One of the most telling aspects of the first Trump presidency was the absence of music. The boxers’ clutch of Melania and Donald at their 2017 inaugural ball shuffling across the boards to Frank Sinatra’s “I Did It My Way” said everything about the new Commander-in-Chief’s utter lack of groove and humanity.  The Euterpe, the More The post The Political Lyre appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more

When I was about nine years old, I sat in the rear-deck of a “Tiger Sunbeam” Grand Prix pace car: The race began and I was the one watching the racing cars gear up to catch me: “Vroom” raced the two and three cylinder cars: I couldn’t believe how fast I was moving: Actually in More The post Architecture of Cities: How We See Secrets appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more

Before Biden revealed his incompetence at the debate with Trump, he'd already lost his reelection bid by showing his gross immorality in arming the genocide in Gaza. Biden had been trailing Trump in the polls since last October and deservedly so. His withdrawal won't redeem his reputation, which will forever be stained by the mounds of dead Palestinian children he helped kill and showed no remorse for. More The post The Spirit of Jezebel appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more

I returned home from Wednesday’s anti-Netanyahu demonstration on Capitol Hill in time to watch the Israeli prime minister address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.  The vilest thing about the event was not the speech itself, which was predictably bloodthirsty and mendacious, but the reactions of the assembled Congresspeople.  Almost all of them stood and cheered lengthily while their invited guest smeared those protesting his appearance in the streets outside the Capitol as pro-Hamas “idiots” who “stand with rapists and murderers,” and whose protests are “paid for by Iran.”  ..read more

There is overwhelming evidence that Israeli forces under Netanyahu’s leadership have committed massive human rights atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza. And that’s against the backdrop of an illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory and apartheid, as another ICJ ruling confirmed recently. More The post The US Must Stop Arming Israel appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more

Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Director General, has been busy over the last few years. The media has often reported on his efforts to highlight “the risk of a major nuclear accident” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Grossi has also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice to discuss the situation at Zaporizhzhia, arguing that a “severe nuclear accident…would recognize no borders” and “we must do everything possible to prevent” such an accident. More The post More Nuclear Reactors? Deceptive Tunes from the Pied Piper of Vienna appeared first on CounterPunch.or ..read more

Caracas. On 28 July, the people of Venezeula will go to the polls to conduct the sixth presidential election since the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution. The two previous elections (2013 and 2018) were won by Nicolás Maduro Moros, the incumbent president. Maduro is running for a third term that will begin in 2025 and run for More The post Venezuela Faces a Test This Sunday appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more

“Nuclear risks are on the rise. The chance of nuclear weapons use [is] higher than at any time in my—and many others in this room’s—lifetime,” said Naomi Zoka at a meeting this week of the Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference. “The path to a world without nuclear weapons lies through the More The post Nuclear Risks on the Rise appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more

With the passing of the ADVANCE Act (S870, section B), or the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act, the nuclear lobby has seized our democratic processes and co-opted the climate movement with pervasive lies and profit grabbing. The bipartisan support of the bill arose through widespread corruption, coupled with a nearsighted More The post The ADVANCE Act: a Bipartisan Surrender to the Nuclear Lobby appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more

At the end of the last century, hoping to drive the United States from Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sought to draw in the American military. He reportedly wanted to “bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil,” provoking savage asymmetric conflicts that would send home a More The post Suicide Squad appeared first on CounterPunch.org ..read more