Week of February 3, 2020

We cannot keep publishing without your help. We have no paywalls or ads. Nor do we receive corporate or foundation funding. All we have is you to keep us publishing. We rely on you to help us pay our monthly expenses. So please Donate  Monday A well-known liberal professor who is expert on digital matters says Google and social media can easily throw elections to the candidates preferred by the elite By Paul Craig Roberts Dr. Robert Epstein, a Hillary Clinton supporter who happens also to be an honest expert, told Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last Tuesday that Google and social media can manipulate votes by using tools that they have at their disposal exclusively. In the absence of regulation, no one can counteract Google and social media or even know that they have reversed an election outcome. In wake of Trump-Netanyahu proposal, Palestinian Authority cuts ties with US The move came days after the White House announced the deal, which allows Israel the right to continue settlements and annexation while leaving Palestinians with vague promises of statehood at an undetermined future date. By Eoin Higgins The Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, announced on Saturday that it would act immediately to cut ties with the U.S. after President Donald Trump unveiled a so-called peace plan that effectively allows Israel carte blanche to continue the occupation and theft of Palestinian land. Israel-Palestine: It’s time for Russia to step up to the plate By Eric Walberg Is Israel US property? In many ways, yes. Despite its willful ways, Israel is always pushing the envelope with the US. It has been getting away with murder since it was founded, abetted and funded by the US. But the US has failed, and Jared Kushner is the perfect envoy for this latest ultimatum, crafted by Netanyahu for his buddy Donald and his Orthodox Jewish son-in-law. The system nearing financial and climate collapse: Capitalism By Frank Scott Having just recently celebrated the annual reductive canonization of Martin Luther King by deservedly extolling his work for human solidarity but with hardly anyone quoting his criticisms of capitalism, his fellow revolutionary Malcolm’s words are still timely as well in going far beyond current identity group divisions and addressing humanity as a whole. At the time, Malcolm was played as the divisive force by racists and protectors of the system he was most critical of, and in unity with MLK about. That system they were working against—and why they were murdered—has not changed in essence since Marx analyzed it in the 19th century, but the 21st has brought it, and us, closer to disaster than at any previous point. While billions of the colonized, enslaved and class diminished have suffered over the ages, now all are threatened as never before. Iraq-raping neocon upset that people keep bringing up the Iraq thing By Caitlin Johnstone There’s so much going on in US politics right now that it’s hard to know what to write about. With all the shouting about the election, impeachment, Trump’s bogus Palestine “deal” and so many other important political issues competing for airtime with Kobe Bryant’s death and coronavirus fear porn, it feels like we’re already at white noise information saturation. Things are going to get a whole lot noisier this month when the Democratic presidential primaries (and all the establishment manipulations that will necessarily accompany them) get underway, and Julian Assange’s extradition trial begins. Tuesday At a church and on Capitol Hill, the battle for democracy In Washington, two events on the same day show the promise of American democracy–and the mortal danger to it. By Michael Winship On Friday, I was in Washington, DC. No, not to witness the final throes of the Senate’s impeachment trial of Donald Trump, but to be at the memorial service for a former colleague, newsman Jim Lehrer. One-sided official Western and establishment media support for Israel By Stephen Lendman Since Harry Truman in May 1948 was first among world leaders to recognize the new Jewish state on stolen Palestinian land, the US, other Western nations, and their establishment media one-sidedly supported its ruling regimes—ignoring their high crimes of war, against humanity, and persecution of long-suffering Palestinians. It should be easy to defeat Trump, but corporate Democrats look ready and willing to blow it Trump should be the most defeatable president in history. By Ralph Nader It is remarkable how the Democratic presidential candidates allow themselves to be pigeon-holed by the media as “moderate,” “centrist,” “extreme,” “left-wing,” and other abstract fact-deprived nomenclature. Black boxes: health warning or profit warning? By Martha Rosenberg “Boxed warnings” or “black boxes” are the strictest FDA label warnings. They appear on cigarettes, fluoroquinolones (for tendon rupture), Lamictal (for SJS and TEN), Accutane (birth defects), and other products with well-known risks. The primary mechanism of your oppression is not hidden at all By Caitlin Johnstone I write a lot about government secrecy and the importance of whistleblowers, leakers and leak publishers, and for good reason: governments which can hide their wicked deeds from public accountability will do so whenever possible. It’s impossible for the public to use democracy for ensuring their government behaves in the way they desire if they aren’t allowed to be informed about what that behavior even is. Wednesday ‘An appalling act of industrial vandalism’: Japanese officials do PR for plan to dump Fukushima water into ocean The Japanese government told embassy officials from nearly two dozen countries that releasing the water into the ocean was a "feasible" approach that could be done ‘with certainty.’ By Andrea Germanos As cleanup of the 2011 Fukushima disaster continues, the Japanese government made its case to embassy officials from 23 countries Monday that dumping contaminated water from the nuclear power plant into the ocean is the best course of action. Iowa fiasco raises stakes for New Hampshire, where Sanders could win big Monday night's collapse of the caucus vote-counting process in Iowa has amped up the spotlight on—and political consequences of—what will happen in the New Hampshire primary. By Norman Solomon While journalists pick through the ashes of the Iowa caucuses meltdown, thousands of progressive activists are moving forward to make election history in New Hampshire. In sharp contrast to the prattle of mainstream punditry, the movements behind Bernie Sanders are propelled by people who engage with politics as a collective struggle because the future of humanity and the planet is at stake. As a result, the Granite State’s primary election on Feb. 11 could be a political earthquake. After epic ‘nightmare’ in Iowa, Democratic app built by secretive firm Shadow Inc. comes under scrutiny ‘This outfit is inexcusably secretive.’ By Jake Johnson Amid all the finger-pointing and anger that followed the nightmarish Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses Monday night, many journalists and progressive observers honed in on the smartphone app the state Democratic Party used—with disastrous consequences—to record and report the results of the highly anticipated contest. More about Trump’s Ukraine connections By Brian Cloughley Hardly a day passes but some new and usually disturbing light is cast on President Donald Trump, and a recent illuminating glimpse came from publication of a recording that showed yet more of his expansive bluster. The video/sound evidence of his performance showed him at a dinner table “in a private suite in his Washington hotel with a group of donors, including two men at the centre of the impeachment inquiry, talking about golf, trade, politics, and removing the United States ambassador to Ukraine.” How Obama’s Mid-East policy led to Nazi rebirth in today’s Germany By Eric Zuesse On January 12, Deutsche Welle (Germany’s public broadcaster like BBC, PBS, NPR, and RT) headlined “Mayor’s resignation highlights threat to German leaders: Arnd Focke, the Social Democratic mayor of a town in Lower Saxony, was regularly threatened by nationalists. Now he has resigned. Regional officials have repeatedly faced threats across Germany.” He quit for his safety, because carrying out Germany’s compassionate policies toward the flood of mainly Middle-Eastern refugees has produced a backlash that is becoming increasingly organized and dangerous to Germany’s democracy. Thursday Iowa should be a warning—it’s time to switch to paper ballots By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman The chaos in Iowa’s Democratic primary is nothing new. Trump reportedly compiling Nixonian ‘Enemies List’ as he seeks revenge for impeachment ‘McConnell hasn't even held the final vote to launch the post-checks and balances era, and already the would-be authoritarian is escalating his abuses of power.’ By Jake Johnson President Donald Trump is reportedly compiling a Nixonian “enemies list” that includes former national security adviser John Bolton and top House Democrats as he seeks to retaliate for the congressional impeachment process, which is expected to come to a close as early as Wednesday with a Senate vote to acquit. Yes, these drugs are in US meat By Martha Rosenberg Thanks to animal welfare groups, most people are now aware of “factory farms.” Concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs abuse workers, animals, the environment, human consumers and even our tax dollars. (How? Price supports and government bailouts when diseases occur.) Thanks to greedy CAFOs crowding, diseases killed one-tenth of all US pigs and millions of chickens and turkeys a few years ago. Freedom Rider: Prejudential: Black America and the presidents US presidents range from very bad to less bad, but none were ‘good’ for Black people—including the first Black one. By Margaret Kimberley Ten of the first twelve presidents of the United States were slave holders. This is just one of many historical facts that this columnist discovered while researching and writing Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . The newly published book is an exploration of black American history viewed through the prism of the presidency. The real State of the Union By Robert Reich I wasn’t going to comment on Trump’s lie-filled State of the Union message but the whoppers were so big—especially on the economy—that I feel compelled. Friday The pornification of America: How young girls are being groomed by sexual predators By John W. Whitehead What can we do to protect America’s young people from sexual predators? Crisis and opportunity: The ‘Deal of the Century’ challenge for Palestinians By Ramzy Baroud After several postponements, US President, Donald Trump, has finally revealed the details of his Middle East plan, dubbed ‘Deal of the Century’, in a press conference in Washington on January 28. An American drama: Republican senators sabotaged Donald Trump’s impeachment trial By Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay The die is cast. History will record that Republican senators in the U.S. Senate used their majority to sabotage the impeachment trial of Donald Trump and, in so doing, de facto exonerated him of abuse of power and of obstruction of Congress. Donald Trump’s State of the Mighty Me A speech not worth the paper Nancy Pelosi tore apart. By Michael Winship As Dear Leader wound up his State of the Union, and Nancy Pelosi tore its pages in quarters as she stood behind him, I had the same reaction that many colleagues out in the Twitter universe had. We all instantly recalled George W. Bush’s words at the end of Donald Trump’s inaugural address in 2017: “Well, that was some weird shit.” The truth about corporate philanthropists If they can ‘give back’ so much, it’s probably because they’ve been taking too much. By Jim Hightower Our society has coined expressions like “philanthropist” to encourage and hail people’s charitable spirit.