Author: nick
Self-evidently, the news has been overwhelmingly focused on Washington’s current endeavor to unload $200 billion of imperial destruction upon Iran and its neighbors around the Persian Gulf. Well, and also upon all other users of petroleum products, LNG, LPGs, nitrogen fertilizer, food, helium, semiconductors, manufactured goods and most everything else anywhere on the planet. Accordingly, comparatively scant attention has been given to another recent milestone on America’s headlong dash to fiscal disaster. To wit, the public debt crossed the $39 trillion mark and nearly in the blink of an eye, too. Just four years ago, we were at the $29…
On March 30th, the Selective Service System (SSS) sent the White House its proposed regulations for “automatic” [sic] draft registration for review and approval before they are made public. This is the first visible step in the transition from trying to get young men to sign themselves up for a military draft, to trying to sign them up “automatically” by aggregating data requisitioned from other Federal agencies. This year-long process began with the enactment of the SSS proposal for “automatic” registration in December 2025. The new scheme is supposed to go into operation in December 2026. [Excerpt from Selective Service…
Is personal freedom a reality or a myth? Does the government execute the will of the governed or the will of those who finance its officials? Does the Bill of Rights restrain the government? Are the levers of government power pulled by those the governed have elected or those we don’t see? Do elections change anything? Can the president kill people whom he suspects might commit a crime? Aren’t even those who would cause great harm entitled to due process? Isn’t everyone entitled to a fair trial in front of a neutral judge and jury before any punishment can be…
It is clear that the US wants to conduct some kind of regime change operation in Cuba, egged on by Republican and Democratic hawks, though polling indicates it is not popular within the US, Cuba, or the international community. Figures like Marco Rubio have said that Cuba will need to open their economy up, in a nod to when the island was a completely deregulated vassal for US casino companies, ruled by a pro-US brutal dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who was deposed by the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro brothers and Che Guevara. The US has been applying maximum pressure…
As someone born in 1944, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, who lived through 12 other presidencies before Donald Trump took — and that word has a different meaning with him — office in 2016, the truth is that I’ve simply never experienced anything quite like this (and I know that I’m in good company). Yes, I’ve certainly lived through other wars, from the Korean War of my childhood to the nightmarish war in Vietnam of my collegiate years (though it began well before and went on long after that) to the invasion of Afghanistan (that led me to launch…
In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. Sharing meals anchors us both to our lives outside the prison walls and to each other in one of the most toxic environments anywhere. Ron Guier for Wagging Nonviolence My relationship with cooking began at a young age, while in elementary school, when I had the choice between preparing whatever I could find in the kitchen or not eating. Little…
To make peace last in the Middle East, the U.S. must end its blank check to Israel’s perpetual wars and join the rest of the world to force Israel to live within its internationally recognized borders of June 4, 1967. Aftermath of an Israeli strike on Beirut, on April 8. (Megaphone/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0) By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil FaresCommon Dreams A two-week ceasefire has partially halted the Israel-U.S. war on Iran. The war accomplished precisely nothing that a competent diplomat could not have achieved in an afternoon. The Strait of Hormuz was open before the war and it is open again…
In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. To make lasting peace in the Middle East, the U.S. must end its blank check to Israel’s perpetual wars and join with the rest of the world to force Israel to live within its internationally recognized borders of June 4, 1967. Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares forCommon Dreams A two-week ceasefire has partially halted the Israel-U.S. war on Iran. The war…
M.K. Bhadrakumar won’t be surprised if things go well between Trump and Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the billionaire speaker of Iran’s Majlis, who heads negotiations beginning in Islamabad Saturday. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s Majlis, or parliament, 2023. (Hamed Malekpour/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0) By M.K. BhadrakumarIndian Punchline Glaring differences between the United States and Iran notwithstanding, the talks beginning in Islamabad Saturday have a fairly good chance of being a success. There is too much at stake and there are unifying factors where commonality of business and economic interests of the two leaderships outweigh geopolitical considerations. President Donald Trump has a counterpart…
In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. Boo. —Mephistopheles Mr Fish The Independent Ink In 1991, Woody Allen published an essay in Tikkun magazine titled “Random Reflections of a Second-Rate Mind.” In the piece, he discussed, among other things, how the subjectivity of the God concept prevented morality from ever becoming anything more substantive than a matter of opinion, with one person’s idea of right and wrong, of…