“Respectfully, Steven Colbert has been doing nothing but wafer-thinly disguised Democratic propaganda talking points for the last eight years plus. While I completely support Mr. Colbert’s freedom of speech, his utter disdain for half of America and every swing state, greatly diminished his audience potential. I also respect Colbert’s direct criticism of his employer, CBS/Paramount and his opinion that they caved to President Trump when they settled their lawsuit against the sitting president. That took guts, I will give him that. But Colbert, like ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel, excluded conservatives completely from his show and limited (prevented) his audience from hearing opposing viewpoints.” (07/19/25)
“The first schools in England to install what the government described as ‘Great British Energy solar panels’ were made in China, the BBC has learned. The first 11 schools involved in the GB Energy scheme bought solar panels from Aiko and Longi, two Chinese firms. The government said the scheme was ‘the first major project for Great British Energy — a company owned by the British people, for the British people.’ Labour MP Sarah Champion said GB Energy should be buying solar panels from companies in the UK rather than China, where there have been allegations of forced labour in supply chains. ‘I’m really excited about the principle of GB Energy,’ she told BBC News. ‘But it’s taxpayers’ money and we should not be supporting slave labour with that money.'” (07/19/25)
“On January 20, it was reasonable to suggest that the legislative output of Donald Trump’s second term would be as thin as the first, primarily due to the unwieldiness of the Republican coalition. The recent history of the House of Representatives suggested total dysfunction; they couldn’t even keep a Speaker for an entire term. House Democrats provided deciding votes for essentially all the major bills in 2023-2024, amid splits between mainstream Republicans and the House Freedom Caucus. For a while, it seemed like Trump was operating on the principle that Congress was not worth dealing with. He could rule through edicts and executive orders and never trifle with the need to pass laws. The Supreme Court was all too willing to give whatever he scribbled on paper the force of law, anyway, so why bother with Capitol Hill.” (07/18/25)
“They are lying about everything. They are lying about climate change. They are lying about the Epstein files. They are lying about Trump, transgenderism, racism, babies, the economy … what are they not lying about? And lying is evil. Can anything be done about this non-stop onslaught of moral degradation in our society? Unfortunately, we will never, ever remove evil from the human heart or an organized society. There is some evil inside all of us, as well as some good. There are degrees of this, however; some people ARE better than others (Jesus), some people ARE more wicked than others (Pelosi). Regardless of degrees, removing evil from society is a practical impossibility. But we can try.” [editor’s note: So if Democrats have a trademark on “evil,” what do we call the Republicans? “Reprobate” works, I guess – TLK] (07/19/25)
“The Democratic Republic of Congo and M23 rebels have signed ceasefire deal in Qatar to end fighting between the warring sides. Dubbed the Declaration of Principles, Saturday’s agreement seen by the BBC, says both sides must refrain from attacks, ‘hate propaganda’ and ‘any attempt to seize by force new positions on the ground.’ The declaration is intended as a roadmap towards a permanent settlement. The two sides agreed to implement the deal’s terms by July 29. A final peace deal is due by 18 August and must align with last month’s US-brokered deal between DR Congo and Rwanda, which denies accusations it backs M23. Decades of conflict escalated earlier this year when M23 rebels seized control of large parts of the mineral-rich eastern DR Congo including the regional capital, Goma, the city of Bukavu and two airports.” (07/19/25)
Source: In These Times
by Sarah Anderson & Lindsay Koshgarian
“The GOP’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ which narrowly passed Congress and was recently signed by President Trump, represents the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since chattel slavery. Here are just 10 of the worst things about it. 1. It’s going to kill people. Cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, combined with new administrative hurdles, could result in an estimated 51,000 preventable deaths per year. The new law and other actions by the Trump administration will strip health insurance from 17 million people. 2. It will be an apocalypse for rural hospitals. The budget restricts the provider taxes that many states use to fund Medicaid. The threat is particularly severe for rural hospitals, which rely heavily on Medicaid revenue. More than 700 rural hospitals are already at risk of closure — and at least 338 are at increased risk due to changes in this budget.” (07/16/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“It’s so funny how Trump has stopped even pretending to be a populist. As soon as he was re-elected he was just ‘Yeah okay so Israel comes first and forget everything I said about free speech and the Ukraine war is continuing and there will be no Epstein investigation, fuck you.’ It has long been obvious to anyone with half a brain that Donald Trump is just another Republican swamp monster playing on public discontent with the status quo to win votes and support, but it is genuinely surprising how completely he has stopped pretending to care about fighting the deep state and sticking up for ordinary Americans as soon as he got back into office. He’s just dropped the populist schtick entirely and is giving the finger to anyone who complains.” (07/17/25)
“One of the more unusual, and perhaps important, protests in Europe this year was a silent march July 11 of about 1,000 people in Novi Pazar. The city, located in the largely Christian country of Serbia, is predominantly Muslim. The march took place on the 30th anniversary of the worst massacre in Europe since World War II – the killing of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb soldiers. Yet the protest was more than a commemoration of those killed in the village of Srebrenica in neighboring Bosnia. And it was more than a call for Christian Serbs to remember how a past regime supported the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in 1995. Rather, the march … marked the expansion of Serb identity beyond the ethno-nationalism forced on the country under the 12-year authoritarian rule of President Aleksandar Vučić.” (07/16/25)
“In recent months, nuclear weapons have reemerged in global headlines. Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan approached the brink of a full-scale war, a confrontation that could have become an extinction-level event, with the potential to claim up to two billion lives worldwide. The instability of a global order structured on nuclear apartheid has also come into sharp relief in the context of the recent attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States. That system has entrenched a dangerous double standard, creating perverse incentives for the proliferation of world-destroying weaponry, already possessed by nine countries.” (07/17/25)
“The Trump administration is lying about Social Security. Elon Musk’s DOGE has infiltrated the Social Security Administration (SSA). The agency’s new commissioner, Wall Street billionaire Frank Bisignano, calls himself ‘a DOGE person.’ His top lieutenants include long-time Musk associates Antonio Gracias and Aram Moghaddassi. After infiltrating Social Security, the DOGE crew forced out thousands of civil servants, including top leaders with decades of institutional knowledge. No problem, they thought. We’ll replace them with 19-year-old Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine and an AI chatbot. That plan is going exactly as expected. Mistakes are being made, checks are being delayed, lines are hours long, and field offices are being run by skeleton crews. The 1-800 number has record wait times — if people can get past the AI chatbot and speak to a human at all.” (07/17/25)
