Global
Vast numbers of angry Albanians have been protesting across their Balkan nation for the past 38 nights. They are enraged by the Trumps’ commercial empire trying to grab the very last undeveloped coastal regions along the Mediterranean and adjoining Adriatic Sea.
The Trumps believed poor, impoverished Albania – until recently Europe’s most threadbare nation - could be hornswoggled by the self-promotion and glitz of the Trump industry into selling part of Europe’s remaining unspoiled coast for a luxury, billion-dollar hotel development. It was supposed to become Trump’s very own Saint-Tropez. I’ve seen the building plans.
Poor little Albania. It was ruled by the Ottoman Turks for over 400 years. The independent, warlike Albanian mountain tribes held off the Turks for centuries and prevented them from invading Italy and snuffing out its Renaissance.
Next came the Stalinists at the end of WWII. A ghastly tyranny, as awful as today’s North Korea, misruled Albania which became at first a Soviet then a Red Chinese ally after Moscow had denounced Stalin.
Donald Trump is now the ultimate face of the U.S. nuclear power industry.
What could go wrong?
If you are advocating atomic energy in any form, you are promoting The Donald’s latest and largest fiscal fleecing of the American people. It mirrors his mega swindles in crypto and so much more—except this time with apocalyptic impact.
It’s a hyper-push for nuclear power.
As The New York Times this week headlined the “Climate Forward” column of Claire Brown: “Trump’s plans for nuclear power lurch ahead.”
Her July 7th piece began: “President Trump wants to quadruple nuclear power production in the United States by 2050. To get there, developers would need to build about a hundred times as much nuclear capacity in the next 25 years as they did in the past 25. In recent weeks, a series of government announcements have nudged the country a bit closer to that goal.”
It continued: “Nuclear power has broad bipartisan support in Congress, and many climate experts have embraced it as a low-emissions source of energy. Other experts remain opposed, arguing that it is too expensive or that the safety risks are too high.”
Not content with attacking America in the present, Prez Don-Jesus WashingChrist is bombing history, via the Trumpsonian. China, in contrast, mainly bombs its minorities. Sorry, cleanses. Sorry, assimilates. That’s different from the cleansing in the cradle of Gimme Your Tired, where we send them back, or forth, to somewhere else. Of course, they come here because we or our forefathers destroyed their back place. Also a quick look at the Times’ connex to the IDF, and the latest in warrior culture. Oh…same thing.
Dr. Bob Fitrakis and Dan-o Dougan talk about the heat of the summer and play songs about heat and summer.
Listen live at 11pm Fridays, July 10 and 17, and Mondays at 10am July 13 and 20, streaming at wgrn.org or on the radio at 91.9FM
and
Mondays at 2pm streaming July 13 and 20 at wcrsfm.org or on the radio at 92.7 or 98.3FM
A major showdown on the House floor seemed imminent. An amendment, advanced by the Rules Committee, was poised to force a rare and telling record vote on stripping Israel of $3.3 billion in annual US military aid.
Brought forward by Republican Representative Thomas Massie and drawing support from key progressive Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greg Casar, the measure was set to put every lawmaker's stance on unconditional foreign assistance under a public microscope.
However, the high-stakes vote never actually happened. On June 30, the entire legislative package collapsed under the weight of Washington's internal political warfare. In a dramatic procedural twist, a coalition of Democrats and disgruntled conservative Republicans voted down the mandatory 'rule' required to even begin debating the underlying State Department spending bill.
On Monday, July 6, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) launched a drone strike on a vehicle in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, southern Lebanon, killing Esperanza Ghandour, principal of Youssef Chamoun School, her mother, and two other workers whose identities were not released. One was reported to be a domestic worker, while the other was a Syrian worker.
According to reports, Ghandour was returning to her family's home with her mother and the two workers to inspect repairs to their war-damaged house. Israel claimed the vehicle posed a threat to its forces. The strike was reportedly the deadliest attack in Lebanon that week.
Lebanese lawmaker Hussein al-Hajj, head of the Baalbek-Hermel Parliamentary Bloc, criticized the Lebanese government for abandoning its citizens and failing to condemn the killing of civilians or file complaints against Israel during the so-called ceasefire. His remarks came after Israeli forces shelled Nabatieh on July 6.
In a video statement addressed to Lebanon's president and prime minister, al-Hajj said: "This calls for a complaint to the Security Council... or has Lebanese blood become that cheap?"
When is the last time the U.S. government, or a fragment thereof, has truly been held accountable – not merely legally or politically, but morally accountable – for an act of violence, for its addiction to violence? Ever?
And what might that even mean?
These are not questions I’ve ever even asked until a few hours ago, when I began learning about a lawsuit that has been filed against Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE director David Venturella. Technically, it’s a freedom of speech lawsuit, but it’s also so much more than that. At least that’s how it seemed to me, the more I learned about it.
The suit pulls back horrible January and the invasion of Minneapolis, a.k.a., Operation Metro Surge, when armed and masked members of ICE and Customs and Border Protection began occupying the Twin Cities for the purpose of snatching and deporting (“allegedly”) undocumented immigrants, creating immense fear and chaos everywhere, and leading to huge protests.