Author: nick

[ad_1] More than four months after Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin announced that he was breaking his promise to release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the decision remains highly controversial. Arguments swirl around whether it’s wise to proceed without public scrutiny of what went wrong during the last presidential campaign. But scant attention has focused on how hiding the autopsy provides an assist to Kamala Harris, who currently leads in polling of Democrats for the party’s 2028 nomination. As Harris eyes another run, she has a major stake in the DNC continuing to keep the autopsy under wraps – and has a lot…

[ad_1] Three makes a trend, as journalists say, and by that standard, America faces a disturbing trend in its civic life: Weirdos keep trying to kill the president. The trend-making number three was Cole Tomas Allen of California. Strapped up with guns and knives, Allen bum-rushed some metal detectors last week at the Washington Hilton, where President Donald Trump, for the first time as president, was attending the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Ryan Wesley Routh, a career criminal and serial fabulist from North Carolina, was the number-two weirdo. In September 2024, Routh was found armed with a semiautomatic rifle…

[ad_1] Bones of tortured prisoners. Kolyma Gulag, USSR (Nikolai Nikitin, Tass). (NA)   NOTE: This post largely reprints last year’s Victims of Communism Day post, with some modifications. Today is May Day. Since 2007, I have advocated using this date as an international Victims of Communism Day. I outlined the rationale for this proposal (which was not my original idea) in my very first post on the subject: May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used…

[ad_1] The U.S. president has lost the war he started with Iran — or at the very least he has no chance of winning it — but accepting defeat and repairing the damage of the error is simply beyond his reach. President Donald Trump at a Turning Point USA event at Dream City Church in Phoenix in April. (White House/Daniel Torok) By Patrick LawrenceSpecial to Consortium News You have to hand it to Sara Jacobs, the California Democrat and the youngest member of the Golden State’s House delegation. She has an O.K.–plus voting record — at least by Capitol Hill standards…

[ad_1] Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent lecture commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence continues to attract attention and comment. While some on the left found the speech objectionable or offensive, many on the right have found it to be inspiring and worth engaging. Today, Civitas Outlook has published a symposium of responses to Justice Thomas’ lecture with many worthwhile contributions. Here is the line-up: Hadley Arkes, “Justice Thomas’s House Divided Speech”; Linda Denno, “Reclaiming Our American Inheritance”; Richard Epstein, “Justice Thomas’s Bulwark of Liberty”; Steven Hayward, “‘Silent Clarence’ Meets ‘Silent Cal'”; Charles Kesler, “The Courage of Justice Thomas”; Phillip…

[ad_1] Barn on the French Prairie, Willamette Valley, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Can anything make farmers turn away from Trump? How rightwing populism has gripped rural areas, especially among farmers, is evidenced by the results from the past few presidential elections. Still, critical challenges are emerging for key constituencies in Trump’s base, principally due to the damage that the Iran war is doing in the countryside.  Similar conditions pushed Irish farmers to the streets in early April, causing a change among political leadership shortly after, and also helping producers receive some much-needed relief. That Irish farmers took to the…

[ad_1] To put American traffic deaths in perspective, consider the Miami Marlins. Since 2012, the baseball team has played its home games at the stadium now called LoanDepot Park. The field’s official capacity is 36,742, roughly the number of Americans who die in traffic crashes every year. America loses a baseball stadium’s worth of lives to vehicular accidents every 12 months. For the first time, there’s a way to prevent many, and perhaps most, of those deaths: self-driving cars.  But self-driving cars are controversial. Some worry about safety. Others worry about jobs. Opposition from unions and local political figures has…

[ad_1] Individuals and groups would be required to register with the Bank of Russia before offering certain crypto services, or potentially face fines and prison time. Russia’s government submitted a bill to its parliament’s lower house in an effort to amend the country’s legal code to attach criminal liability for crypto services offered without regulatory approval or licensing. In a draft law sent to the State Duma on Friday, Russian lawmakers proposed that entities “carrying out activities related to the organization of digital currency circulation,” that operate without a license from Russia’s central bank, could be subject to criminal liability. Without registration…

[ad_1] An excerpt from Delaware Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg’s 42-page opinion yesterday in Newsom v. Fox News Network, LLC: In the midst of civil unrest in Los Angeles, California, Governor Gavin C. Newsom spoke on the telephone with President Donald Trump. The call took place after 10:00 p.m. on the night of Friday, June 6, 2025 (Pacific Daylight Time) (after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 7, 2025 (Eastern Daylight Time)). The two did not speak again before President Trump, at a Tuesday, June 10, 2025, Oval Office press conference, was asked when he last spoke with Governor Newsom; President…

[ad_1] On this episode of Counterpunch Radio, Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt speaks with Dr. Shahd Abusalama, Palestinian academic, writer, and artist, born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp, in northern Gaza. Shahd discusses her book, Between Reality and Documentary: A Historical Representation of Gaza Refugees in Colonial, Humanitarian and Palestinian Documentary Film, published in 2025 by Bloomsbury and SOAS Palestine Studies, and reflects on her recent book and film tour in Japan. Recorded during the opening days of the recent War on Iran, Shahd reflects on the ramifications of the war for Gaza, historical lessons from her time in Hiroshima, and…