Opinion

Devastating new revelations show that Trump is America's worst enemy

John Bolton’s new book makes many things clear, but most important is this: Donald Trump violates his oath to defend our Constitution against “all enemies foreign and domestic” because he is the leading domestic enemy of our Constitution.

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If we’re going to defund militarized police, why not add the Pentagon?

When Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced a resolution recently to cut $350 billion from the Defense budget, the only media outlets that covered her bill were independent progressive ones. In a statement on her website Lee said, “For years, our government has failed to invest in programs that actually keep our country safe and healthy. The prioritization of defense spending and the underinvestment in public health has led to 10 times more deaths from COVID-19 than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Corporate news outlets such as CNN or the New York Times, which have been extensively covering the national uprising against police brutality, simply ignored this story—just as they ignored police brutality for so long—and failed to connect Lee’s idea to slash the military budget to the prevailing demand to “Defund the Police.”

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America is still haunted by its racist past – but the country is being reborn before our very eyes

America is haunted. There are many old ghosts and other spirits trapped along the color line both in this country and around the world. Most of these spirits and ghosts have never been exorcised. Some are poltergeists and demons, ready to be summoned up by the wizards and warlocks of racism and white supremacy, including President Donald Trump and his minions.

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Who's really looting America?

As hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest ruthless police killings of Black Americans and centuries of systemic racism, Donald Trump and his enablers have been quick to cast the protesters as violent “looters” – and distract from the real looters of America.

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How the 'religious left' is trying to save your rights from the GOP's hypocrisy

Donald Trump's upside-down Bible photo-op at St. John's Church has led to unprecedented blowback from retired military generals, culminating in a mea culpa from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But the religious pushback was similarly sharp, starting with the Rev. Gini Gerbasi, an Episcopal priest who was among those "literally DRIVEN OFF of the St. John's, Lafayette Square patio with tear gas and concussion grenades," as she described on Facebook — an extraordinary use of state power to crush religious liberty. A bevy of leaders from the Episcopal Church spoke out forcefully, soon joined by Catholics, Lutherans and others, including some evangelicals.

But as McKay Coppins writes at The Atlantic, "most white conservative Christians don't want piety from this president; they want power." In particular, they want the power of his judicial appointments, with the goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, writing their minority views into law for generations to come, even as their share of the population (though not the electorate) plummets. As noted in a forthcoming report from Political Research Associates, support for legal abortion is at a 25-year high:

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'He's no patriot': Disturbed Americans question why Bolton refused to speak out about Trump revelations during impeachment

New revelations released by the Wall Street Journal in John Bolton's book are sending Americans into a flood of frustration and angry as the former national security adviser continues to tell information he refused to tell under oath.

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In the age of coronavirus, Republican politics can kill you

I don’t mean to belabor the obvious, but the president’s political instincts are rather stale. The price of gas, the ups and downs of the Dow, the unemployment rate, and the US economy generally—these are the indicators Donald Trump turns to in order to determine how he’s doing politically and gauge the likelihood of getting reelected.

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Fox News isn't just shamelessly misleading senior citizens -- they're pushing right-wing wackos to violence

While the majority of the violence against peaceful protesters at Black Lives Matter demonstrations has been orchestrated by police, there's also been a troubling side trend of increasing right-wing vigilantism against protesters. In city after city — and even in small towns — Donald Trump's faithful are shooting protesters, hitting them with cars, or, in one case, attacking protesters with a chainsaw. Add to that multiple situations where self-appointed "patrols" of armed conservatives have shown up at demonstrations to threatened protesters, claiming they are responding to the threat of imaginary antifa violence. It's spiraled so far out of control that even people who have taken no part in the protests are being menaced by gun-toting right-wingers, just because they're black and the Trump fans have deemed them "suspicious."

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Has Trump changed his tune since Charlottesville? Forget it — he hasn’t changed since New York in the 80s

Donald Trump can never, ever learn from his own mistakes — so we all have to keep reliving them over and over again. Right now Americans are in the midst of a necessary but gut-wrenching confrontation with the racism that permeates our culture and our justice system, and Trump is once again doing what he did three years ago this August, after the horrifying events in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Why isn’t PG&E getting the death penalty?

Pacific Gas and Electric, known as PG&E, just pled guilty to killing 84 American citizens.

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Conservatives angry and confused after Aunt Jemima brand retired

The Aunt Jemima brand will get a new name and image, and the change prompted a wave of conservative anger.

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'Arguments' against Black Lives Matter: The harder it is to deny systemic racism, the more outrageous the pushback becomes

There is little doubt that reactions to the death of George Floyd signaled a turning point in mainstream support for anti-racist activism. For some who had previously sat on the sidelines of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the stunning cruelty exposed in the series of videos that captured the final moments of Floyd's life was simply too blatant to ignore. Suddenly, new allies like Mitt Romney were out marching alongside seasoned veterans of the movement.

These are encouraging signs. We witness not just the broadening of the base of support for the Movement for Black Lives but also its successes in demanding real policy changes, a feat that has taken far too long to achieve. In example after example, protests have gone beyond the expression of justified anger and frustration; they have led to quick and decisive shifts that hold the promise of change. We have learned that not only has the Minneapolis City Council voted to defund and dismantle the city's police department, but there are no less than 16 other cities considering proposals to divest resources from the police.

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Trump knows he's losing his grip on his base

It was pretty stunning to see NASCAR — an emblem of Donald Trump’s core support — decide  to ban the Confederate flag from all events and properties.

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