Global
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Coup-maker Prayuth Chan-ocha hopes his snappy new promise -- "no coup again" -- will get him re-elected prime minister in May and end worries that the U.S.-trained military will topple the next government if the polls go against them.
Prime Minister Prayuth dissolved Parliament's elected half, the 500-seat house of representatives, on March 20, three days before its four-year tenure expired.
The Election Commission then had to choose an election date within 45-60 days, and selected May 14.
Parliament's 250 junta-appointed senators remain unchanged.
"There should be no coup again," the now-Caretaker Prime Minister Prayuth recently told reporters.
"If any serious conflict occurs again [after the election], I don't know how to solve it because I have nothing to do with it now."
Coups, cannabis, and corruption are the biggest issues nationwide facing candidates for prime minister and parliament.
The phrase 'fake news' continues to be deployed routinely in US politics. In a polarized political atmosphere, both Republicans and Democrats distrust media organizations affiliated with opposing parties. This means that most of what is uttered or written by CNN is 'fake news' for Republicans, and much of what appears in Republicans-affiliated media is 'fake news' for Democrats.
The phrase is now so prevalent and has multiple meanings to the point that it is impossible to agree on a common definition. Even 'fact checking' organizations or news desks contribute to the troubling phenomenon of 'fake news' by selectively fact-checking news and information affiliated with one side of the political aisle, while ignoring the other.
Today (4/1/23) The Wall Street Journal had as a front-page article on its REVIEW section titled “How Florida Became America’s GOP Hot Spot.” Written by several authors, it is a magnificent gloating piece celebrating GOP electoral accomplishments and becoming one of the major hubs of conservative heavyweights in the nation.
Florida not only has living in it the two top Republican presidential candidates but has also many other luminaries of the conservative world. The article to its credit recognizes that Florida once was one of the nation’s biggest swing states, but that now it is solidly conservative.
They give credit to the vibrancy and creativity of conservative thinking in the state. I say hogwash. The reason that the Republican Party enjoys such reputation has much to do with the betrayal of Democratic economic principles by the Democratic Party leadership in the last few years.
Yesterday the US Senate repealed the Iraq 2002 ‘Authorization for the Use of Military Force’ (AUMF), in which, at the behest of the Bush Administration, the U.S. licensed itself to attack the people of Iraq, and, with a fusillade of pressure-packed, hysteria driven lies, dragged along a tricked-up international “coalition of the willing.”
The 2002 AUMF, now otherwise known as an official, categorical, murderous lie, passed twenty years ago, by a Senate vote of 77-23.
Yesterday’s repeal basically said: ‘We repeal the AUMF.’ That’s it. No explanation in the bill as to why. No preamble which recited the litany of lies which Congress bought lock, stock and two smoking barrels. The deaths of one million innocent Iraqis didn’t rate so much as a mention in the repeal.
No apology was made to the people of Iraq. No apologies to the families of dead and injured U.S. soldiers. No mention of the war’s on-going cost to U.S. taxpayers, the amount now approaching five trillion dollars.
By his own admission, Israel’s new Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is a “fascist homophobe”. This declaration, which he made on January 16, should be enough to accentuate the violent nature of the new political concoction created by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last December.
Though Smotrich is not the only politician in Netanyahu’s cabinet with a track record of violence, both real and rhetorical, he is a special case. Unlike his boss, Smotrich does not feel the need for doublespeak or occasional diplomacy.
Our GREEP #132 starts with the “deal of the century” as Xi & Putin lay the foundation for an end of the American Century and the dominance of the dollar.
As part of that excursion we visit “The Big Short” and other critical documents on the most recent fall of the American economy.
KFPA/Flashpoint’s DENNIS BERNSTEIN, LYNN HEIDIKOPER and others help us with the horrendous details.
From there we go to the all-important race for the deciding seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where grassroots organizing will make all the difference.
JOHN STEINER fills us in with critical details.
We also hear from JUDITH WHITMER, recently purged as chair of the Nevada Democratic Party for being too progressive & grassroots. Where have we heard that before?
One place is New York, where JULIE WIENER and RON LEONARD explain how the utterly feeble Democrats blew it for the entire US House.
BRYANN TANNEHILL fills us in on the national war against LGBTQ citizens. WENDI LEDERMAN gives us the ugly details from DeSantis’s Florida, where Disney (!!!) is fighting back.
Glasses up for those French workers and Middle-Class people that are trying to save Western Civilization and its liberal democracy!
In many other parts of the Western world, not so much in the Global South, for some people you are being classified as spoiled brats that want to retire at the tender age of 62. Some of these people criticizing the French workers and their allies have spent their whole lives getting kicked in the ass and can’t understand living any other way.
These are the same people that stay silent when children and adults are getting killed daily by gun shots in the USA. According to ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca, so far in 2023, 9,870 people have died from gun violence in the U.S, as of March 27, according to the Gun Violence Archive – which is an average of more than 114 deaths each day.
Our people have been so accustomed to get kicked in their behind that sadly they don’t seem to understand to live any other way. Here in Florida now it will be legal to carry guns with you without the need of licenses, permits or any proof that you know how to use a firearm.
“Chief Drake said it was too early to discuss a possible motive for the shooting, though he confirmed that the attack was targeted. The authorities were reviewing writings, and had made contact with the shooter’s father. . . .”
Yeah, they’ll figure it out.
The latest mass shooting: Six people dead, including three 9-year-old children, at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. The alleged shooter, age 28 – a former student at Covenant – stomped into the school on March 27 carrying (God bless America) two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun. He/she, apparently transgender, was eventually shot dead by police.
In other news . . .
The final exchange, caught on camera between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian host and counterpart, Vladimir Putin, sums up the current geopolitical conflict, still in its nascent stages, between the United States and its Western allies on the one hand, and Russia, China and their allies, on the other.