Judge orders rehearing of 4 rejected appeals

Surprise Ruling Opens New Avenue for Mumia to Win New Trial on his Murder Conviction

In a surprise order signed Dec. 27, a Philadelphia Common Pleas supervising judge has offered a new chance in 2019 for Mumia Abu-Jamal to challenge his 1982 conviction for the murder of white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Specifically, Judge Leon Tucker has ordered the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reconsider four Post Conviction Relief Act …

An Essay on the Film VICE

Tale of a Number One Cold-Blooded Bastard

Anyone who has ever questioned the Iraq War and Dick Cheney as a vice president expropriating power as second banana to a shallow man ill-equipped to lead anything has to see the Adam McKay film Vice. It’s nothing short of incredible. The filmmaker has created a hybrid genre that’s part narrative, part essay; most important, …

Trump's new man at the Pentagon, Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan

Keep Walking, Nothing Important to See Here

It doesn’t bode well for accountability or fiscal probity that in unceremoniously shit-canning his Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the petulant President Donald Trump elevated in his stead as acting secretary Mattis’s number two, Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan. If you said, “Shanahan who?” welcome to the club. This was about as invisible a bureaucrat …

New poem

Akooh

  Ink blot test Cross burnings Into a corner Black butterfly Voice of the little Pinball machine Suburban garage   The fourth world Day four anyone Familiar names Dogs and parakeets There’s more to it Those who lived Sense of rage   Sort of thing Had a modicum Clings to your finger Pull the cork …

Credit where credit’s due:

Credit where credit’s due: Trump Does Something Right for Once

By Dave Lindorff It’s entertaining to read and watch the collective horror being expressed in the US media and the Congress as President Trump unexpectedly calls for a quick end to US military involvement in Syria, where for years US forces and CIA-trained fighters have been wreaking havoc and death and sowing chaos in a …

Interview with author John Rachel

‘The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World’

    Q: You wrote the book, The Peace Dividend: the most controversial proposal in the history of the world (Lulu Publishing). What is the basic idea of this project?  John Rachel: In 1992 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the citizens of the United States and the world were promised the arrival of …

It's not too early to be thinking about punishment:

Making Trump and Other Climate Criminals Pay

Warnings from climate scientists and climate monitoring organizations are growing progressively more dire, frightening and depressing. There is new evidence that the melt rate of Greenland’s mile-thick ice cover is starting to happen at a “runaway” pace — one that could end up raising sea levels by some 23 feet. New evidence too that Western …

Cooking the books at the Pentagon

Hear Dave Lindorff discuss his ‘Pentagon Accounting Fraud’ Nation magazine cover story

The Nation blog: ‘Dave Lindorff on Cooking Books at the Pentagon’  ‘The Damage Report’ with John Iadarola: ‘Pentagon Audit Complete Disaster ‘Counterspin’ with Janine Jackson: ‘Dave Lindorff on Pentagon Fraud’ Michigan State Radio’s ‘Stateside’ program:  ‘Conversation with Dave Lindorff and Prof. Mark Skidmore’ ‘Project Censored’ with Mickey Huff: ‘Lindorff Explores the Pentagon’s Financial Mysteries’   …