“The chiefs of many of the world’s major central banks issued a joint statement in support of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday, after the Trump administration threatened him with a criminal indictment. Powell is at the centre of a U.S. administration’s criminal probe about the renovation of the Fed’s headquarters, which he called a ‘pretext’ to win presidential influence over interest rates. The heads of the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and eight other institutions said Powell had acted with integrity and that central bank independence was crucial for keeping prices and financial markets stable.” (01/13/26)
“Last month, former European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other officials with European nongovernmental organizations were barred from entering the U.S., in what was described as retaliation for ‘censorship’ of U.S. tech platforms in Europe. In reality, it was the latest in a campaign to force the EU to withdraw two regulatory laws, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, that U.S. tech firms don’t like. The laws require tech companies to take down illegal content on their platforms, restrict the transfer of user data to multiple platforms run by the same companies, refrain from ‘steering’ users toward their own products, and allow for fair competition in app stores and interoperable social media sites. The travel ban was only the latest in the Trump administration’s special pleading for Big Tech, using threatened tariffs and leverage in trade deals to try to force changes to the EU’s sovereign laws.” (01/13/25)
“State Sen. Dan McKeon tearfully announced his resignation from the Nebraska Legislature on Tuesday ahead of scheduled debate to expel him from the body after accusations that he made a sexually charged comment to a legislative staffer and touched her inappropriately during a session-end party last year. McKeon, a Republican from rural south-central Nebraska who had served only a year before his resignation, announced his resignation and apologized on the legislative floor just minutes before debate that would certainly have included harsh condemnation of McKeon. ‘My words and actions were careless, regardless of the intent,’ McKeon said. ‘I accept my responsibility for the impact of my words and my actions. This past year has humbled me. It requires reflection, listening and learning. Accountability is not only acknowledging my mistake but committing to grow from it. I take that responsibility seriously.'” (01/13/25)
“‘Say her name!’ From Portland to Philadelphia, the mantra is being used by politicians to fuel anger over the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. While many of us have noted that the shooting appears to fall within Supreme Court guidelines for the justified use of lethal force, there is an effort to make Good the personification of a so-called ‘resistance movement.’ Across the country, Democrats are holding ‘I am Spartacus’ moments, resembling a low-budget casting call for B-grade actors — chest-pounding calls for everything from defunding ICE to the arrest of law enforcement officers.” [editor’s note: Okay, I will … Ashley Babbitt – SAT] [additional editor’s note: As video in both cases establishes, Babbitt made the poor choice of engaging in violent criminality, while Good became a murder victim while fleeing violent criminals – TLK] (01/13/25)
“Federal officers dropped tear gas and sprayed eye irritant at activists in Minneapolis on Tuesday as students walked out of a suburban school in protest at the Trump administration’s bold immigration sweeps. The government crackdown is next headed to a federal court where Minnesota and two mayors are asking a judge to immediately suspend the operation. No hearing has been set on the request. Gas clouds filled a Minneapolis street near where Renee Good was [murdered] by an immigration agent last week. A man scrubbed his eyes with snow and screamed for help as agents in an unmarked Jeep sprayed an orange irritant and drove away. It’s common for people to boo, taunt and blow orange whistles when they spot heavily armed agents passing through in unmarked vehicles or walking the streets. ‘Who doesn’t have a whistle?’ a man with a bag of them yelled.” (01/13/25)
“Thousands of nurses are hitting the picket lines in what will be the largest nurses strike in the history of New York City. The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) on Monday announced that nearly 15,000 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian are going on strike after ’greedy hospital management at these wealthy private hospitals have given frontline nurses no other choice.’ The NYSNA posted a long list of sticking points on contract negotiations, including ‘“safe staffing for our patients, protections from workplace violence, and healthcare for frontline nurses.’ NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said that any patients in need of care at these hospitals should enter them, emphasizing that ‘going into the hospital to get the care you need is not crossing our strike line.'” (01/12/25)
“In the midst of the Arctic winter, residents of Greenland are feeling the heat of global geopolitics. United States officials have stepped up insistence on the ‘need’ to take control of the mostly ice-covered island by force or by financial means. The declarations stress Greenland’s strategic location along Arctic sea routes – which both Russia and China are vying to use – as well as access to its estimated 1.5 million tons of rare earth mineral reserves. What’s at stake ‘is not just about rare earths – it is about the very idea of sovereignty in an age of resource rivalry’, Phar Kim Beng, of the Institute of International and ASEAN Studies, wrote in the Malay Mail. The U.S. logic is ‘rooted in energy security, future-proofing supply chains (especially minerals) and in the strategic denial of competitors,’ geopolitics analyst and bestselling author Tim Marshall wrote in The Times of London.” (01/12/25)
“The protests in Iran have been building for weeks. Initially, the demonstrations were organized by merchants in December in response to a huge fall in the value of the Iranian Rial, their currency. Soon thereafter, the protests expanded to include students and workers and became a massive outpouring of citizens rejecting the country’s tyrannical Islamic regime. This theocracy has been ruling Iran with an iron grip since the overthrow of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1979. Since then, Iran has become the largest benefactor for the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. In response to the protests, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed that the government ‘would not back down.’ This statement is not surprising as the radical Islamic leaders of Iran have brutally responded to previous protests.” (01/12/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I hate this. I hate waiting for the next imperial act of war. I hate having to be aware of sunrise time in Iran so I can relax knowing they made it through another night without US airstrikes. I hate having to wonder which empire-targeted population is going to get hit next. The imperial murder machine has been so frenetically active these last few years. When I first started writing about the US empire it was the beginning of Trump’s first term, at a state of relative calm. There were mounting cold war tensions with Russia and the US-backed Saudi atrocities in Yemen, a faltering dirty war in Syria and a half-assed coup attempt in Venezuela, but these frenzied nonstop regime change ops and brazen power grabs weren’t so much a thing back then.” (01/12/25)
“The U.S. Supreme Court, by now all too familiar with lawfare, will consider a startling case on Monday, Jan. 12, chock-full of hard politicking and even the appearance of corruption. Small bayou towns and parishes in Louisiana, in partnership with plaintiffs’ firms, have filed dozens of lawsuits blaming American energy companies for coastal erosion stemming from energy production during World War II. The first of those cases reached trial this spring, with a jury in Plaquemines Parish returning a $750 million judgment against Chevron. The conduct of these cases recalls an old problem with a clear solution. States and localities have for decades weaponized their courts to derail lawful and legitimate federal objectives. … The answer is to remove these cases from Louisiana’s courts and adjudicate them in a fairer forum, namely federal court.” (01/12/25)
