Tim Radford – Global warming will hit US northeast hard

US scientists provide new reality check for Donald Trump on the combined stresses of global warming and the rising costs of water. LONDON, 18 January, 2017 – America’s north-eastern states are set to become hotter on average than the rest of the world as a result of global warming. New research by scientists in the US predicts that even if …

SIMON DAVIS-COHEN – Corporate America is Inching Even Closer to a Constitutional Convention

During a Colorado Springs rally on Oct. 18, 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump announced, “The time for congressional term limits has finally arrived.” For many, it was one of Trump’s more moderate proclamations. Term limits don’t sound like such a bad idea. But it’s possible this comment signaled support for a broader, more partisan agenda. Term limits are a central demand …

Nadia Prupis – Trump Considering GOP Lawmaker Who Despises Consumer Watchdog To Head It

President-elect Donald Trump is getting closer to debilitating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the watchdog agency founded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that many warned could be an early target for the incoming administration. Trump on Wednesday met with former Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), who the Huffington Post reports is a front-runner to take over the agency if the …

Nika Knight – Facing Right-Wing Future, Local-Level Resistance to Trump Agenda Swells

Around the country, people who woke up on November 9 shocked and galvanized by the election results are forming new local organizations and networks to resist president-elect Donald Trump’s right-wing agenda. Many of those getting involved on the local level are entirely new to political organizing, testifying to the powerful and frightening shift represented by the ascendance of an administration …

Ann Jones – How Veterans Are Losing the War at Home

A friend of mine, a Vietnam vet, told me about a veteran of the Iraq War who, when some civilian said, “Thank you for your service,” replied: “I didn’t serve, I was used.” That got me thinking about the many ways today’s veterans are used, conned, and exploited by big gamers right here at home. Near the end of his …

Sarah Lazare – Noam Chomsky: Why the Republican Party Is a Threat to Human Survival

Renowned scholar and activist Noam Chomsky declared this week that the GOP and its far-right front-runners are “literally a serious danger to decent human survival.” Speaking [3] with The Huffington Post on Monday, Chomsky cited the Republican Party’s refusal to tackle—or even acknowledge—the “looming environmental catastrophe” of climate change, thereby “dooming our grandchildren.” He went to rebuke the Republican party …

Robert Abele – America’s Transition from a Democracy to a National Security State, in Five Easy Steps

There seems to be a formula for a superpower’s intent to dominate the world: massive surveillance + use of military might in foreign wars and domestic control of citizens (e.g. armored cops; packed prisons, etc.) + control of each method by elites for their own interests = international and domestic dominance by fear and force. Domestically this is called the National …

Andrew Bacevich – A War the West Cannot Win

President Francois Hollande’s response to Friday’s vicious terrorist attacks in France, attributed to the Islamic State, was immediate and uncompromising. “We are going to lead a war which will be pitiless,” he vowed. Whether France itself possesses the will or the capacity to undertake such a war is another matter. So too is the question of whether further war can …

Glenn Greenwald and Anthony Freda – Obama: “The Peacemaker”

The list includes one country where he twice escalated a war that was being waged when he was inaugurated (Afghanistan), another where he withdrew troops to great fanfare only to then order a new bombing campaign (Iraq), two countries where he converted very rare bombings into a constant stream of American violence featuring cluster bombs and “signature strikes” (Pakistan and …