Global
[NOTE: This review may contain some plot spoilers.]
Anastasiya Miroshnichenko’s well-made, touching documentary Debut provides viewers with a rare glimpse behind the “Iron Curtain.” By this I’m not merely referring to the fact that this 80-minute film was shot in Belarus, which was formerly known as Byelorussia or Belorussia and, like Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. Rather, more to the point, Debut was largely filmed behind bars and barbed wire, inside the sprawling complex of “Women’s Prison #4 of Gomel City” in the southeastern part of Belarus.
The weaknesses of Ukrainegate are on display in a new book by Neal Katyal (“with Sam Koppelman”) making the case for Ukrainegate, but titled “Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump.”
The death penalty’s slow death is accelerating. At least 140 nations no longer use it. No nation in Europe uses the death penalty. No nation in the Western Hemisphere uses it, except the United States.
Twenty-nine U.S. states have banned capital punishment or imposed a moratorium, and most of the rest have effectively stopped using it.
Virginia, the northernmost east-coast state with the death penalty, has not sentenced anyone to death in over 8 years. Virginia’s death row holds only three men, all of whose sentences are facing challenges in court, meaning that the death row could soon be emptied out without anyone being killed.
The last time Virginia executed a man was in 2017. Now that man’s victim’s daughter is speaking out for abolition of the death penalty.
Anyone who’s been paying attention should get the picture by now. Overall, in subtle and sledgehammer ways, the mass media of the United States -- owned and sponsored by corporate giants -- are in the midst of a siege against the two progressive Democratic candidates who have a real chance to be elected president in 2020.
Some of the prevalent media bias has taken the form of protracted swoons for numerous “center lane” opponents of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The recent entry of Michael Bloomberg has further jammed that lane, adding a plutocrat “worth” upwards of $50 billion to a bevy of corporate politicians.
The mainline media are generally quite warm toward so-called “moderates,” without bothering to question what’s so moderate about such positions as bowing to corporate plunder, backing rampant militarism and refusing to seriously confront the climate emergency.
Throughout its history, Earth has experienced five mass extinction events. See, for example, ‘Timeline Of Mass Extinction Events On Earth’. It is now experiencing the sixth.
1. The Ordovician-Silurian Extinction, which occurred about 439 million years ago, wiped out 86% of life on Earth at the time. Most scientists believe that this mass extinction was precipitated by glaciation and falling sea levels (possibly a result of the Appalachian mountain range forming), catastrophically impacting animal life which lived largely in the ocean at the time.
It is time we acknowledge the political realities before us, and align on the candidate who will not only win, but build the kind of multicultural, multiracial and working class movement that will enable the next President to take on corporate power and deliver justice for all.
As the executive director of Rights & Democracy (RAD) in Vermont and an organizer based in our state for more than two decades, I have had many opportunities to work closely with U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
I know what drives him, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right when she says, he is “the real deal.
By Nicolas J S Davies, World BEYOND War, November 29, 2019
This week on Talk Nation Radio: a rant on impeachment, in favor of doing it right or not doing it at all.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
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