
4. FLAK
If you want to challenge power, you’ll be pushed to the margins. When the media – journalists, whistleblowers, sources – stray away from the consensus, they get ‘flak’. This is the fourth filter. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flak machine in action discrediting sources, trashing stories and diverting the conversation.
5. THE COMMON ENEMY
To manufacture consent, you need an enemy — a target. That common enemy is the fifth filter. Communism. Terrorists. IMMIGRANTS. A common enemy, a bogeyman to fear, helps corral public opinion.
US “Leadership” Celebrates Billionaire Power, and Blames Immigrants, and China, for Domestic Woes
The problem in the United States isn’t immigration, or the LGBTQ community. It’s unconscionable corporations, and billionaires, who are never held accountable. And a runaway military industrial complex that is hell-bent on US Hegemony, Mass Murder, and ending life as we know it. a.k.a., Genocide, Nuclear Annihilation, Climate Catastrophe. Journalist Ben Norton does great work, and he is the founder, and editor-in-chief of the Geopolitical Economy Report. He had this to say on the Clearing the FOG podcast, “George Bush invaded Iraq and the world could see that the US was not this benevolent hegemon. It was very much an imperialist power that sought global dominance. And you can read reports from the US government, from the Pentagon, for instance, the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which was articulated in the early 90s, saying that the US should prevent any near-peer strategic competitor from emerging. The US should dominate every region of the world. The goal was to seek what the Pentagon referred to as full spectrum dominance. And imperial strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was the National Security Advisor under Carter, and he oversaw the proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Brzezinski wrote a book in 1997, The Grand Chess Board, in which he talked about US strategy for global dominance. And he infamously warned that the biggest threat to US global dominance would be what he called an anti-hegemonic alliance between China, Russia and Iran. And for a variety of reasons, what we’ve seen in the past decade is that the US has pushed China, Russia and Iran closer together. And meanwhile, all throughout this period, China was rising economically. China has overseen the most remarkable economic development in modern history, lifting more than 800 million people out of poverty. Just China alone is responsible for three quarters of global extreme poverty reduction, according to the World Bank. And not only has China developed, but it has become the industrial superpower, whereas the US economy in the neoliberal era has deindustrialized because capitalists in the US decided that they could make much more money by offshoring their factories, which also was a way of breaking unions. And they sent their factories abroad to many countries.”
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gave it to.” – Dorothy Parker
It has become increasingly clear that being a shit-bag is a prerequisite for being a billionaire. According to researchers at Northwestern and Vanderbilt Universities, “We report the results of a pilot study of the political views and activities of the top 1 percent or so of US wealth-holders. We find that they are extremely active politically and that they are much more conservative than the American public as a whole with respect to important policies concerning taxation, economic regulation, and especially social welfare programs. Variation within this wealthy group suggests that the top one-tenth of 1 percent of wealth- holders (people with $40 million or more in net worth) may tend to hold still more conservative views that are even more distinct from those of the general public. We suggest that these distinctive policy preferences may help account for why certain public policies in the United States appear to deviate from what the majority of US citizens want the government to do. If this is so, it raises serious issues for democratic theory.”
Click here to learn more about the villains who make billions.
As per Professor Richard Wolff, “Census says employers are three percent of the American people. The other 97 percent are not. And having our system run for the profit of those three percent is not only irrational, it is the most undemocratic arrangement I could imagine.” The wealthiest 3% of Americans are making a killing off of Genocides, Wars, and America’s Sick, and Poor (over 60% of Americans are living check to check, with most being one emergency away from financial ruin).
Get ready for the next installment of the “US Destroys the World Shit Show”!
“Donald Trump is unfit, he’s unqualified, he doesn’t know anything, he’s a con artist, he’s a criminal, he’s a judicially determined rapist…Trump has been a dangerous criminal for his whole life.” – Pulitzer Prize Winning Author David Cay Johnston
“First, they fascinate the fools. Then, they muzzle the intelligent.” – Bertrand Russell
Artist: Carlos Latuff
Lifetime criminal, and climate denier, Donald Trump was sworn in once again as the 47th President of the United States. Please don’t forget that Trump is a racist, greedy, sociopath, who filed for bankruptcy SEVEN times before being selected president in 2016. On a day when Trump says, “Drill, baby, Drill” to oil and gas companies (while being surrounded by his billionaire toadies), I am reminded of the words of Noam Chomsky, “Donald Trump is the worst criminal in human history.”
Click here to learn more about the awfulness of Donald Trump, and other US presidents.
Click here to learn more about how even most millionaires think the superrich influencing Trump threatens global stability.
Click here for some potential good news, as Trump says he wants to work with China and Russia on Denuclearization.
Here are just a few of the “orders” that Trump issued on his first day (as per Axios, mostly).
– He promised mass deportations but hasn’t detailed how he would implement, staff and fund.
– Trump declared an emergency at the U.S. Mexico border, vowing to deploy troops to the region.
– One of his boldest moves was an attempt to end birthright citizenship for those born to undocumented immigrants.
– He declared a “national energy emergency,” ordering expedited, deregulated drilling and a repeated vow to “drill, baby, drill.”
– He signed an order withdrawing the US, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, from the Paris Climate Agreement.
– Trump established Monday that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female” on official documents. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” his order read.
Transgender Americans were a central target of Trump’s often hyperbolic and outright false campaign trail messaging.
– He also rescinded a Biden administration provision that allowed transgender people to serve in the military.
– Trump pardoned the vast majority of Jan. 6 defendants charged with participating in the Capitol riot. Among those were leaders of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
– Trump signed an order pulling the U.S. from the World Health Organization, a process he started during his first term.
– Trump also rescinded a 2022 Biden order to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
– Re-designated the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a terrorist organization.
– Trump reinstates Cuba as state sponsor of terrorism.
– Trump promised to “take back” the “foolish gift” from the United States that was the Panama Canal. As per Trump, “China is operating the Panama canal and we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back.”
– U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States needs to control Greenland to ensure international security.
– Orders 25% tariffs on Mexico & Canada, a dramatic change in N. American trade policy that could raise prices for consumers.
– Trump rescinded sanctions on far-right Israeli settler groups accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians.
– He took the first step toward renewing the sanctions that he imposed against Sr. International Criminal Court (ICC) personnel.
– His intentions are to make Canada the “51st state.” His statements highlight a gloomy reality: Colonialism never truly perished.”
Here are some more notes, and clips, that I have collected over the last month or two, or longer. 🙂
1. Israel Never Keeps it Promises
The great Norman Finkelstein explains how the demonic state of Isra*l never keeps its promises, and what we can expect of the cease-fire agreement. Israel continues to manipulate the ceasefire, which is essentially the same deal proposed last summer. After 15 months of genocide, we will (hopefully) see a pause in Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has killed more than 100 Palestinians since the ceasefire was agreed upon.
Click here to learn more from the great Norman Finkelstein.
Artist: Carlos Latuff
2. “Israelis are euphoric about the genocide in Gaza. Israel is a lunatic society.” – Professor Norman Finkelstein
Click here for the 2+ minute video.
3. Where do you stand?
Celebrated Animal Rights activist, Paul Watson, once said, “If you want to know where you would have stood on slavery before the Civil War, don’t look at where you stand on slavery today. Look at where you stand on animal rights.” I love that quote, but here is a better version: “If you want to know where you would have stood on slavery before the Civil War, don’t look at where you stand on slavery today. Look at where you stand on animal rights, and Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE in Palestine.”
Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE has exposed people’s true colors.
4. Only 31.3% of eligible voters chose Trump. There is no mandate. Not voting was more popular than Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, as 89 MILLION eligible voters decided not to vote.
Economics Professor Richard Wolff: “All right. So what’s the total who didn’t vote but were eligible? 89 million people in the United States in November, this last year, 2024, 89 million people who were eligible to vote did not do so. Why do I stress that? Because that’s more than either candidate got. Not voting was more popular than either Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris. The majority of people voting, a plurality among the three, if you think of it as Trump, Harris, non-voting, non-voting won, far and away. Let me remind you, Mr. Trump got 76.9 million votes, and Ms. Harris 74.4 with 96% of the vote counted on December 3rd. In other words, there is no mandate here, not even close. I calculated from these numbers the percentage of eligible voters that came out to vote for Donald Trump. The number? 31.3%. Less than a third of the eligible voters in the United States came out for Donald Trump. If 1% of the people who voted for Trump had decided to vote for Harris, she’d be the president, and he’d be zero, worried about going to jail. 1% is all that would have had to change, and the outcome would have been “very different. That’s not a mandate. That’s not a vast decision of the American people. None of it. Most of the American people didn’t vote. Less than a third voted for Donald Trump. A lot less than a third. Keep that in mind, especially when you hear the hoopla around the inauguration. It’ll be a corrective to a lot of make-believe.”
More from the always informative Richard Wolff (Democracy at Work):
Richard Wolff: “Wages don’t rise as fast as the cost of housing. So people are going to be impoverished. This country set aside a certain part of the population to be impoverished from the time it was created. And it just continues and exacerbates over generations, right? And it’s a challenge. So until you raise wages and the price of housing sort of stops rising so quickly, you’re going to have people struggling. But I don’t think people look at it that way. When you’re talking about capitalism and profit, profit is a sort of a drug for the capitalist, right? The more I make, the more I want. That urge is never satisfied…You know, in ancient England, they had something called the poor laws. When you were too poor to afford a place to live, you were told you’re a criminal, and the explanation was because you’re poor, as if your poverty was a matter of casual choice on your part. And you can hear the echo nowadays in so-called conservatives who likewise need to make poverty, homelessness, some matter of a perverse choice of a therefore perverse person, rather than a social phenomena. It’s extraordinary. I want to read to you how homelessness was described recently by the richest person in the world, Elon Musk. This was what he said about homelessness in an interview last October with Tucker Carlson. Homelessness is, I’m quoting from Elon Musk, “Homelessness is a lie, a propaganda word. Homelessness is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little behind on their mortgage, and if you just give them a little job, they’d be back on their feet. Well, what you actually have”, says Elon Musk, “are violent drug zombies with dead eyes and needles and human feces on the street. The more money spent combating homelessness, the worse it gets”, according to Elon Musk. What is your reaction to a man who now sits in the White House, or will shortly, with the incoming president, as perhaps his number one advisor, who’s already his number one donor? Tell me your reaction to hearing those words from Mr. Musk.
Rob Robinson (Housing Advocate and Activist): “A sad, perverse thought from an individual that is so far disconnected from the human society, it’s incredible. He grew up with the silver spoon in his mouth, a person of obvious inherited wealth. For our current president to choose this person as an advisor speaks to our president and the disconnect that he has…When are we going to have our fill level here in the US? It’s always a big question for me. In 2008, when our president took out tax money to bail out the banks, we didn’t respond. I think at some point, we’re going to have to respond. So revolution, to me, is right down the road. But I think, how do we change the narrative? I think we change the narrative by people pushing back on the system.”
Click here for the entire conversation with Richard Wolff and Rob Robinson on Economic Update.
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
5. America is a culture of celebrity, not morality.
Hollywood actor James Woods proves that just because you may have attended a prestigious school, such as MIT (another institution that is complicit with Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE in Palestine), doesn’t mean that you still can’t be an ignorant, hypocritical, low-life vomit.
Click here for a piece from Drop Site News that compares CNN’s handling of zionist James Woods house burning down vs. Bloody Blinken having police forcibly remove truthful journalists from a press conference.
Click here to hear CODEPINK explain how the Israel’s Genocide in Gaza is connected to the California wildfires.
6. Danish company Maersk exports cargo from ILLEGAL Israeli settlements to the United States.
According to Mondoweiss, “A new report details a shipping and logistics giant’s role in sustaining illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine and Syrian territories. A.P. Moller Maersk is a publicly traded Danish company that netted a revenue of $51.1 billion in 2023. According to research compiled by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and its Mask off Maersk campaign, the company has repeatedly facilitated shipments to the United States from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights. “The global structures of financialized capitalism, logistics and supply chains play an outsize role in the maintenance of extraction and accumulation. As one of the largest corporations that serves these functions, Maersk helps both to arm the Israeli regime and export the spoils of its colonial project,” PYM’s Kaleem Hawa told Mondoweiss.”
Click here to learn more from Mondoweiss.
“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
7. Biden and Trump supporters, as well as the inauguration pastor, once again tried to co-opt the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in order to appear more compassionate and open-minded. If Dr. King was alive today, does anyone doubt for a second that the Biden and Trump teams would be doing everything in their power to silence Dr. King?
Click here to learn more from Bernice A. King, daughter of Dr. King.
8. “Genocide Joe” Biden knew that the Isaelis were committing a GENOCIDE from day one.
Netanyahu had told Biden that he wanted to basically do to Gaza what the United States did to Hiroshima.
According to Journalist Mohammad Alsaafin, on the Chapo Trap House podcast, “The United States, but also several countries in Europe supporting Israel, knew exactly what the Israelis were doing. I mean, you had Biden in one of his final interviews before leaving office last week, talking about how on the 10th day or the 9th day of the war, Netanyahu had told him that he wanted to basically do to Gaza what the US did to Hiroshima. So, the entire time that Matt Miller has been getting up or Tony Blinken has been getting up in front of reporters and saying, oh, we actually don’t know what happened or our friends in Israel are investigating. They knew, they knew from the beginning what the policy was going to be. They knew from the beginning what the goals were. And I think, as I think back on this notion of 17th and 21st century genocide entwined, I’m worried that instead this has been an epilogue, that we’re looking at a world now where there is no morality in warfare, there are no rules, where hospitals can be bombed, attacked, doctors killed, children sniped, entire populations starved, and that this would all be seen as legitimate warfare. It was very ironic that Biden said his response to Netanyahu’s plans to do Hiroshima to Gaza was that, hey man, we don’t do this anymore, not since World War II. And then proceeded to give him all the weapons to do exactly that…There’s no radioactive fallout, but in terms of destruction, I think it’s been calculated that several nuclear weapons worth of explosives have been dropped on Gaza.”
Click here for the entire interview.
“Migration policies based on deterrence, criminalization, and containment only cause more pain for vulnerable people who have already suffered and survived so many cruelties.” – Avril Benoit, CEO, MSF USA
9. Trump’s new executive orders on migration are a devastating step backward.
As per Doctors without Borders: “Seeking safety is not a crime. In contexts where MSF works, extreme violence; attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure like hospitals; the denial of aid; and mass displacement threaten people’s lives. The vast majority of people uprooted from their homes remain internally displaced in their country of origin or seek safety in neighboring countries, however some make extraordinarily difficult journeys to seek asylum in the United States. The right to seek asylum is a lifeline for people fleeing violence and persecution. Avril Benoît, chief executive officer of MSF USA, said, “We are witnessing the reinstatement of some of the most inhumane and harmful immigration policies the US has imposed in recent years. These policies put tens of thousands of people in harm’s way, trapped in desperate conditions and exposed to violence, extortion, and kidnapping. This is a devastating step backward.”
Click here to learn more from Doctors without Borders.
Lifetime Criminal Trump Says Schools, Churches, Hospitals Are NOT Off-Limits to Immigration Police
Communities are organizing “know your rights” trainings to prepare for ICE and CPB intrusions in “sensitive locations.”
Click here to learn more from TruthOut.
Artist Ai Wei Wei’s flipping the bird anywhere series.
10. Legendary Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, says that censorship in the West today is “exactly the same”, to the censorship that existed in China under Mao Zedong.
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist, filmmaker, and activist who has been imprisoned, beaten, and pretty much banished from China for speaking the TRUTH. Ai Weiwei recently had his exhibition in a London art gallery cancelled because he tweeted his support for Palestinians. He has described the political censorship in the West today, as being “exactly the same”, to the censorship that existed in China under Mao Zedong. Wow. As per Ai Weiwei, “Society becomes so timid, to really avoid any kind of questioning or argument…Today I see so many people by giving their basic opinions, they get fired, they get censored. This has become very common…this is really like a Culture Revolution, which is really trying to destroy anybody who has a different attitude, even not a clear opinion. So, I think this is such a pity happening in the West so broadly in Universities, in Media, in the political sector, everywhere, you cannot talk about the Truth.”
Trevor Phillips: “Do you think that artists in the West are speaking up enough for freedom of expression?”
Ai Weiwei: “I think it’s far from enough. Artists in this Society are mostly corrupted by the Capitalism, you know they just seeking for money, and also to be famous, and they basically nobody really care about Society, or Truth or even in their art. At least they don’t express their feelings. So I think that is not a very good sign…I would say artist make the name or make the huge profit by not connecting to reality, by becoming some kind of decoration of a very strange aesthetic. This is shameful. I think artists should represent Human Emotions and should, you know, defend Humanity…I never regret because I’m defending a value which would benefit everybody so you know my little experience is not really matter but rather someone has to speak out, and an artist has the responsibility to do that…”
Click here to learn more.
11. Active-Duty GI Announces Conscientious Objector Filing at Anti-Trump Rally
The Navy Corpsman Cites US Military’s Destruction of the Environment & Support for Genocide as Motivators
According to the GI, who is remaining anonymous for now, “The reality of being a US service member is this: We are not defending the interest of the American people. We are members of the working class, defending the interest of the capitalist elite. And the elite’s interest include destroying the global ecosystem; destabilizing countries overseas; murdering millions of innocent people around the globe; and spending billions of dollars on genocide all in the name of becoming disgustingly rich, while the working class struggles to make it through each day.”
Click here to learn more from the always excellent Empire Files.
12. Doctors & Taxpayers Against Genocide
The inspiring Palestinian Doctor, Karamen Hawash Kuemmerle, apparently has to declare (before speaking out against Israel’s US backed GENOCIDE), that her beliefs are not necessarily those of Harvard University, or Boston Children’s Hospital.
What does that tell you about those two phony baloney organizations?
Click here for the always informative CODEPINK Congress Capitol Calling Party.
13. The Israeli military has killed over 100 Palestinians, since the ceasefire was enacted, including young children.
Israel continues to manipulate the ceasefire, which is essentially the same deal proposed last summer. After 15 months of genocide, we will (hopefully) see a pause in Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has killed more than 100 Palestinians since the ceasefire was agreed upon. As per Jewish Voice for Peace, “This is how the Israeli government marks the ceasefire in Gaza: with mass pogroms in the occupied West Bank. Just hours into the ceasefire, Israeli settlers, enabled by the Israeli military, intensified their assaults against Palestinians, torching villages and orchards, while the Israeli military launched mass arrests and raids. Today, in Jenin, the Israeli military launched a ground attack that left nine Palestinians dead and 98 injured in just two and a half hours. The Israeli military also arrested at least 64 Palestinians since the ceasefire, including children as young as seven. For Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, this represents an escalation of the already relentless violence by the Israeli military and settlers. The Right to Education Campaign at @birzeit.university, documented over 110 student arrests in the 2023-2024 academic year alone. The climate of fear forced Birzeit to adopt a hybrid learning model, allowing students to study online when campus attendance became too dangerous. Meanwhile, on President Trump’s first day in office, he reversed US sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank implemented last year by Biden. As Jews, we reject the Israeli government’s actions in the occupied West Bank, where the military is expanding its campaigns of ethnic cleansing. This is a direct result of Zionism, particularly Jabotinsky’s “Revisionist Zionism,” which advocated for a more aggressive approach to securing a Jewish state through force, an ideology that has displaced Palestinians and continues to aim at their removal from their land. Palestinians will never be safe as long as the Israeli military occupation continues. Our fight will persist until the Israeli military’s apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide end. Our demand remains the same: the US must stop arming Israel.”
Click here to learn more about the Right to Education Campaign.
Artist?
14. Comedian Jon Stewart Kisses the arse of Michelle & Barack Obama
How broken is the United States media? And just how good is it to be the King? Comedian Jon Stewart is likable enough, but too often, he appears to be no different than all of the other multi-millionaire, pro-establishment, celebrity hosts, and late night nudniks. Stewart recently praised Michelle Obama for taking a “consistent ethical stance”, by not attending the US Presidential inauguration. The art of sucking up means more access, and more money, but it also means more propaganda, and more US caused death and destruction. There is no excuse for supporting War Criminals, and Genocidists, as the US and Israel continue their ongoing terror campaigns, including the Michelle and Barack Obama APPROVED, GENOCIDE in Palestine.
Dear Jon Stewart,
Et tu, Jon? Former US President Barack Obama, and his wife Michelle, now have an estimated net worth of $70-120 Million. The Obamas entered the White House in 2008 with a reported net worth of just $1.3 million. Wait, what? How does that happen? Barack Obama committed war crimes, and like all recent US presidents, he routinely lied his ass off. In spite of this, or because of it, the US establishment, and the US corporate media simply adore him, and the equally phony-baloney Michelle. They are also idolized in the field of education, as Obama’s image is prominently displayed, alongside Dr. King’s, in countless NYC classrooms and libraries (more on that below), despite their public support of Israel’s US backed Genocide in Palestine. We are all flawed, but please consider the path of integrity, and moral consistency. Thank you.
As per Professor Norman Finkelstein (referring to the Obamas’ hypocrisy, and Michelle Obama’s 2020 Democratic Convention speech): “It’s a hard time and everyone’s feeling it,” the former First Lady intoned, “We’ve sacrificed so much this year.” Indeed, who can’t feel the Obamas’ pain as they sacrificed another $12 million in December 2019 to purchase a 7,000-square-foot estate in Martha’s Vineyard (seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms) just 30 months after sacrificing $8 million to purchase an 8,200-square-foot estate (nine bedrooms and nine bathrooms) in Jeff Bezos’ ritzy Washington, D.C., neighborhood? As First Lady, Michelle Obama most recalled Nancy Reagan’s partiality to high-end designer outfits at state functions, the differences being that Michelle racked up more hours each day working out, and the media lapped up Michelle but looked down on Nancy. At last count, the Obamas have raked in $65 million through a joint book deal with Random House, negotiated a “high-eight-figure” deal with Netflix, and Jeff Bezos—in what might be construed a life-insurance “policy—has donated $100 million to Obama’s foundation (It’s not hard to guess which side Obama will be on if and when Amazon workers strike.). When Obama was at Harvard Law School, this exalted “community organizer” famously exhorted his teary-eyed classmates, “Don’t Let Harvard Change You!” It was as if, by chanting this refrain, he and they, clinging to while simultaneously easing out of their ideals, imagined that they would be granted absolution. In other words, it was a vintage Obama ritual: therapeutic theater to salve the guilty conscience of the guilty-as-sin.”
“Education is a system of Imposed Ignorance.” – Noam Chomsky
A nauseating mural glorifying war criminal, Barack Obama, in a Bronx public school.
15. How can we expect students to be taught to think critically, when so many of our parents, teachers, and administrators are incapable, or unwilling to think critically themselves?
A stomach-turning mural glorifying war criminal, and Genocidist, Barack Obama, is prominently displayed in the lobby of a NYC Public school (in the Bronx). This is the same NYC public school system (DOE), that has supported Israel’s US backed Genocide for over 15 months by officially warning all NYC teachers to maintain a position of “neutrality” regarding the “conflict”. For the record, Barack Obama is/was a vapid con-artist, who didn’t write any of his major speeches (he had 8 writers, all of whom were white). He is a war criminal, and a staunch supporter of “Genocide Joe”, and Israel’s US backed Genocide in Palestine. Obama should be answerable for his crimes, including his support of Genocide, rather than hero-worshipped. According to Professor Norman Finkelstein, “Barack Obama is the perfected and perfect instrument of identity politics, its summa summarum. He represents the cynical triumph of form over substance, color over character. He is the cool Black dude who is also the reliable, in Professor Cornel West’s words, ‘mascot of Wall Street.’ As per Dr. Cornel West, “Let us not be deceived, Nixon, Bush, Obama, they’re war criminals…They have killed innocent people in the name of the struggle for freedom, but they’re suspending the law, very much like Wall Street criminals. The law is suspended for them, but the law applies for the rest of us…Obama is a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs, and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”
Click here to learn more about the awfulness of Barack Obama.
16. As Donald Trump threatens to invade Mexico, Zinn Education Project reminded its readers of a brilliant piece written by Frederick Douglass in 1848, that argued against a US War on Mexico.
Excerpt: “Our nation seems resolved to rush on in her wicked career, though the road be ditched with human blood, and paved with human skulls. Well, be it so. But, humble as we are, and unavailing as our voice may be, we wish to warn our fellow countrymen, that they may follow the course which they have marked out for themselves; no barrier may be sufficient to obstruct them; they may accomplish all they desire; Mexico may fall before them; she may be conquered and subdued; her government may be annihilated, her name among the great sisterhood of nations blotted out; her separate existence annihilated; her rights and powers usurped; her people put under the iron arm of a military despotism, and reduced to a condition little better than that endured by the Saxons when vanquished by their Norman invaders; but, so sure as there is a God of justice, we shall not go unpunished; the penalty is certain; we cannot escape; a terrible retribution awaits us. We beseech our countrymen to leave off this horrid conflict, abandon their murderous plans, and forsake the way of blood. Peradventure our country may yet be saved. Let the press, the pulpit, the church, the people at large, unite at once; and let petitions flood the halls of Congress by the million, asking for the instant recall of our forces from Mexico. This may not save us, but it is our only hope.”
Click here to learn more about the North Star from Zinn Education Project.
17. Professor Norman Finkelstein has called Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a “Terrifying Imbecile”, and for good reason, as the soulless Kushner looks to profit from GENOCIDE.
Click here to learn more from the Lever.
18. Well, this explains a lot. How many times do we come across a certifiable dumb ass, with an Ivy League background?
As per Norman Finkelstein, “A recent study found that 43 percent of white applicants accepted at Harvard University were either athletes, legacies, or the children of donors and faculty. Only about a quarter of those students would have been accepted to the school, the study concluded, without those admissions advantages…Nowadays, if admission to Harvard were based on strict meritocratic criteria, Asian enrolment would be roughly on par with white enrolment. In other words, if, for the sake of equitable representation, quotas were once needed to bring Asians in, they’re now needed to keep them out…Likewise, if the top high school in New York, Stuyvesant, is 75 percent Asian, it traces back in part to institutional racism, but it might also trace back in part to “Tiger Moms” who, like proverbial “Jewish mothers,” dole out their maternal love pro rata with the number of A’s on their child’s report card.”
Click here to learn more.
19. Nearly 6 in 10 US employees want a new job in 2025.
As per journalist Taylor Lorenz, “56 percent of full-time employees in the U.S. are looking to get a new job in 2025 and 27 percent have already started searching, according to one recent poll. One in three people plan to quit their current job this year even if they don’t have a new one lined up. These stats confirm earlier findings from Gallup that show that American workers are fed up and over half of them are actively looking for a new job as employee satisfaction plummets. With inflation rising faster than wages over the past few years and costs of living going up, a lot of people feel under-compensated. 52 percent of job seekers are so done they’re even considering switching industries, according to ResumeTemplates, a platform that helps optimize your resume. Workers in retail, government, hospitality, and manufacturing are the ones most likely to be seeking a new field, and finance and tech are listed as the most desirable industries. Better work-life balance and job security are the two things that respondents said were their number one priorities (with 99 and 98 percent respectively)…It would be amazing if employers started valuing their workers, but since this is America and I don’t see that happening anytime soon, I do think there will be opportunities out there for people seeking to tap into this broad sentiment of work hatred and misery. Yay!”
Click here to learn more from Taylor Lorenz.
20. The failing US Empire is monitoring people who have negative views of health insurance companies.
As per Ken Klippenstein, “If you expressed “negative sentiment” toward insurance companies on social media following the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO last month, the government was watching. Following the shooting, the New York State Intelligence Center (NYSIC-CTC) identified a large amount of negative sentiment towards healthcare executives and health insurance companies on social media. The bulletin goes on to warn of “users online wanting to counter ‘corporate greed’” as well as “growing negative sentiment around conglomerates, the wealthy, and executive staff at private and public organizations.” Setting aside the yeah-no-shit factor, the report provides rare insight into how the government threat machine stokes fear among law enforcement agencies across the country…In his manifesto, Mangione suggested the health insurance industry had “gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.” He could just as easily have been describing the national security state.”
Click here for the entire piece from journalist Ken Klippenstein.
“Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body.”
– Roger J. Corless
21. “Profoundly Dangerous”: Public Citizen is suing Donald Trump over the Legality of Elon Musk-Led DOGE (so-called Department of Government Efficiency)
Public Citizen does excellent work, and was founded by the great Ralph Nader. According to Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman, “Musk’s role in this government is part of a broader convergence of corporate and government power…that doesn’t really have a parallel in American history…We sued over this new thing, which is really an advisory committee, called DOGE, it’s not a government department, to force it to comply with the law. Advisory committees have to follow certain procedures under federal law. They have to have balanced representation. They had to have open meetings, have a charter, be subject to open records law, and so on. There’s no sign that this DOGE is doing any of those things. The term ”DOGE” refers to a meme coin or cryptocurrency that Elon Musk is a fan of. So it’s a little bit of a joke, but the joke’s on all of us. What DOGE is about is empowering Elon Musk, the world’s richest human being, to make recommendations and really drive policymaking in the Trump administration to roll back regulations, the rules that give us clean air, clean water, safe food, fair workplaces and more, to benefit corporations, and to drive a libertarian extremist agenda of cutting government spending, primarily on programs to help the poor and vulnerable, including nutrition assistance and Medicaid.”
Click here to learn more from Democracy Now!.
22. A lovely, and inspiring song/video from a few California musicians. Apparently, it is “taking China by storm”.
Click here for the video.
23. The United States continues to be the largest agent of TERROR in the world, as it sends thousands of law enforcement officials to Israel to learn new repression strategies.
Excerpt: “It is not uncommon for police to drive around with their lights flashing in Black and working-class neighborhoods in Atlanta. This is a tactic used to intimidate and make their presence known; for residents of these neighborhoods, it can feel like psychological warfare. US law enforcement learned this strategy from Israeli forces. Thousands of law enforcement officials have traveled to Israel to learn new repression strategies and surveillance techniques from the Israel National Police, Israel Defense Forces, and the Shin Bet, who inflict violence, crowd control, and surveillance onto Palestinians. Anti-imperialist advocates say the tactics being taught to US law enforcement were battle-tested on Palestinians and spread to the US to target Black and Brown communities through a training relationship that grants Israeli forces more power and profit, causing further harm to Palestinians…”
Click here to learn more.
24. Leaked Documents Expose Deep Ties Between Israeli Army and Microsoft
As per +972 Magazine, “Since Oct. 7, the Israeli military has relied heavily on cloud and AI services from Microsoft and its partner OpenAI, while the tech giant’s staff embed with different units to support rollout, a joint investigation reveals. Microsoft has a “footprint in all major military infrastructures” in Israel, and sales of the company’s cloud and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli army have skyrocketed since the beginning of its onslaught on Gaza, according to leaked commercial records from Israel’s Defense Ministry and files from Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary. The documents reveal that dozens of units in the Israeli army have purchased services from Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, in recent months, including units in the air, ground, and naval forces, as well as the elite intelligence squad, Unit 8200. Microsoft has also provided the military with extensive access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model, the engine behind ChatGPT, thanks to the close partnership between the two companies…The investigation shows how the Israeli army deepened its reliance on civilian tech giants after October 7, and comes amid growing protests by cloud company employees who fear that the technology they developed has helped Israel commit war crimes.”
Click here to learn more from +972 Magazine.
Click here to learn more about the criminality of Bill Gates (who owns over 38 million shares of Microsoft stock, valued at tens of Billions of dollars).
25. Israel has been kidnapping, and arbitrarily detaining Palestinian CHILDREN, without charges, for years.
Israel currently has at least 242 Palestinian CHILDREN in its prison system.
Excerpt: “Israeli forces are holding 85 Palestinian children in administrative detention as of September 30, representing 35 percent of all Palestinian children held in Israeli military detention, according to the latest information shared by the Israel Prison Service. This is a record number since Defense for Children International: Palestine began monitoring child administrative detainees in 2008. “Israeli forces are arbitrarily detaining Palestinian children without charge or trial at a rate we have never seen before,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Palestinian children held under administrative detention orders issued by Israeli military commanders have no idea when they will be released and reunite with their friends and family, which causes immense stress, anxiety, and depression for the children.”
Click here to learn more from the always superb Electronic Intifada.
26. More evidence of Israel’s sexual violence, and gang rapes.
As per the Middle East Monitor, “The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor stressed the need for the United Nations (UN) to add Israel to the UN’s blacklist of entities suspected of perpetrating sexual violence in conflicts: In light of substantial evidence documenting Israel’s systematic use of sexual violence, including rape and other forms of sexual abuse, as part of its broader campaign of annihilation against the Palestinian people.”
A Systematic Policy
In a new report issued by the organisation, which discussed this policy adopted by the occupation, it expressed concern over: “Israel’s consistent obstructions of all United Nations investigations into allegations of sexual violence since 7 October 2023.” It noted: “These obstructions, coupled with substantial evidence indicating systematic and widespread acts of rape and other forms of sexual violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians, including prisoners and detainees, constitute grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor urged that based on this: “The grounds for the inclusion of Israel on the UN’s blacklist of entities suspected of perpetrating sexual violence in conflicts are compelling.” The report mentioned the recent revelation of Israel’s refusal to cooperate with an investigation by UN Special Representative on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Pramila Patten. According to the report: “This refusal reportedly stems from concerns that a comprehensive investigation would expose Israel’s systematic use of mass rape against Palestinians, including women and children, as Patten had insisted that access to Israeli detention centres to investigate allegations against Israeli soldiers was a crucial requirement for the process…Chair of Euro-Med Monitor Ramy Abdu emphasised: “Israel’s repeated refusal to cooperate with all UN investigations into sexual violence highlights the Israeli government’s exploitation of the allegations of this grave crime as a propaganda tool to manufacture consent for its full-fledged, live-streamed genocide…Israel merely uses these allegations to shame and smear critics and deflect blame from its formidable crimes against humanity.”
Click here to learn more from the Middle East Monitor.
27. Gaza health official: ‘4,500 amputations since start of Israel’s genocide’
Middle East Monitor: “An official in the Gaza Ministry of Health announced on Friday that 4,500 amputations of the upper and lower limbs had been recorded since the start of the genocide committed by Israel for the 16th consecutive month.”
Director of the Health Information Department Zaher Al-Wahid confirmed: “We have recorded 4,500 amputations as of the end of 2024 as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.”
Click here to learn more.
28. The US, and its military industrial complex, are the greatest threats to the survival of our species.
Here are excerpts from another outstanding piece from Stephen Semler.
Biden’s Farewell Foreign Policy Speech Touts Funding for Arms Firms
“Joe Biden delivered his foreign policy farewell address yesterday at the State Department. The speech was largely a celebration of his own (perceived) accomplishments; all the things he wants to be remembered by as a foreign policy president. One of them is enacting a historic redistribution of wealth from the public to private weapons companies: “We’ve significantly strengthened the defense industrial base [read: arms industry], investing almost $1.3 trillion in procurement and research and development. In real dollars, that’s more than America did in any four year period during the Cold War.”
Image: Stephen Semler
Foreign Policy for the One Percent
The type of direct, trillion-dollar-plus government investment Biden promised for climate and social welfare only happened for arms companies. The amount Biden just bragged about giving to the weapons industry is about $540 billion more than the combined value of all the projects announced under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS Act.1…In early 2022, Biden ditched the trillion-dollar-plus welfare agenda he campaigned on entirely and rebranded himself as a foreign policy president. From that point on, pandemic assistance was no longer something Biden sought to expand or preserve; in fact, the more of those programs that expired, the more he could brag about reducing the deficit. Ending that assistance during a historic bout of inflation devastated the working class. Many people lost their homes because of it. The Pentagon budget was exempt from Biden’s deficit reduction regime. Little wonder — it takes serious cash to implement a foreign policy as bellicose and destructive as Biden’s. As key social welfare provisions expired or were eliminated, military spending soared. This is not the hallmark of a “foreign policy for the middle class” and it’s definitely not one for the working class. The beneficiaries of Biden’s foreign policy are part of a much more exclusive group.”
Click here for another outstanding piece from Stephen Semler.
29. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), only exists to defend Israel.
Click here to learn more about the abhorrent ADL from Mondoweiss.
Click here to learn more from the always excellent Katie Halper.
30. Israel and the US, have TARGETED, and Murdered, Tens of Thousands of CHILDREN over the last 15 months.
Again, it is estimated that 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinians have been killed due to Israel’s US backed Genocide in Palestine, 70% of whom are Women and CHILDREN.
Click here to learn more from Democracy Now!.
Four-year-old Salma was shot in the neck and died in her father’s arms.
31. “Golda Meir was a racist who oversaw war crimes.” – Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
Unsurprisingly, “Genocide Joe” Biden worships the racist, abhorrent legacy of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
As per JVP: She’s most famous for vitriol like: “There was no such thing as Palestinians. It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”
Click here to learn more from Jewish Voice for Peace.
32. 74 more CHILDREN have been MURDERED in Gaza in the first 7 days of 2025.
If you believe as I do, that all children are our children, then every member of the Biden administration, who hasn’t resigned, should be subject to execution (legal precedent: Nazi Holocaust & Nuremberg, Rwandan Genocide, etc.).
Israel & the US killed all of them.
“I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.” – William Stafford
33. The Genocidal Legacy of Joe Biden will Not Be FORGOTTEN.
Again, if we lived in a just society, Joe Biden would be HANGED for GENOCIDE, and War Crimes.
It is sickening to hear that Genocide Joe, has just sent another $8 BILLION of weapons to Israel, so that it can continue its GENOCIDE in Palestine.
The United States & Israel are both guilty of GENOCIDE, and War Crimes, but nobody will ever be held accountable.
Norman Solomon does great work. Here is an excerpt from his latest piece:
“While Biden refused to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing and mass murder that he kept making possible with bombs and political support for Netanyahu, Democrats in his orbit cooperated with silence or other types of evasion. When news broke over the weekend that President Biden just approved an $8 billion deal for shipping weapons to Israel, a nameless official vowed that “we will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.” Following the reports last month from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza are genocide, Biden’s decision was a new low for his presidency. It’s logical to focus on Biden as an individual. His choices to keep sending huge quantities of weaponry to Israel have been pivotal and calamitous. But the presidential genocide and the active acquiescence of the vast majority of Congress are matched by the dominant media and overall politics of the United States. Forty days after the Gaza war began, Anne Boyer announced her resignation as poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine. More than a year later, her statement illuminates why the moral credibility of so many liberal institutions has collapsed in the wake of Gaza’s destruction. While Boyer denounced “the Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza,” she emphatically chose to disassociate herself from the nation’s leading liberal news organization: “I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies…Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came in for increasing amounts of criticism. But the prevalent U.S. media coverage and political rhetoric, unwilling to expose the Israeli mission to destroy Palestinians en masse, rarely went beyond portraying Israel’s leaders as insufficiently concerned with protecting Palestinian civilians. Instead of candor about horrific truths, the usual tales of U.S. media and politics have offered euphemisms and evasions. When she resigned as the New York Times Magazine poetry editor in mid-November 2023, Anne Boyer condemned what she called “an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted through decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.” Another poet, William Stafford, wrote decades ago: I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.”
Click here to learn more from the always great Norman Solomon.
Click here to learn more from CODEPINK on how Biden’s legacy is written in blood.
Click here to learn how “Genocide Joe” has attempted to whitewash his disgraced legacy.
34. We know who the heroes are, a poem By Julia Wright, posted on January 22, 2025
October 7th 2023…
the Hamas Offensive
carefully cut off
from its anti colonialist context
was presented
to the world
as a wild terrorist assault
stealing
God and hubris-given zionist land
January 7th 2025 …
Mother Earth’s Offensive
of Fires
carefully cut off
from the real narrative
of unchecked corporate assault
on our climate
our wildlife
and our humanity
was presented
to the world
as a hoax
a conspiracy theory
maybe why not
a wildly uncontrollable attack
of nature gone illegally amok
against the most expensive real estate
on the planet
Hamas and Nature
are invisibilized
as forces of Liberation
the mother of all Hollywood blockbusters
is being filmed
this time in real time
with
in the starring roles
the migrants,
the Mexicans
and the incarcerated
on the front line
as fire-fodder –
just as a genocide
is live streamed
by intrepid journalists
doctors
and aid workers
staying behind
at the risk of their lives
with the clarity
of cleansing fire
we know who
the real stars –
the only heroes –
are
Click here to learn more.
Artist: Creative Debut
35. The US is by far, the most violent and destructive state in human history.
36. Adopt a plant-based diet today, and stop with the nonsense.
Regarding the California Wildfires & Mother Earth: The US corporate media, and independent media, are both failing to mention the elephant in the room: Animal Agriculture uses nearly 80% of California’s water supply.
Click here to learn more about how animal agriculture is the most destructive industry facing our planet today.
37. I never tire of this recording session with blues greats, Albert King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The blues, and musical geniuses like these two, help make some things a little less painful.
“The blues is celebration, because when you take sorrow and turn it into music, you transform it.” – Odetta Holmes
“The blues is healing. The blues is freedom.” – John Lee Hooker
“Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.” – Jimi Hendrix
“The blues has roots in field hollers, slave spirituals, and work songs meant to uplift the spirits of enslaved Africans brought to America. The pain, hardship, and inequality of slavery would naturally bring about a sound of music and cultural expression reflective of their environment. As slavery became replaced by the impact of Jim Crow, it became a new barrier to the success of the Black community to achieve and thrive. The blues acted as that healing, secular music that would be a form of release…” – Kyle Thompson
Click here for a timeless recording session with Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan.
38. And this from the great Eduardo Galeano:
Your music is black
Your car is Japanese
Your pizza is Italian
Your gas is Algerian
Your coffee is Brazilian
Your democracy is Greek
Your numbers are Arabic and your letters are Latin
I’m your neighbor and you still call me a foreigner?
– Eduardo Galeano in “The Hunter of Stories”
And there you have it. 🙂
“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” – Honore de Balzac
America’s rich and powerful are getting away with Mass Murder on a global scale, and they know it. America’s wealthiest elites learned a long time ago that justice will never be served in the US…Save for a revolution. Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and everyone who remained in the Biden Administration, committed a GENOCIDE, and should be subject to execution. Unfortunately, they too know that an impartial investigation will never happen…Save for a revolution. The American political system is completely corrupt, and may be broken beyond repair, but did you know that Biden/Harris, and the Democrats, outraised the Republicans in the last election by over $300 million ($1.7 Billion for the democrats, and $1.4 Billion for republicans, as per Oct. 2024), and that Genocide Joe & Kamala Harris’s biggest contributor was pro-Israel, Zionist Billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, who donated over $50 MILLION (a modest amount when compared to the Billionaire donations made to Lifetime Criminal Donald Trump by Elon Musk ($200+ million), and Miriam Adelson ($100+ million))? Bloomberg’s deep pockets have unconditionally supported Israel’s War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity for years. Bloomberg, and other ultra-rich schemers like him, know all too well that they own the US politicians, judges, and media, and that they can do whatever they like with impunity. How do we instill fear, and make them answerable for their crimes…Save for a revolution? And for that matter, how do we hold all of the wrongdoers, and their billionaire masters responsible as well, and rescue our planet, and species from extinction…Save for a revolution?
Lastly, I know it’s a fantasy, but if we lived in a fair and compassionate world, what would it look like if we had the ability, in the pursuit of justice, to punish all of the Destroyers of Life (Animals & Planet), War Criminals, and Genocidists (i.e., a Nuremberg 2.0)? What is reasonable punishment for individuals like Biden & Blinken, and their Billionaire lords, who in one way or another, are responsible for MILLIONS of deaths, and the untold suffering of countless others? If every LIFE is a universe, then somehow, a hanging, or a quiet lethal injection, seems insufficient.
“Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn’t even seen the First World War…Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is the not the first time I surrendered to a pitiless war machine.” – Kurt Vonnegut
Until next time…
Israel = Nazis = US “leadership” = EVIL = US corporate media = GENOCIDE = World War III?
Free Palestine!
