IMPORTANT READS

COUNTERPUNCH - Years pass, and journalist Julian Assange languishes in a British jail. His crime? Truthful reporting of U.S. military atrocities in Iraq, reporting that sparked a lust for vengeance among U.S. politicos and military men.

How strong and powerful is a country if it cannot handle the slightest bit of self-reflection or self-criticism?

CAPITAL & MAIN-A powerful tidal wave is building, feeding off the primal desire to reclaim a lost sense of normalcy.

BIG TECH TALK - “Today’s big tech companies have too much power — too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy,” wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) during her failed presidential run in 2019.

CAL MATTERS-If Billy McCasland had gotten his $1,200 stimulus check, he would have moved his family out of the Modesto house the pediatrician says is responsible for his 7-year-old’s lead poisoning.

NEW GEOGRAPHY-The coronavirus pandemic has altered the future of American business.

COMMON DREAMS-The atmospheric scientist that led a major year-long Arctic research expedition said Tuesday that the world may have already hit one of the so-called climate “tipping points." 

OTHER WORDS-McDonald’s workers in 15 U.S. cities recently staged a weeklong strike demanding a $15 hourly wage for every McDonald’s worker. McDonald’s resisted, pledging only to raise average wages to $13 an hour. 

BIG TECH TALK-Many have understandably applauded Facebook’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the site for the next two years, but the ability of a company to decide who should be in the public square, which the social network has effectively become, raises troubling questions about the future of our tattered democracy.

CLIMATE POLITICS-Worldwide chemical emissions are six times global warming emissions.

ALPERN AT LARGE-Some of you reading this now will think that former President Donald John Trump got a raw deal with the claims of Russian interference in American politics.

First it was the minimum wage. Then student loans. Then the $300 weekly unemployment benefit. Then ditching the God-awful Trump tax cuts for billionaires.

‘Why would I put my kids in a place where there is no future?’

NYC HOUSING-Dozens of neighborhoods in New York City have been upzoned based on contrived, and even false, claims made by the city, which promised more diversity, affordable housing, minimum displacement, and other worthy goals.

POLITICS--Republican senators on Thursday unveiled an infrastructure counteroffer calling for just $257 billion in new spending over the next eight years,

CEASE FIRE WATCH--Gaza, “The president reiterated his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attack,” The Guardian has informed us, as conflict flares once more in the Middle East.

PEACE WATCH--U.N. Secretary General António Guterres urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to go “beyond the restoration of calm to start a serious dialogue to address the root causes of the conflict.”

WAR RETURNS TO MIDDLE EAST--Riding in the back of a truck into Afghanistan during the 2001 U.S. invasion, a journalist colleague from Russia who served in the Red Army during the 1980s asseverated that he was happy to be back in the country. 

WHY ARE THE ARABS AND THE JEWS AT WAR?-As my grief and outrage mount at the predictable escalations of violence in Israel/Palestine, I once again marvel at the chasms of misunderstanding and miscalculations in describing events as they unfold and the script that frames most mainstream media reporting. (Recently, The New York Times is a notable exception.) 

DEATH BY COP--On the day Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd, local law enforcement in my hometown killed my nephew’s father. His name was Jose Flores. 

THE CHARMED LIFE OF DAVID PETRAEUS--I ran into David Petraeus the other night. Or rather, I ran after him.