Author: nick

Israel’s Death Penalty Law for Palestinians by Seth Tobocman. In 1947, while describing the crimes of the judicial system of Nazi Germany, Telford Taylor, lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal, opined, “[t]he dagger of the assassin was concealed beneath the robe of the jurist.” With these words, Taylor laid bare the historical context of where and how a state executed, not on the basis of equal application of law for the most serious of crimes, but adopted an institutional cover for mass slaughter of a concocted enemy, all dressed up in a courtroom pretext. Long before the Nazi party filled…

Elijah Muhammad standing behind microphones at podium / World Telegram & Sun photo by Stanley Wolfson. “An extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose. . . . Malcolm X had the ingredients for leadership, but his ruthless and fanatical belief in violence . . . set him apart from the responsible leaders of the civil rights movement and the overwhelming majority of Negroes.” —New York Times, February 22, 1965 (one day after Malcolm X’s assassination) “Malcolm X had been a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred.…

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Collapsing in panic over the price of gas is a characteristically incoherent American tradition. The highly paid press, political officials, and the same people who ignore as a matter of routine the rising costs of housing, health care, and higher education treat a 25-cent-per-gallon jump in fuel as tantamount to the apocalypse. Meanwhile, something similar to the apocalypse actually threatens livable ecology on Earth (the universe’s only habitable planet for those keeping count), largely due to the extraction of fossil fuels, but biodiversity in a boiling world is hardly relevant. Or, at least, that is…

Album art for the cover of In the Court of the Crimson King (detail), by Barry Godber. “I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.” – Roberto Rossellini + If, in fact, the war is over (don’t count on it), then Iran wins by surviving two massive bombing campaigns by the US and Israel (both nuclear-armed states) in the last year. Iran wins even bigger by keeping the Islamic Republic in power under the control of a younger, more militant leadership with the Republican Guard largely intact. Iran’s victory…

In this episode of CounterPunch Radio, MV Ramana speaks with Joshua Frank about the lies and misconceptions surrounding a nuclear power revival, atomic energy’s ties to weapons proliferation, and much more. The conversation took place in January at Page Against the Machine bookstore in Long Beach, California. M. V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, and the author of Nuclear is Not the Solution with Verso Books. Joshua Frank is co-editor of CounterPunch and co-host of CounterPunch Radio. He is the author of Atomic Days: The…

As the two-week ceasefire in the Iran War entered its third day Friday, it remained unclear whether the Iranian delegation would head to Islamabad for scheduled talks with the United States. The uncertainty comes after Israel launched its largest bombing campaign yet against Lebanon. The 10-point plan to end the war, proposed by Iran and accepted by President Donald Trump Tuesday, included an end to all Israeli strikes against Lebanon. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that the Islamabad talks would not proceed unless Washington halted Israeli strikes on Lebanon. The spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said that “any talks are conditional upon…

The absolute state of America in its late-stage empire era is perfectly illustrated by the weekly, sometimes daily, cultural event of checking social media to see what unhinged post the president has left for us this time. This week’s installment, as the latest deadline issued to the Iranians for total capitulation to American and Israeli demands, reads like an open confession to international courts of war crimes. Thankfully, like a number of deadlines before, it passed without further escalation. On the contrary, Donald Trump announced yet another delay to potential attacks on Iranian energy to accompany a two-week ceasefire. While…

When Labour was restored to government in July 2024 after nearly a decade and a half in the political wilderness, Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised that economic growth would be his government’s number one priority. Chancellor Rachel Reeves conducted seminars with prominent business figures, insisting that Labour understood that businesses must make profits to survive and invest. Starmer said “wealth creation” was Labour’s “defining purpose”, and private sector investment would be the “engine of growth and productivity”. Many businesses believed him. The Confederation of British Industry welcomed this social democratic party’s pragmatic approach. They were to be disappointed. The accommodation…

The graphic above illustrates the RN during WWII. The Royal Navy today by the numbers: Carriers: 2 Available: none (a littoral ship that has no blue water capability) Frigates: 7. Available: 3 Destroyers: 6. Available: 1 – HMS Dragon (broken). Naval Manpower (excluding Royal Marines): 20,000 Admirals : 40 Commodores: 90 MOD Civil Servants: 55,000 Clown Service – destroyed by politicians. 17-year old Royal Navy ship HMS Conway sits aground in the Menai Strait, North Wales. She ran aground on April 14th, 1953, when on tow to Birkenhead for a refit. *** https://www.forcesnews.com/services/navy/risk-came-fruition-technical-issue-forces-hms-dragon-port Source link

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s greatest fear was nuclear war. On Easter weekend 2026, neoconservative talk host Mark Levin’s greatest wish seemed to be nuclear war. On Tuesday, Donald Trump appeared on the brink of giving Levin that wish, with the president writing of Iran, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” By Wednesday, it hadn’t happened—and Levin was fuming. If this sounds crazy or barbaric, congratulations on having a moral compass. But it’s worth examining this neoconservative, war-eager mindset and how dismissing human…