Author: nick

Israeli military aggression has “reshaped both the physical and ecological landscape” of southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese report (which does not consider the impacts of Israel’s latest barrage of attacks this spring). In her foreword, Lebanon’s minister for the environment Tamara el Zein notes: “The scale and intentionality of the damage to forests, agricultural lands, marine ecosystems, water resources, and atmospheric quality constitute what must be recognized as an act of ecocide, with consequences that extend far beyond immediate destruction.”  Obliteration ecocide in Lebanon Released by the country’s National Council for Scientific Research and presented by the environment ministry,…

Trump Doesn't Care If He Wrecks Global Economy Source link

New data suggests America’s political divide is increasingly shaping who marries, who has children and how young women view family. Source link

TFTC – Truth for the CommonerBitcoin BriefSup, freaks.Tether just froze $344 million in USDT across two addresses on the Tron blockchain in coordination with OFAC and U.S. law enforcement. With one keystroke, the third largest stablecoin issuer in the world rendered hundreds of millions of dollars immovable. This is exactly the kind of action that highlights why Bitcoin exists, and why stablecoins, for all their utility, are fundamentally different from permissionless money.LEAD STORYTether Freezes $344 Million in USDT. This Is Why Bitcoin Exists. Tether announced today that it has frozen more than $344 million in USDT across two wallet addresses on…

Cenk Uygur argued on the “Shawn Ryan Show” that the money-dominated politics in America today increasingly resembles the tightly controlled political systems in China or Iran. Donors pre-select viable candidates by flooding primary races with money, and “news actors” in the corporate media narrow the debate into establishment-approved parameters.”By the time you get to the general election, it’s robot A versus robot B, and they’ve robbed you of all your choices,” he said. “It’s actually the same way it works in China and Iran.””The Chinese have a Politburo like the Soviets used to, and they vote within themselves — this…

On October 25, 2023, 18 people were killed in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine.  The killer’s declining mental health was known to law enforcement since that May.  On July 6, although he owned other firearms, he legally purchased the firearm that he would use in the attack.  By August, he repeatedly threatened members of his Army Reserve unit that he would “shoot up” the base.  He was hospitalized for psychological evaluation but released.  Two months later, he carried out his nefarious threats at a bowling alley and a cafe. In 2024, the Final Report of the Independent Commission to…

The scariest part of the U.S.-Iran standoff isn’t the loud headlines. It’s the quiet math of distance, missiles, and leverage at the Strait of Hormuz. We sit down with Larry Johnson to unpack Iran’s reported “new” framework and why it may be the same core message: lift the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, and Iran controls access through Hormuz while allowing shipping to move. From there, we get brutally practical about what the U.S. can and cannot do militarily. Carrier strike groups have to operate far offshore to avoid Iranian cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and drones, which pushes Washington toward…

“Below the threshold”:  At a Pentagon briefing yesterday following Iran’s attacks on the United Arab Emirates, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters that our adversary’s actions were “below the threshold of restarting major combat operations.” This shows laudable restraint; it seems the U.S. is interested in shepherding shipping vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz without being pulled back into combat, despite all of Iran’s taunts. (Iran’s foreign minister said “the U.S. should be wary of being dragged back into quagmire by ill-wishers” and “so should the UAE.” I wonder who those mysterious ill-wishers might be!)…

Oh look, another interview between Stephen Colbert and former US President Barack Obama, in which the topic of aliens is brought up! Could it possibly include some ground-breaking revelation about the UFO phenomenon, which has gathered so much attention since 2017? …NOPE. After recounting Obama’s past comment in a podcast where he was asked about the possibility of alien life, which triggered a deluge of online speculation and even an official response from president Trump—who just couldn’t pass the opportunity to one-up his predecessor, by announcing the ‘official’ release of all government documentation on UFOs or aliens… which hasn’t taken…

While governments around the world have imposed speech restrictions to fight misinformation and hate speech, they also have attempted to curb free speech for a less controversial reason: protecting children. But many of these restrictions stem from vague, unspecified, or speculative harms and corral wide swaths of speech that do not harm children. Censoring speech in the name of protecting children is not a terribly new phenomenon, especially in authoritarian countries. In 2012, for instance, Russia’s parliament passed a law allowing the country’s media censorship agency to unilaterally blacklist websites and take them offline, without any court approval. The lawmakers’…