Global
Is DJT God, or just Jesus? Don’t ask the Pope. In either case, it hasn’t helped his Iran fiasco, which is opposed by a majority, especially over at Truth Social. His deportations aren’t going so great either, necessitating the firing of judges. And citizen participation in democracy is under attack by mis-representatives in state governments…who’da thunk?!
Dr. Bob Fitrakis and Dan-o Dougan interview friend and musician Steve Caruso, a local activist who is known to have worked behind the scenes at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
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The naval blockade around Iran exposes something modern war talk tries to hide: coercion no longer needs to look like war to function as war. It only needs to control the systems people depend on to live.
The Strait of Hormuz is not a symbolic chokepoint. It is one of the most important energy arteries on the planet. The current U.S.-enforced blockade operates through inspections, interdictions, and the constant threat of force against shipping tied to Iranian ports. In practice, this means delays to tankers, rising insurance premiums, rerouted vessels, and heightened risk for even third-party shipping. What this produces is not clean “pressure” on a state. It is friction injected into global systems—fuel flows, insurance markets, shipping routes, and civilian supply chains that extend far beyond any military target.
This is the first myth that needs to go: that blockades are a restrained alternative to violence. They are not. They are violence administered through systems instead of explosions.
Dear Mr. Colbert, your take-down of Trump’s #2 at FEMA, Gregg Phillips, who claims he was tele-transported to a Waffle House was so hilarious I spit my milk out through my nose.
But I’m not laughing anymore. Mr. Colbert, Phillips may choose our next president, he’s that powerful. In fact, he chose our current one.
Donald Trump asked Republicans to pass the SAVE Act “for Jesus.” He’d have been better calling out George Wallace and Strom Thurmond. The debate has focused on the bill’s many dangerous aspects, and the next steps to trying to pass it are unclear. But the SAVE Act builds on voter suppression that Republicans have been carrying out for the past 25 years. The Democrats need to talk about this history, because whether or not this bill passes, there will be others like it to come.
The bill attacks voting rights in multiple ways:
A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump, but its reality tells a very different story. The ceasefire was not the product of American diplomacy, nor Israeli strategic calculation. It was imposed—largely as a result of sustained Iranian pressure.
Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies—including some within Lebanon itself—will continue to deny this reality. Acknowledging Iran’s role would mean admitting that a historic precedent has been set: for the first time, forces opposing the United States and Israel have succeeded in imposing conditions on both.
This is not a minor development. It is a strategic rupture. But it is not the only fundamental shift now underway: Israel’s very approach to war and diplomacy is itself changing.
After failing to secure victory through overwhelming violence, Israel is increasingly relying on coercive diplomacy to impose political outcomes.
We start GREEP Zoom #263 with the wonderful MAGA refugee JENNIE GAGE reporting from Arizona and her brave new post-Trump/Mormon life.
Amidst the aftermath of the now-iconic AI image of Donald Trump as Jesus, we hear from star Raw Story reporter ALEXANDRIA JACOBSON.
According to both Jennie and Alexandria, the “trinity” of the Epstein Files, the Iran War and the economy is shredding the Trump MAGA camp forever.
Viktor Orban’s monumental loss is tagged as a MAGA loss by Charisse Sebastian who emphasizes the need for “unconventional” thinking.
With memories of Hungary, we hear that SANDY BOLZENIUS remembers how Orban took power and has now been left in the dust by a worldwide people’s movement.
From Minnesota, KARLA SAND comments that the Democratic Party is in a complete shambles.
Also from Ohio, MORGAN HARPER dissects the economic crisis tearing the Buckeye State into unpredictable, independent pieces as she reminds us that the root of the Epstein/Wexner scandal is still right there.
In the aftermath of last week’s big meeting of the Democratic National Committee in New Orleans, supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance have been quite content. “We’re pleased that the DNC Resolutions Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions,” the president of Democratic Majority for Israel said. The CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, a former national security advisor to Kamala Harris, expressed gratitude to the DNC’s leadership.
Why did pro-Israel groups voice so much pleasure and praise – not only for the sidelining of pro-human-rights resolutions but also for the process that sidelined them? The answer has to do with the DNC’s mechanism that thwarted changes in positions on Israel. A panel named the Middle East Working Group gummed up all efforts to align the DNC with the views of most Democratic voters, even while supposedly hard at work.