Global

Andra grew up in a South Carolina fundamentalist community but somehow came away to give us a powerful ground-up view of the forces trying to make America Puritan again.

DR. NANCY NIPARKO, our resident neurologist, wonders about the psychology behind this increasingly powerful fascist movement.

ERIC LAZARUS, LYNN FEINERMAN, DR. RUTH STRAUSS, JOHN STEINER, DIANA ARTEMIS get into the nitty gritty of what the far right is really saying.

Voter Suppression in Ohio is explained by NANCY LARSON in deep detail, especially when it comes to Ohio’s disenfranchisement czar Frank LaRose.

Nancy is joined from the Buckeye State by STEVE CARUSO who explains the cyber-now rages over the right to vote.

WENDI LEDERMAN reports from Florida about how the DeSantis disenfranchisement campaign is destroying what’s left of democracy in the Sunshine State.

MARY STONEWALL-BUTLER volunteers her service to help anyone working to protect the vote.

We then hear from long-time pro-democracy organizer LORI GRACE warns us of the likelihood of violence in the upcoming election.

Targeting a school during a war could be justified or, at least, argued to have been a mistake. But striking over 120 schools, killing and wounding thousands of civilians sheltered inside, can only be intentional and horrific war crimes. 

 Between October 7 and July 18, Israel has done precisely that, targeting with total impunity, United Nations infrastructure in the besieged Gaza Strip. 

In the morning, thank you, thank you

In the evening, thank you, thank you

In the middle of the day, thank you, thank you

In the deep dark night, thank you, thank you

Yeah, I’ll second that. The words are from the Sara Thomsen song “Rhapsody of Rest,” but more specifically, they were sung by my sister a few days ago at – can you believe? – the third annual Bob’s Rhubarb Lounge event, a mélange of poetry and music, stained glass and vulnerability.

Let me prance and jump around like a four-year-old for a moment. This happens at my house. I participate in it – I read poetry and add to the mix. But so many people participate in making it happen that I feel myself pushed beyond my own ego, beyond my sense of singularity. As a writer, I am embedded in the belief that I work alone. And I do work alone; we all do, to some extent. And some people become the ones who get singled out as cultural bastions, as though that’s the primary point: to be celebrated, to become famous individuals.

Antonio Gramsci was not a professional philosopher. His intellect was refreshingly situated within an inherent bias towards the common people, the 'subaltern' classes, particularly the working class. 

 He argued that all people are essentially intellectuals, in the sense that all people possess the intellectual faculties for rational thinking and deduction, though “not all men have in society the function of intellectuals”.

 Thus, intellectualism should not exist for its own sake, but as a direct response to the collective needs of society. 

I ran for president twice in 2004 and 2008, in an attempt to truly protect and defend the Constitution by ending perpetual war, stopping government intrusion into Americans’ private lives, and transforming America’s role in the world so that we would have the capacity for a true domestic agenda of national prosperity.   

I understand the tactics of the DNC and their media counterparts. I understand how they attempt total control of the nomination process, and attempt to silence opposition in order to advance internal and institutional agendas, which are destructive to our nation. 

The meltdown of the 2024 nomination process began in August of 2022 when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) declared unity for the re-election of President Biden, heading off any challengers, and then, that December, approved rules so onerous as to make an effective run inside the party impossible.  

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Human "pig butchering" scams have stolen billions of dollars from Americans rendering them financially devastated, heartbroken from fake love, and in worst cases suicidal, according to a new U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) report on Chinese-dominated transnational crime based in Southeast Asia.

In a terrible twist, many of the estimated 300,000 lying, sweet-talking scammers -- overwhelmingly from developing countries -- also suffer because they are allegedly imprisoned and brutalized by the Chinese-run gangs.

The armed gangs lure or kidnap them to Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos and "deploy torture to engage victims in forced criminality," the USIP report said.

"At the moment, there is no record of any currently trapped Americans in these compounds but there have been a small number," USIP visiting expert Jacob Sims said in an interview.

"A couple of years ago, an American was in a compound [in Cambodia] -- and treated as a criminal once he got out, by the Cambodian government -- and eventually found his way back to America.