Category: American Empire

As a government shutdown looms, it has become crystal clear that the richest man in the world is holding America hostage over his stalling of a House agreement on a spending plan. President Elon Musk now appears to be running the government, somebody who’s never been elected to anything in America.

The US is hours away from a government shutdown unless Congress agrees on such a . The House failed Thursday to pass a new Donald Trump-backed GOP proposal to fund the government into March, ratcheting up the threat of a shutdown ahead of the midnight deadline.

In a last-minute bid to avert a shutdown, House GOP leaders are now eyeing a strategy that would allow lawmakers to take separate votes on funding the government and raising the debt limit. GOP members are expected to meet this afternoon to discuss the latest proposal, according to lawmakers and aides.

Trump said Friday morning that if there has to be a government shutdown, he wants it to occur while Joe Biden is president. Trump tanked an original bipartisan deal unveiled Wednesday.

Editordude: The following is but the beginning of a more longer piece by Peter Bohmer, a good friend of the Rag and former OBcean who now lives in Olympia, Washington.

by Peter Bohmer / November 21, 2024

Trump’s victory is a serious loss for most people in the United States and globally. I disagreed before the election and now, that it didn’t matter who won the Presidential election. Let us mourn and grieve but not give up. Elections matter and this one certainly does but being political means building and gaining power, being active to further what you believe in, much more than voting or supporting a candidate.

I don’t know if any campaign would have caused a Kamala Harris victory.

Ah… the good life.

“I stand squarely behind my decision,”President Joe Biden said Monday. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

Biden said the collapse of the 20-year American military involvement in Afghanistan proved he was correct to end the U.S. mission, arguing that the Taliban’s takeover of the country vindicated his decision to bring home the U.S. troops stationed there. …

In making this statement and defending his decision, Biden stood up to the US war machine, the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about.

Washington’s War in Afghanistan Is Over. What Happens Now?

President Biden was right to withdraw US troops. But we should have no illusion that this will end the war for Afghans.

By Phyllis Bennis / The Nation / August 16, 2021
We don’t know yet what the consequences

US Retreats as Taliban Take Kabul

By Jon Queally / Common Dreams / August 15, 2021

Nearly two full decades of lies and wishful thinking from U.S. generals,

There ‘Will Never Be’ a US Military Solution in Afghanistan: Rep. Barbara Lee

By Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams / August 16, 2021

Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee—who cast the sole vote

The San Diego Union-Tribune of late has been running numerous op-eds about the current plight of the Cuban people and even how the US must intervene. The ferocity of these one-sided rants makes it seem like the old Cold War has reignited. And calls for the Biden administration to militarily intervene are stark reminders that the official policy of this government has been to squelch the efforts by Cubans to have their own country ever since the revolution began 22 years ago.

Well, there is a different reality out there other than the narrative propagated by the mainstream media. Here are views you won’t find in the U-T:

Full-Page Ad in the New York Times, July 23, 2021:

Dear President Joe Biden,

It is time to take a new path forward in U.S.-Cuban relations. We, the undersigned, are making this urgent, public appeal to you to reject the cruel policies put into place by the Trump White House that have created so much suffering among the Cuban people.

ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.

by Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel / ProPublica / June 8

In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same

See the video about COVID-19 in America that people from around the world watched and could not believe their eyes. Come inside.

By David Smith / The Guardian / July 21, 2020

Donald Trump has vowed to send federal officers to several American cities led by Democrats in what critics say is an attempt to play the “law and order” card to boost his bid for re-election.

The president’s threat came after a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, that involved unmarked cars and unidentified forces in camouflage.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump identified New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland as places in need of federal agents, describing those cities’ mayors as “liberal Democrats”.

“We’re sending law enforcement,” he said. “We can’t let this happen to the cities.”

Federal officers from the U.S. Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security have stormed Portland’s streets as part of President Trump’s promised strong response to ongoing protests. These officers drive around in unmarked vehicles, storm out in camouflage uniforms, with no name-tags and a generic “police” patch, grab American citizens right off the streets, cover their heads without explanation – clearly gestapo tactics.

It’s becoming so out of control in Portland that local political leaders have called for the federal agents to leave town. Those calls intensified since agents severely wounded a peaceful protester on Saturday, July 11.

By Colleen O’Connor

Super-forecasters study data, science, trends, history, social and economic conditions to foretell the future. Not really astrologers, but seers of a kind. You can do this yourself.

Just pay attention to the news and details around you. Then ask yourself what will be the most tumultuous and consequential event this summer and fall? Probably, the general election which will control the future of this country and many others.

What will be the defining issue? The impeachment? The protests? The stock market? Taxes, tapes, or “terrific” pardons? Possible. Arguably, the single most upending, calamitous, and dangerous condition during this election season could also be President Trump’s precarious health.

About 6:30 pm ET yesterday, June 1, 2020, President Trump – speaking for the first time publicly about the George Floyd protests – and calling himself “the president of law and order,” threatened Americans with martial law. Trump said if the governors and mayors around the country couldn’t “dominate” the protesters – who Trump called “domestic terrorists” – that he would send in the US military into those states and cities.

Because “our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa and others,” and because “a number of state and local governments have failed to take necessary action to safeguard their residents,” he would deploy the US military. “If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”