Special coverage in the Trump Era

From Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency site: "44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their network of political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney."

Dark Money author Jane Mayer on The Dangers of President Pence, New Yorker, Oct. 23 issue on-line

Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs? November 28, 2017 By
..."This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?"...

"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America" see: our site, and George Monbiot's essay on this key book by historian Nancy MacLean.

Full interview with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer March 29, 2017, Democracy Now! about her article, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency."

Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women's March on Washington

The Economics of Happiness -- shorter version

Local Futures offers a free 19-minute abridged version  of its award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness. It "brings us voices of hope of in a time of crisis." www.localfutures.org.

What's New?

January 31, 2019

No coup in Venezuela!

January 24, 2019 - CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin disrupted Mike Pompeo speaking today at Organization of American States in DC to protest U.S. administration support the coup taking place in Venezuela. Her sign read “OAS: Don’t Support a Coup in Venezuela.”

From CODEPINK press release, January 24, 2019

Video of disruption here: https://twitter.com/unetvhn/status/1088486190549008385

Benjamin spoke out: “Pompeo and the OAS should not be orchestrating a coup in Venezuela. The U.S. has a long and sordid history of supporting coups in Latin America and they always turned out horrible for the people. Look at Guatemala in 53’ and Chile in 73’, as well as Honduras today.”

Adding to the horror of a coup in Venezuela, we are appalled that Trump has appointed himself dictator of the world, empowered to decide who is president of a sovereign country. "No one in a democratic country, especially not the media, should be supporting Trump’s unilateral action to declare Juan Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela,” said CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans.

Earlier today,  Donald Trump tweeted that he recognized Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaido as the “Interim President of Venezuela” despite Nicolas Maduro being democratically elected & sworn in for a second term in May.  

All of this comes as Venezuela is facing an economic crisis caused in part by falling oil prices and broad U.S. sanctions. In November 2018, the Congressional Research Service published a short overview of current U.S. sanctions in Venezuela. The report states: “Analysts are concerned that stronger sanctions could exacerbate Venezuela’s difficult humanitarian situation, which has been marked by shortages of food and medicines, increased poverty, and mass migration. Many Venezuelan civil society groups oppose sanctions that could worsen humanitarian conditions.”

“Trump’s declaration that Juan Guaido is the Interim President of Venezuela is not dissimilar to his action to declare, in violation of international law and world consensus, Jerusalem the capital of Israel. It flies in the face of democracy and diplomatic international relations” said CODEPINK national co-director Ariel Gold.


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