Author: nick

[ad_1] Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin participates in a Northern Border Security Fireside Chat with Canadian Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree, moderated by Christopher Hernandez-Roy, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., June 17, 2026. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour)Adapted by Joshua Scheer By Mike Ludwig This article was originally published by Truthout Immigrants are jailed in unsanitary, overcrowded jails and camps as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Mamuka Artmeladze, a 43-year-old Georgian national, was found dead on June 4, 2026, in federal immigration custody. Though his name did not appear in…

[ad_1] In late October, I published an interview with political scientist, Dr. Benjamin Peters, whose work focuses on peace (full bio at the end). Eight months later, the systematic destruction of our democracy continues unabated. In March, the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg reported that “Democracy in the USA is deteriorating at unprecedented speed.” So, we continue to need experts like Dr. Peters. He graciously agreed to collaborate once again. AM: In the last interview, you gave us some ideas for personal peacemaking. (link here) Yet many of us are witnessing (either firsthand or by videos) violence, war, and absolute…

[ad_1] News Desk, The Cradle. Iran has reportedly threatened to end negotiations with the US if Israel continues to refuse withdrawal from Lebanon. The US government has informed Israel that it no longer has authorization for “unrestricted” military action in Lebanon, despite continued Israeli attacks and occupation in the country, Channel 12 reported on 23 June. Washington has allegedly informed Tel Aviv that “the previous authorization for unrestricted action in Lebanon had expired.” US President Donald Trump is “imposing restrictions on Israel, not only in Lebanon but also in other arenas.” “These directives prohibit operations in areas such as the capital, Beirut,…

[ad_1] Story at-a-glance Plastics are everywhere — from bottles and food wrappers to your phone and your car — because they’re cheap and durable. But over time, they break down into microplastics that may harm the environment and have been linked to potential health effects Global plastic production exploded from 2 million tons in 1950 to over 450 million tons by 2018. Without strict limits, it could triple by 2060, worsening pollution worldwide The manufacturing boom was fueled by convenience and profit. Today, single-use plastics dominate, and petrochemical companies rely on them for revenue, spreading pollution even to the most…

[ad_1] Petroglyphs, near Tule Lake, Northern California. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. The deeper we explore humanity’s past, the harder it becomes to sustain some of the most powerful political myths of the modern world. For more than a century, authoritarian ideologies have sought legitimacy in origin stories: pure people, ancestral homelands, primordial hierarchies, and civilizational destinies. Fascism, in particular, has always been obsessed with beginnings. Whether in Nazi fantasies of Aryan ancestry, myths of ethnic continuity, or contemporary narratives of demographic replacement and civilizational decline, the past is transformed into a source of authority. History becomes destiny. Origins become a…

[ad_1] Alan Greenspan testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in 2005. Public Domain. I was not an Alan Greenspan fan, but I will give him some serious credit on his passing. I’ll also give him serious blame for missing two huge bubbles, the collapse of which gave us serious recessions. I’ll also add a comment about the opaque way he ran the Fed, to which I fear our new Fed chair is returning. Starting with the positive: Greenspan allowed the unemployment rate to fall to 4.0 percent as a year-round average in 2000. This was huge. The prevailing view…

[ad_1] Paul Powlesland led volunteers in cleaning up a polluted stream in East London, England. They worked for 10 days, removed over 200 bags of trash, and cleared out thick mud and invasive plants, restoring 250 meters (820 feet) of the waterway. Fish, dragonflies, herons, and other wildlife have now returned to the once-dead waterway for the first time in decades. But the Environment Agency is now investigating them for doing the cleanup without official permits. They could face up to two years in jail for moving silt and waste. The post Brickbat: No Good Deed appeared first on Reason.com.…

[ad_1] Trump meets with UFC fighters in the Oval Office, on May 6, 2026. Official White House Photo by Molly Riley. In a March 2026 paper published in the journal Science Advances, which focused on variability in governance along the autocratic-democratic axis, my coauthors and I found that one of the strongest associations for the 40 case observations, which were part of our study, was between the nature of rituals and the concentration of power. For this global sample, autocratically organized societies were characterized by spectacles that foment fear and awe, while participatory rituals predominated in more democratically organized contexts.…

[ad_1] Los Angeles aqueduct, Owens Valley, California. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. The water in my bath had gone lukewarm before I noticed. The book was balanced on my chest. The traffic outside the window had disappeared. Even the condensation spreading across the glass seemed irrelevant. I was concentrating. Then I read a phrase I couldn’t stop thinking about: global water bankruptcy. Suddenly the bath didn’t feel like a place to relax in, though when I say relax, I don’t mean lying in warm water as empty-headed as possible. What I like to do is write on my phone as well…

[ad_1] President Donald Trump is nothing if not a real estate developer. He has long argued for looser monetary policy from the Federal Reserve during his tenures to stimulate the broader economy, push up the stock market, and lower mortgage rates. He was not without his partisans on the Board of Governors: Stephen Miran, during his short tenure, acquiesced to those requests and remained one of the central bank’s most aggressive advocates for rate cuts until he stepped down from the role. . Kevin Warsh, the new chairman, has taken the stage as the main character at the Fed. The…