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The Millennial Homeownership Rate Is About the Same as it was 25 Years Ago

Somebody asked recently about the homeownership rate among millennials. I’ve posted about this before, but the chart had too little detail to really see what’s going on. So here it is: You might be surprised that the homeownership rate among young familes is nearly the same as it was in 1994. But you shouldn’t be. […]

Should We Be Calling Climate Change a 'Climate Crisis'?
https://earther.gizmodo.com/should-we-be-calling-climate-change-a-climate-crisis-1834924490 #climatechange #climatecrisis

I have demoted "Open Source" to something I only read up on and maybe cover once a week. #OpenSource is dead. It's mostly #proprietarysoftware + #openwashing these days.

Let's switch back to talking about #freesw (freedom).

Remember that #microsoft is a charity not because of the ICE #crimesagainsthumanity but because its cofounder has a scam 'charity' that lets him commit tax crimes and lobby everyone, bribe media http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_Critique

Hey, We Can Dream

Joe Biden is unfortunately in the lead, but there’s always Fantasy Joe Biden.

Did Senate Republicans Just Get Serious About Agriculture and Climate Change?

This spring, massive storms have slammed the Midwestern farm belt, leaving much of the area a soggy mess. Because of the conditions, corn and soybean planting is “waaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind” schedule, as the trade journal Successful Farming put it in a headline, and farmers may leave millions of acres unplanted as a result.  On Tuesday, a […]

IRS Says It’s Required to Turn Over Trump’s Tax Returns to Congress

The Trump administration leaks like a sieve. Here’s the latest: A confidential Internal Revenue Service legal memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless the president takes the rare step of asserting executive privilege, according to a copy of the memo obtained by The Washington Post. The memo contradicts the Trump administration’s justification […]

Noam Chomsky: We Must Stop War with Iran Before It’s Too Late

The threat of a U.S. attack on Iran is all too real. Led by John Bolton, the Trump administration is spinning tales of Iranian misdeeds. It easy to concoct pretexts for aggression. History provides many examples.

The assault against Iran is one element of the international program of flaunting overwhelming U.S. power to put an end to “successful defiance” of the master of the globe: the primary reason for the U.S. torture of Cuba for 60 years.

The reasoning would easily be understood by any Mafia Don. Successful defiance can inspire others to pursue the same course. The “virus” can “spread contagion,” as Kissinger put it when laboring to overthrow Salvador Allende in Chile. The need to destroy such viruses and inoculate victims against contagion—commonly by imposing harsh dictatorships—is a leading principle of world affairs.

Iran has been guilty of the crime of successful defiance since the 1979 uprising that deposed the tyrant the U.S. had installed in the 1953 coup that, with help from the British, destroyed the parliamentary system and restored ­obedience. The achievement was welcomed by liberal opinion. As the New York Times explained in 1954, thanks to the subsequent agreement between Iran and foreign oil companies, “Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism.” The article goes on to state, “It is perhaps too much to hope that Iran’s experience will prevent the rise of Mossadeghs in other countries, but that experience may at least strengthen the hands of more reasonable and more far-seeing leaders.”

Little has changed since. To take another more recent example, Hugo Chávez changed from tolerated bad boy to dangerous criminal when he encouraged OPEC to raise oil prices for the benefit of the global south, the wrong people. Soon after, his government was overthrown by a military coup, welcomed by the leading voice of liberal journalism. The Times editors exulted that “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator,” the “ruinous demagogue” Hugo Chávez, “after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona”—who quickly dissolved the National Assembly, suspended the constitution and disbanded the Supreme Court, but, unfortunately, was overthrown within days by a popular uprising, compelling Washington to resort to other means to kill the virus.

The quest for dominance

Once Iranian “successful defiance” was terminated, and the “clear-eyed” Shah was safely installed in power, Iran became a pillar of U.S. control of the Middle East, along with Saudi Arabia and post-1967 Israel, which was closely allied with the Shah’s Iran, though not formally. Israel also had shared interests with Saudi Arabia, a relationship now becoming more overt as the Trump administration oversees an alliance of reactionary Middle East states as a base for U.S. power in the region.

Control of the strategically significant Middle East, with its huge and easily accessible oil reserves, has been a centerpiece of policy since the U.S. gained the position of global hegemon after World War II. The reasons are not obscure. The State Department recognized that Saudi Arabia is “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” Eisenhower described it as the most “strategically important part of the world.” That control of Middle East oil yields “substantial control of the world” and “critical leverage” over industrial rivals has been understood by influential statesmen from Roosevelt adviser A. A. Berle to Zbigniew Brzezinski.

These principles hold quite independently of U.S. access to the region’s resources, which, in fact, has not been of primary concern. Through much of this period the U.S. was a major producer of fossil fuels, as it is again today. But the principles remain the same, and are reinforced by other factors, among them the insatiable demand of the oil dictatorships for military equipment and the Saudi agreement to support the dollar as global currency, affording the U.S. major advantages.

Middle East correspondent Tom Stevenson does not exaggerate when he writes that, “The U.S.’s inherited mastery of the Gulf has given it a degree of leverage over both rivals and allies probably unparalleled in the history of empire… It is difficult to overstate the role of the Gulf in the way the world is currently run.”

It is, then, understandable why successful defiance in the region cannot be tolerated.

After the overthrow of its Iranian client, the U.S. turned to direct support for Saddam’s invasion of Iran, tacitly condoning his use of chemical weapons and finally intervening directly by protecting Iraqi shipping in the Gulf from Iranian interdiction to ensure Iran’s submission. The extent of Reagan’s commitment to his friend Saddam was illustrated graphically when Iraqi missiles struck the USS Stark, killing 37 crew, eliciting a tap on the wrist in response. Only Israel has been able to get away with something like that (USS Liberty, 1967).

When the war ended, under President George H.W. Bush, the Pentagon and Department of Energy invited Iraqi engineers to the U.S. for advanced training in weapons production, an existential threat to Iran. Since then, harsh sanctions and cyber attacks—an act of aggression according to Pentagon doctrine—have been employed to punish the miscreants.

Threat to the world order

U.S. political leaders across the spectrum warn that all options are open in assaulting Iran – “containing it,” in ­prevailing Newspeak. It is irrelevant that “the threat or use of force” is explicitly banned in the UN Charter, the foundation of modern international law.

Iran is regularly depicted as the greatest threat to world peace—in the U.S., that is. Global opinion differs, regarding the U.S. as the greatest threat to world peace, but the American population is protected from this unwelcome news by the Free Press.

That Iran’s government is a threat to its own population is not in doubt, nor is the fact that like everyone else, Iran seeks to expand its influence. The issue, rather, is Iran’s alleged threat to world order generally.

What then is that threat? A sensible answer has been provided by U.S. intelligence, which advised Congress in 2010 (nothing has materially changed since) that Iranian military doctrine is strictly “defensive … designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities,” and that “Iran’s nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy.” (U.S. intelligence agencies acknowledged in 2007 and 2012 that Iran doesn’t currently have a nuclear weapons program.) For those who wish to rampage freely in the region, a deterrent is an intolerable threat—even worse than “successful defiance.”

There would of course be ways to end the alleged threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. One start was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the joint agreement on nuclear weapons, endorsed by the Security Council and abrogated by the Trump administration, in full awareness that Iran has lived up to its commitments.

Hawks claim that the agreement did not go far enough, but there are simple ways to go beyond. The most obvious is to move towards a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, as strongly advocated by the Arab states, by Iran and by G-77 (the former non-aligned countries), with general support elsewhere. There is a key obstacle. The proposal is regularly vetoed by the U.S. at the NPT review conferences, mostly recently by Obama in 2015. The reason, as everyone knows, is that the plan would require the U.S. to acknowledge formally that Israel has nuclear weapons and even to authorize inspections. Again, intolerable.

It should not be forgotten that the U.S. (along with Britain) has a unique responsibility to establish a Middle East NWFZ. When attempting to provide some legal cover for the invasion of Iraq, the two aggressors claimed that Saddam was developing nuclear weapons in violation of Security Council Resolution 687 of 1991, after the Gulf war, which obligated Saddam to end such programs (as in fact he did). Little attention is paid to Article 14, calling for “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction.”

It is also worth noting that when Iran was ruled by the Shah, there was little concern about Iranian intentions to develop nuclear weapons. These were clearly stated by the Shah, who informed foreign journalists that Iran would develop nuclear weapons “without a doubt and sooner than one would think.” The father of Iran’s nuclear energy program and former head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was confident that the leadership’s plan “was to build a nuclear bomb.” The CIA reported that it had “no doubt” Iran would develop nuclear weapons if neighboring countries did (as Israel of course has).

This was during the period when Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger and other high officials were pressuring U.S. universities (my own, MIT, included) to facilitate Iran’s nuclear programs. Asked later why he supported such programs under the Shah but since strenuously opposes them, Kissinger responded honestly that Iran was an ally then. Simple enough.

The neoliberal formula

Assuming that rationality prevails and that Bolton and co. can be contained, the U.S. will continue with the successful program of crushing Iran’s economy and punishing its population. Europe is too intimidated to respond, and others lack the power to stand up to the Master. The same policies are being pursued in Venezuela, and have been employed against Cuba for many years, ever since the Kennedy administration recognized that its campaign to impose “the terrors of the earth” on Cuba (in the words of historian Arthur Schlesinger) brought the world close to destruction during the missile crisis.

It is a mistake to seek some grand geopolitical thinking behind Trump’s performances. These are readily explained as the actions of a narcissistic megalomaniac whose doctrine is to maintain personal power, and who has the political savvy to satisfy his constituencies, primarily corporate power and private wealth but also the voting base. The latter is kept in line by gifts to the religious right, dramatic pronouncements about protection of Americans from hordes of rapists and murderers and other demons, and the pretense to be standing up for the working stiff whom the administration’s actual policies are in fact shafting at every turn.

So far, it is working well. The neoliberal formula is flourishing: spectacular profits for the primary constituency along with general stagnation and precarity for the majority, ameliorated slightly by the continuing slow recovery from the Great Recession of 2008. In brief, Trump is doing just fine. He is helped by the obsession of the Democrats with Russiagate and their downplaying of his major crimes, the most important, by far, the policy of leading the race to environmental catastrophe. Another Trump term might—literally—be a death knell for organized human life.

A new poll shows that Trump’s job approval among likely voters has passed 50%, higher than Obama’s at this stage of his presidency. A smart policy for Trump would be to continue to shake his fist at the world, charging that weak-kneed liberals like “Sleepy Joe” and “crazy Bernie” would submit to the terrible enemies who are being subdued by the street tough with the MAGA hat. The stance is assisted by the liberal media, which reflexively echo the charges that the “rogue state” of Iran has to become a “normal state” like the U.S. (Pompeo’s mantra), even while warning timidly that war might not be the best way to achieve that goal.

There are of course other paths that can be pursued. And, crucially, there can be no delay in mounting powerful opposition to the threat of yet another crime of aggression, with its likely catastrophic outcomes.

After a Flood of Donations, an Alabama Group Can Now Fund Three Times as Many Abortions as Last Year

A month ago, Amanda Reyes was working in relative obscurity, trying to protect women’s reproductive rights in a state that was always hostile to them and was becoming increasingly more so. Then, Alabama’s assault on abortion rights reached a new height last week, as Gov. Kay Ivey signed the most restrictive abortion ban in the […]

We've got big news.

After months of work, Tor Browser is now stable on Android.

Tor Browser 8.5 brings the highest degree of privacy and censorship-circumvention available to Android users. https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-85

No One Should Ever Listen to Anything Rahm Emanuel Has to Say About Politics

Monday marked Rahm Emanuel’s official last day as mayor of Chicago, and America’s third-largest city is better off for it.

After eight years in office, Emanuel secured his legacy as a neoliberal archetype for urban governance and is leaving behind a city mired in a vast array of crises, spanning public education, gun violence, debt, police brutality, housing and economic inequality. Yet rather than take responsibility for his disastrous reign in Chicago, he has instead embarked on a rebranding tour to makeover his public image. The mainstream media is, unsurprisingly, complicit in this rehabilitation, but we should not be fooled.

On Tuesday, the Atlanticannounced that Emanuel had taken a new position as a contributing editor at the magazine. This announcement coincided with Emanuel’s debut story for his new job, “It’s Time to Hold American Elites Accountable for Their Abuses.”

For those who have any familiarity with Emanuel’s background—a former investment banker turned Democratic Party operative, turned centrist architect, turned presidential chief of staff, turned mayor known for prioritizing the needs of the wealthiest over working-class residents—such an article premise is preposterous. Still, it’s worth interrogating why Emanuel’s foray into becoming a Serious Pundit is so abhorrent.

Emanuel is correct in his analysis that the 2016 election illustrated how fed up American voters are with the rule of elites in our society. Donald Trump won by riding a wave of this anger straight to the White House, whereas Hillary Clinton represented the very system of elite supremacy many voters blamed for helping stack the cards against them. But if Clinton was successfully painted as an avatar for this biased system, Emanuel has in many ways been its guru.

After all, it was Emanuel who, while serving in the Clinton administration, helped write NAFTA, the trade agreement which fueled offshoring of jobs, wage stagnation, upward redistribution of income and the collapse of the manufacturing sector in the United States. He similarly helped push through welfare reform, legislation that spiked extreme poverty and cut off a lifeline for millions of working-class Americans, as well as the 1994 crime bill which incited the mass incarceration crisis.

After leaving the White House in 1998, Emanuel dove into the world of investment banking where, over the course of four years, he made a staggering $16 million—more than 10 times what an average American will earn over their entire lifetime.

During his time as head of the DCCC in the late 2000s, Emanuel focused on pushing the Democratic Party further to the right, recruiting conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats who worked toimplement austerity, deregulate Wall Street and oppose healthcare expansion. Later while serving as President Obama’s chief of staff, Emanuel took a hard line against union workers during the auto bailout and worked diligently to convince Obama not to pursue Obamacare—a plan that would ultimately provide healthcare coverage to millions of Americans.

And as mayor of Chicago, Emanuel has continued his lifelong political project of advancing corporate-friendly policies while ignoring the needs and demands of the poor and politically unconnected. He closeddown public schools and mental health clinics, oversaw a police department rife with abuse, fought public-sector unions, lavished corporate giants with tax breaks while raising regressive fines and fees, privatized public services, presided over horrific levels of gun violence and locked community groups and neighborhood leaders out of democratic decision-making in favor of his friends in high finance and corporate America. 

In other words, Rahm Emanuel represents the very system of elite governance that he blames in his Atlantic article for creating our current political crisis—which should make us very suspect of the solutions he proposes.

So, what does Emanuel actually say will help get America out of our current status quo? Perhaps enact policies that would rein in the industries such as banking and finance that have wreaked havoc upon the economy? Or provide social programs like universal healthcare and a jobs guarantee that would help lift millions out of poverty and provide a safety net for struggling families? Nope.

Popular programs like as Medicare for All, breaking up large financial institutions and providing guaranteed employment are being embraced by a number of 2020 Democratic candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But Emanuel instead uses his new perch as a columnist to preach empty bromides about “justice” and “standing up for middle-class interests and values.” In fact, Emanuel says he doesn’t think embracing bold new policies is the answer, dismissingly stating that “Every time Democrats look at a problem, they think of a program.”

On one point, Emanuel is crystal clear, saying, “The answer certainly isn’t socialism.” In his view, a more egalitarian politics that confronts market fundamentalism head-on just amounts to a more powerful “bureaucracy.” Such slights at a left-wing approach to government are nothing new, but it’s telling that Rahm Emanuel—a scion of neoliberalism—feels the need to decry a socialist turn in the Democratic Party.

Emanuel can see the tectonic shifts occurring in the party he’s spent his political career pushing in a centrist direction. Socialism is rising in popularity, including in Emanuel’s hometown of Chicago where six democratic socialist city council members were just elected to office. It’s no surprise that he would be dismayed by such a development that stands as a direct repudiation of his time in office.

Whereas Emanuel carried out a “trickle-down” economic program that provided benefits to the top while poor neighborhoods were starved of resources, the new class of socialist leaders is advocating massive new taxes on the rich to fund social programs. If the Chicago’s 2019 elections are any indication, with progressives and socialists taking power across the city, Emanuel’s approach to governance has been proven an abject failure. Which is all the more reason he shouldn’t be taken seriously as a political authority.

We have only just begun to experience Emanuel’s new career in punditry. Tuesday also saw the announcement that he will join ABC News as a contributor. We can expect that he will continue to laud right-wing Democrat Joe Biden for his “discipline” on the campaign trail while attacking progressives such as Rep. Ilhan Omar and warning the party against taking clear stands on issues such as healthcare and the climate. After all, this is exactly the type of tired, backward-looking take he was hired by these corporate media outlets to provide.

But for working people in Chicago and across the country, Rahm Emanuel’s centrist political vision has by now been fully discredited. Let’s make sure to never forget that.    

The Librem One suite of online services (Chat, Social, Tunnel, & Email) wouldn't be possible without the amazing work of countless Free Software developers all around the world.

Here's a primer on the stellar projects we work with to make it possible:

https://puri.sm/posts/how-purism-works-upstream-and-gives-back/

Red States Are Paying Planned Parenthood Millions for Suing Them

State legislators from Georgia to North Dakota have been trying to one-up each other in passing increasingly draconian abortion legislation, all under the guise of seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade. None of these laws is likely to survive legal challenges, let alone reverse the Supreme Court precedent establishing the right to an abortion. But […]

Puerto Rico Got Rid of Its Coal Ash Pits. Now the Company Responsible Is Moving Them to Florida.

This story was originally published by Grist and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.  This past January, Itiba De Jesus moved to St. Cloud, in Osceola County, Florida, in search of affordable housing and land to expand her sustainable agriculture project. She has lived in Florida for 17 years but grew up in Puerto Rico. […]

The Short Case for Making College Free and a Universal Right

free col•lege

noun

1. A radical expansion of federal funding to make higher education a public good

“College shouldn’t just be a privilege for those who can afford [it]. Like K-12 education, college is a basic need that should be available for free.”

—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), outlining her plan for free public college

How would we do this? How much would it cost?

Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run brought free college back into the national debate. His College for All Act, introduced in 2017, would provide federal and state funding to cover tuition at all public colleges and universities—for about $70 billion annually.

This time around, Bernie isn’t the only contender calling for debt-free diplomas. In April, Elizabeth Warren released a sweeping plan to eliminate tuition, expand assistance for housing and books, wipe out most student debt, and cut off federal funding to for-profit colleges. That plan comes in at $1.25 trillion over 10 years, paid by a proposed wealth tax.

Student debt is one of like 1.25 trillion problems right now. Is free college the priority?

It’s worth remembering that federal land-grant universities were first created in the midst of the Civil War— not exactly a chill time in our history. In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed a visionary piece of legislation championing accessible higher education for all—including liberated slaves, in intent though not always in practice—to provide a foundation for tackling the challenges facing the nation.

For nearly a century after federal land-grant colleges were first established, many public institutions were free, or nearly so. During the past three decades, states have slashed their higher ed funding and university administrators have embraced the idea that campuses should be run like businesses. But in the past five years, there’s been a push by cities and states—blue and red alike—to make public and community colleges tuition-free again. Add the fact that two leading presidential contenders are pushing free college and the concept might not be as fringe as you’d think.

Why should we make college free, even for those who can afford it?

Some politicians would rather expand assistance only for low-income students, rather than subsidize a program that could end up benefiting people like Lori Loughlin’s kids.

But means-tested programs tend to be politically vulnerable, attacked by the Right as charity for the poor. Universal programs, on the other hand, are often more popular. To say that things like housing, healthcare and education should be publicly subsidized sends the message that they are good for society as a whole. The pursuit of knowledge shouldn’t be treated like a business—it is the right of every person.

This is part of “The Big Idea,” a monthly series offering brief introductions to progressive theories, policies, tools and strategies that can help us envision a world beyond capitalism. For past In These Times coverage of free college in action, see, "The Fight For Free College Moves to the States," "A Brief Case for Cancelling All Student Loan Debt," "These Students Are Leading a Movement for Free College in the United States," and "Why Can’t College Be Free?"

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The Migrant Agenda

Behind their dastardly plan to enter the country and destroy it from the inside!