The Alleged News®

Readers are probably wondering by now, “where are all our Mike Dater cartoons?” We regret to report that Mike has been on temporary medical leave. We expect him to return before long. In the meantime, we offer the item above. Originally published 17 years ago today, it seems, unfortunately, more on-point than ever. –=≈=– We used to love mocking what we called the Award-Winnning Local Daily. What shall we call it, now that it’s no longer printed here in Our Fair City? These days, poking fun at the AWLD would just be cruel. Let’s just call it the Portsmouth Herald—while we still can. Economists love …

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The U.S. and the U.K., said George Bernard Shaw, are two nations separated by a common language. Further distinguishing us from our former colonial master is our form of government—though GOP opposition to monarchy seems increasingly squishy. Our editorial position on monarchy was most recently published on February 10th, with a selection from Thomas Paine’s, Common Sense; herewith, a more succinct version: Britain’s first king was “nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners of pre-eminence in subtilty obtained him the title of chief among plunderers.” Unimpressed by William the Conqueror, Paine wrote he was a “French bastard landing with …

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A Little Harbor homeowner plotted last September’s bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, according to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.* Jake Sullivan, 46, has been President Biden’s National Security Advisor since January, 2021. The 28th person to hold that position, his predecessors include John Bolton, a Vietnam War chickenhawk; Michael Flynn, a QAnon follower and admitted perjurer, later pardoned by a seditionist; and Henry Kissinger, a nonagenarian war criminal. Hersh—who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his work exposing the My Lai massacre—wrote, in a piece published online February 8th, “In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, …

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by Jake Johnson An inter-union alliance of rail workers argued Tuesday that the massive freight train crash in East Palestine, Ohio late last week was a predictable consequence of Wall Street-backed policy decisions that have hollowed out the industry’s workforce, pushed remaining employees to chronic exhaustion, and sacrificed safety for profits. In an assessment of the Norfolk Southern (NS) train derailment based on currently available information, Railroad Workers United (RWU) wrote that “the root causes of this wreck are the same ones that have been singled out repeatedly, associated with the hedge fund-initiated operating model known as ‘Precision Scheduled Railroading’ (PSR).” The group noted that …

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by James Meadway The working assumption, for governments and central banks across the world, is that at some point soon everything will get back to ‘normal’—our economies will return to either pre-pandemic or, sometimes, even pre-2008 crash levels. These beliefs are reinforced by media economics commentary and across political parties. But what if they’re wrong? The world’s largest asset manager, overseeing $10trn in assets across the globe, thinks we are, instead, entering a period of increased risk and uncertainty, defined by unavoidable recession and much higher inflation. BlackRock—a well-connected, influential and hugely profitable pillar of global capitalism—made the predictions in its ‘2023 Global Investment Outlook’ …

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Two weeks ago the New York Times published a story headlined “A Charity Tied to the Supreme Court Offers Donors Access to the Justices.” The story describes in detail the previously-obscure Supreme Court Historical Society [SCHS]. This entity is “ostensibly independent of the judicial branch of government,” the Times writes, but “in reality the two are inextricably intertwined.” Judging from the facts presented by the Times, SCHS provides a critically important societal function: it gives important people—those who have money to burn, and cases before the court—with a dignified way to put their manicured thumbs on the scales of justice. Annual dues start at a …

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