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Hibakusha and Hope in the Nuclear Age

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The threat continues to this day fueled by a new nuclear arms race initiated by the United States proposal to spend upwards of $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years to rebuild our entire nuclear arsenal

By Robert Dodge / Common Dreams

This week marks 73 years since the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, ultimately resulting in the deaths of more than 200,000 people. With the dawn of the nuclear age, the term “hibakusha” formally entered our lexicon. Atomic bomb survivors are referred to in Japanese as hibakusha, which translates literally as “bomb-affected-people”.  The bombings and aftermath changed the world forever and threaten the very future of mankind to this day.

According to the Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law, there are three hibakusha categories. These include people exposed directly to the bomb and its immediate aftermath, those people exposed within a 2 kilometer radius who entered the sphere of destruction within two weeks of the explosion and people exposed to radioactive fallout generally from assisting victims and handling bodies, and those exposed in utero, whose mothers were pregnant and belonging to any of these defined categories.
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The Creeping Privatization of Public Libraries

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By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

At 17,566, there are more public libraries in the United States than there are Starbucks coffee shops. And just like at Starbucks, patrons have access to free wi-fi. But unlike Starbucks, public libraries will usually provide the free use of a computer as well as internet access.

Perhaps it is their very ubiquitousness that makes them such a tempting target for libertarians like the Koch brothers and right-wing economists like the one who recently suggested a takeover of libraries’ functions by Amazon.

Forbes quickly pulled the controversial op-ed by contributor Panos Mourdoukoutas, an economist and academic who felt that many of the functions of the local library, like free Wi-Fi, and movie rentals are already being filled by places like Starbucks and services like Netflix. Why shouldn’t Amazon open stores to provide books to the public? His argument included the fact that public libraries cost taxpayers money (gasp). It would be so much nicer for him if he did not have to contribute a couple of hundred dollars every year to American literacy. The American Library Association reports that the actual annual cost is $36.96 per person.

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QAnon Shock Troops Amplify Trump’s Lunacy

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

Sometimes “deplorable” just isn’t deplorable enough. That’s the case with a core set of Donald Trump supporters who have come together around a new conspiracy theory that’s … not Pizzagate. Because it’s worse. And, as the Washington Post reports, this new conspiracy is already spilling from under the rocks of alt-Reich websites, into living, screaming Trump rallies.

Believers in “QAnon,” as the conspiracy theory is known, were front and center at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall, where Trump came to stump for Republican candidates. As the president spoke, a sign rose from the audience. “We are Q,” it read. Another poster displayed text arranged in a “Q” pattern: “Where we go one we go all.”

Who or what is QAnon? It’s the handle for a racist troll who pretends to be “a government agent with top security clearance” working with Donald Trump to take out the “Deep State.”   [Read more…]

The Right-Wing Firestorm Starting With the Smear of ACORN Rages On

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By Peter Dreier

In their recent documentary ACORN and the Firestorm, Reuben Atlas and Sam Pollard not only reveal how the mighty ACORN fell but also show how the attack on ACORN was a dress rehearsal for our current toxic political culture, including the rise of Donald Trump and the alt-right.

Through archival clips and interviews with ACORN staffers, leaders and members, friendly and hostile politicians, and political analysts, the film recounts the group’s history, starting with its founding in Arkansas in 1970 by Wade Rathke, a charismatic and brazen young organizer.

In addition to registering millions of voters, ACORN assisted the working poor to buy homes and avoid foreclosure, challenged banks’ racist and predatory lending practices, stopped companies from spewing cancer-causing pollution in low-income neighborhoods, got local governments to fix up abandoned buildings that had become havens for crime, and fought for fair treatment by employers, landlords, insurance companies, and government. ACORN led the campaign to get Congress to strengthen the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act. It organized the victims of Hurricane Katrina to gain a voice in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. It spearheaded the living-wage movement in more than 100 cities and helped make the federal Earned Income Tax Credit an effective anti-poverty program.   [Read more…]

As Medicare and Medicaid Turn Fifty Three, Republicans Plan to Privatize One and Gut the Other

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By Martha Burk / Other Words

July 30 marks a very important anniversary in our modern political history.

Fifty-three years ago in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, creating two programs that would disproportionately improve the lives of older and low-income Americans — especially women.

Fast-forward to 2018, and both programs are very much under siege. Nowhere is the struggle starker than in the House Republican budget — titled “A Brighter American Future” — now on Capitol Hill.   [Read more…]

Thoughts and Prayers for Trump’s Hollywood Star

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Oh dear. Increasingly but mystifyingly, it seems some people are unhappy with their “president.” On Wednesday, a group of immigration protesters from Rise and Resist closed down 5th Ave. in front of Trump Tower, chanting “If you take the kids, we take the streets.” A number of them were arrested in the first of evidently more planned acts of civil disobedience to protest the Trump regime’s failure to reunite thousands of immigrant families in the wake of their grotesque child kidnappings. And hours earlier, at around 3 a.m., a lone but resolute patriot took a pick-axe to Trump’s long-dubious, frequently vandalized star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, obliterating it once and for all.

Witnesses said a man walked up to the star with a guitar case, pulled out the pick-axe, and had at it. He was evidently far more effective than James Otis, who in 2016 also took a shot at it, getting three years probation, community service and a fine for his act of patriotism; the star, for which Trump paid $30,000, has also been defaced with obscenities, dog poop and a mini-wall to keep out Mexican rapists and CNN reporters.   [Read more…]

The MS-13 Gang, A Straw Man for Republican Racism

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By Hunter / Daily Kos

Donald Trump’s support is based on racism. And the racism is based on Republican conspiracy theories. And those conspiracy theories are now, thanks to White House propaganda, taking root within his racist, gullible base.

A majority of people who voted for President Donald Trump consider criminal gang MS-13 a threat to the United States, a new poll finds, indicating the Trump administration may be succeeding in inflating the perception of the gang’s national risk.

Specifically, 85 percent of Trump voters call MS-13 a “very” or “somewhat” serious threat to the United States, and roughly half of them are worried MS-13 is going to target them or their families personally, which is a ludicrous, asinine theory based entirely on Trump-peddled propaganda. Before Trump’s team settled on “MS-13” as their stand-in for Violent Ethnic People Coming To Get You, it would be a fair bet to say that precious few among Trump’s base would even know what MS-13 was. Now half of them are worried that MS-13 is hiding under their floorboards.   [Read more…]

Wealth — Not Enrollment in Private School — Increases Student Achievement, According to New Study

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By Steven Singer / Common Dreams

Students enrolled in private schools often get good grades and high test scores.

And there’s a reason for that – they’re from wealthier families.

A new peer-reviewed study from Professors Richard C. Pianta and Arya Ansari of the University of Virginia found that once you take family income out of the equation, there are absolutely zero benefits of going to a private school. The majority of the advantage comes from simply having money and all that comes with it – physical, emotional, and mental well-being, living in a stable and secure environment, knowing where your next meal will come from, etc.   [Read more…]

60 House Democrats Launch Medicare for All Caucus

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By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

Adding to the rapidly growing wave of support for Medicare for All at the grassroots and on Capitol Hill, more than 60 House Democrats are forming an official Medicare for All Caucus with the goal of closely examining specific policy components of single-payer and seriously discussing the steps necessary to implement it in the United States.

“This is a sea change from just four or five years ago and people are more likely to see healthcare as a right,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told ViceNews, which first reported on the formation of the caucus on Wednesday.

Jayapal joined Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), National Nurses United (NNU), and other progressive groups to officially launch the caucus with an announcement Thursday morning. While just over 60 Democrats will be part of the caucus on day one, that number is expected to grow quickly over the next several weeks.
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Russian Spy Maria Butina, Donald Trump, the NRA, and Republican Politicians at All Levels

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

On Monday, Russian pro-gun activist and lifetime NRA member Maria Butina, was arrested on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and acting as a covert agent of the Russian government.

The indictment against Butina, on the same day that Donald Trump so weakly acquiesced to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, came after years in which the Russian agent openly presented herself as a gateway between Republican causes and Russia. During that time she not only supported the candidacy of Trump, but worked with other prominent members of the GOP, promoted Republican visits to Moscow, and secured pro-Russian statements from right-wing politicians up and down the line.

Butina has been a prominent and vocal presence in the link between the National Rifle Association and Russian pro-gun groups. But she has also inserted herself into other lobbying efforts, both for guns and for Russia. That includes open claims that she was a conduit between the Russian government and the campaign of Donald Trump.   [Read more…]

27 Things You Need to Know About Mueller’s Latest Indictments

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By James Dunlap / Facebook

Ok, so I’ve actually sat down and read the entire 29-page Mueller indictment (PDF) against the 12 Russian intelligence officers, and it is totally insane. I literally can’t believe the scope of this thing. I’m making this status public (i.e., shareable) because people need to know about this shit.

There is no way you can read the actual indictment and not conclude that

1) there WAS a RUSSIAN conspiracy;

2) that the scope of that conspiracy was GARGANTUAN;

3) that it was organized BY THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT (i.e., there’s no way Putin didn’t know about this);

4) That people connected to the Trump campaign (and, shockingly, other U.S. Gov’t officials) WERE INVOLVED; and

5) this is just the beginning. 

If Mueller has already uncovered this amount of information with such specificity regarding the goings-on in far-away Russia, there’s NO WAY some serious shit isn’t going to hit the fan going forward right here in the U.S.

So, without further ado, here are the highlights:   [Read more…]

August 26, 2018: A National Day of Action Opposing Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee

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By Julia Conley / Common Dreams

While President Donald Trump said Tuesday morning that the nomination process for his Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh would be a “beautiful thing to watch” over the coming weeks, progressive advocacy groups say they will leverage their collective political will—and the tens of millions of their outraged members—to stand against the president’s far-right and extremist choice.

Calling Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh a “five-alarm fire,” NARAL Pro-Choice America, MoveOn.org, Color of Change, and other groups announced a mass mobilization against the right-wing judge’s confirmation, including a nationwide day of action planned for August 26.   [Read more…]

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