Volume 267 | No. 3

Now and Then, Here and There

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by Paul B. Nichols It’s difficult to find much encouraging news from across the planet these days. Worldwide disasters brought on by climate change, Covid variations hanging on and threatening to worsen by seasonal change, senseless U.S. gun-related attacks at schools, churches, supermarkets and other places formerly deemed secure, and the right-wing assault on our democratic values. Plus, right here in New Hampshire the deeply harmful influences of the Free Staters fester. Two other headline grabbers involve the harsh violence inflicted on thousands of Iranian and Russian citizens who are protesting against vile impositions of their countries hard-line authoritarian regimes. Historic and virtuous protests in …

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Tues, Oct 25

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2001—Sen. Russ Feingold votes “nay” on the “PATRIOT” Act. 1983—U.S. troops protect us (and distract from the loss of 241 Marines in Beirut) by invading Grenada. 1978—In response to GOP malfeasance, FISA is enacted—thereby enabling future GOP malfeasance. 1973—Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and other unelected officials raise America’s military readiness level to DEF CON 3 as Nixon sleeps. 1962—Nuclear-armed jets scramble from Duluth AFB because a guard, thinking it’s an infiltrator, has shot a bear climbing a fence. 1960—Martin Luther King, Jr. gets four months at hard labor in Decatur, Ga. on old traffic charges. 1944—A Japanese armada surprises “Taffy 3”—a far smaller U.S. Navy …

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Mon, Oct 24

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2012—George W.[MD] Bush is paid a $100K fee for speaking to troops wounded while following his orders. 2001—The U.S. House passes the PATRIOT Act without reading it. 1983—U.S. military aircraft, using old maps, bomb Richmond Hill Insane Asylum in Grenada, killing 16. 1962—Soviet ships reach the U.S. quarantine line off Cuba. They don’t cross it, so we don’t nuke the USSR. A Soviet satellite explodes the same day. NORAD suspects an ICBM attack; but, again, nobody pushes The Button. 1960—One wrongly-set switch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome prematurely ignites the second stage of a Soviet R-16 ICBM; 100 die. 1945—The UN is created to “maintain international …

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Corporate Media Mostly Ignoring GOP Ploy to
Cut Social Security and Medicare

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by Brett Wilkins Corporate media outlets are mostly ignoring a Republican ploy to use the debt ceiling fight to gut Social Security and Medicare if the GOP regains control of Congress—a plot that one leading watchdog called “perhaps the single most consequential story” of the midterm elections. “Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot next month,” said Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz. “If the American public doesn’t know that, it’s in part because the press isn’t telling them.” Common Dreams reported last week that Social Security and Medicare defenders are warning that the popular programs—which each serve tens of millions of …

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Is Our Time Up?

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Time is the essence—the very foundation—of the news racket. Just think: were it not for time, when would things happen? And if nothing ever happened, what would journalists write about? We suppose that such thoughts must occur from time to time to those who toil in other news organizations. Perhaps, though, with their frenzied schedules—weeklies, for example, or, in extreme cases, dailies—they simply don’t have time. Thanks to our fortnightly schedule, our national seniority, and the recent commencement of our 267th volume, we have the time, the license, and, we believe, the responsibility to always keep such considerations in our thoughts. Having thus defended the …

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Sun, Oct 23

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2015—James Comey says criticism of the police is responsible for the rise of violent crime in cities. He offers no evidence for this assertion. 2015—Senator Ted Cruz [R-Texas] warns “one more liberal justice and they begin sandblasting and bulldozing veterans memorials.” 2013—Chancellor Angela Merkel calls the White House to complain about the NSA tapping her phone. 2001—Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) introduces the senseless PATRIOT Act, & Justice official James Yoo writes a memo saying the President need not obey the law. 1998—Life being sacred, anti-abortion fanatic James C. Kopp murders Dr. Barnett Slepian in Amherst, N.Y. 1987—Robert Bork gets Borked. 1983—Suicide bombers kill 241 U.S. …

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