Skip to content

Donald Trump

Why Tax Resistance Under Trump Needs Its Antiwar Edge

April 10, 2017 Frida Berrigan, www.wagingnonviolence.org , ,
By Frida Berrigan for Common Dreams - There have always been fights about taxes — stretching back to the crates of over-taxed tea tossed into the Boston Harbor and a thoughtful man’s night in jail for refusing to pay taxes in the slave-holding state of Massachusetts. This country’s long history of tax resistance stretches from the American Revolution to the religious non-cooperation of groups like the Mennonites and the Quakers to the movement to abolish slavery to resistance to every war fought in the 20th century. Following in the footsteps of this history and the example of Henry David Thoreau, there have always been a principled few who refuse to pay all or part of their federal taxes as an expression of their pacifism, or as a way of opposing specific policies. And there have always been demonstrations on April 15.

The Pandora’s Box Of War

April 9, 2017 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com , , ,
By Chris Hedges for Truthdig. War opens a Pandora’s box of evils that once unleashed are beyond anyone’s control. The invasion of Afghanistan set out to defeat al-Qaida, and nearly 16 years later, we are embroiled in a losing fight with the Taliban. We believed we could invade Iraq and create a Western-style democracy and weaken Iran’s power in the region. The fragmentation of Iraq among warring factions has left Iran the dominant Muslim nation in the Middle East and Iraq destroyed as a unified nation. We set out to topple President Bashar Assad in Syria but then began to bomb the Islamic insurgents trying to overthrow him. We spread the “war on terror” to Yemen, Libya and Syria in a desperate effort to crush regional resistance. Instead, we created new failed states and lawless enclaves where vacuums were filled by the jihadist forces we sought to defeat. We have wasted a staggering $4.79 trillion on death, destruction and folly as our nation is increasingly impoverished and climate change threatens us with extinction. The arms manufacturers, who have a vested interest in perpetuating these debacles, will work to make a few trillion more before this act of collective imperial suicide comes to a humiliating end.

US Intelligence Already Knows Assad Did Not Drop Chemical Weapons

April 9, 2017 W. Patrick Lang, www.turcopolier.typepad.com , ,
By Colonel W. Patrick Lang for Sic Semper Tyrannis. Donald Trump's decision to launch cruise missile strikes on a Syrian Air Force Base was based on a lie. In the coming days the American people will learn that the Intelligence Community knew that Syria did not drop a military chemical weapon on innocent civilians in Idlib. Here is what happened: The Russians briefed the United States on the proposed target. This is a process that started more than two months ago. There is a dedicated phone line that is being used to coordinate and deconflict (i.e., prevent US and Russian air assets from shooting at each other) the upcoming operation. The United States was fully briefed on the fact that there was a target in Idlib that the Russians believes was a weapons/explosives depot for Islamic rebels. The Syrian Air Force hit the target with conventional weapons. All involved expected to see a massive secondary explosion. That did not happen. Instead, smoke, chemical smoke, began billowing from the site. It turns out that the Islamic rebels used that site to store chemicals, not sarin, that were deadly. . . .

Newsletter: Syrian Missile Attack Is Opportunity To Challenge Militarism

April 8, 2017 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. The US attack on Syria, in reaction to the unproven allegations that President Assad used chemical weapons on the people of Syria, was not a surprise. It took President Trump a few days of discussions with his military advisers to decide to use the tactic of bombing a military target with 59 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. The Russians were given advance warning, personnel and some equipment were removed from the site and because a majority of Tomahawks missed their target, very little damage was done to the site. There are reports of Syrian aircraft flying out of the facility after the bombing. But damage was done to cities nearby the site and at least 25 civilians were killed, including 8 children and dozens were injured. This was an illegal act of war under international law.

The Essential Pundit Take: ‘Trump Became President’ By Bombing Syria

April 8, 2017 Jim Naureckas, www.fair.org ,
By Jim Naureckas for FAIR - President Trump recognized that the president of the United States does have to act to enforce international norms, does have to have this broader moral and political purpose. President Trump realized, as every president has for many decades now, that presidents always believe they have inherent legal authority as commander in chief. And they don’t need to go to a pesky Congress every time they want military force. It’s entirely true that candidate Trump felt differently. Candidate Obama felt differently than President Obama on these issues. So I think that what is interesting is even the way in which he justified his actions, President Trump did–for the first time...

Has Trump Launched Next Mid-East Disaster With Syria Attack?

April 8, 2017 Jefferson Morley, www.alternet.org , , ,
By Jefferson Morley for AlterNet - It was that rarest of occasions when Barack Obama and Donald Trump were thinking very much alike. In September 2013, President Obama was besieged by demands to attack Syria over a ghastly chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta that killed 1,500 people. Obama's logic tracked with Trump’s. There was no upside to attacking Syria, only a tremendous downside. Obama reached that conclusion by careful study of his options. Trump reached that conclusion by the seat of his pants. Today President Trump faces much the same predicament as his predecessor, and has already ordered an initial military strike, launching 59 tomahawk missiles at a Syrian Government airbase.

“Illegal Act Of War”: Trump’s Unilateral Attack On Syria Condemned

April 8, 2017 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Peace groups and activists around the world on Friday condemned President Donald Trump's missile strikes on Syria, calling the move reckless, illegal, and hypocritical. In the U.S., a coalition of organizations—including CREDO, MoveOn.org, Peace Action, and Win Without War—warned that Trump's move was "not leadership" and "will not make our country safer nor end the tragic human suffering in Syria." "Make no mistake, this was an illegal act of war, launched in violation of the U.S. Constitution and international law. Congress should immediately cancel its planned recess and debate and vote before any further military engagement by Donald Trump in Syria," the groups stated.

38 NGOs To Trump: Don’t Support Hudaydah Offensive In Yemen

April 6, 2017 Will Picard, www.yemenpeaceproject.org , ,
By Will Picard for The Yemen Peace Project - The YPP, along with 37 other advocacy, civil society, peace, and faith groups, sent a letter to President Trump today expressing our grave concern over the proposed Hudaydah offensive in Yemen. The White House is expected to sign off this week on the Pentagon's request to increase US involvement in a Saudi- and Emirati-led offensive that would cause extreme humanitarian suffering and risks sparking famine in Yemen, while eroding prospects for a political settlement to the conflict. We urge President Trump to withhold US support and act to prevent the coalition from moving forward with the offensive.

Investors Remain Bullish On Clean Energy Despite Trump

April 6, 2017 Leslie Kaufman, www.insideclimatenews.org ,
By Leslie Kaufman for Inside Climate News - For proponents of clean energy, the Donald Trump administration already seems like a nightmare. In the worst moment so far, Trump surrounded himself with coal miners and signed an executive order last week that aims to rescind former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan. That regulation would have continued to move the power industry away from coal-burning plants and toward wind and solar farms. So is Washington trying to kill the renewable energy revolution? Jeff Tannenbaum and Jigar Shah don't believe that's possible. They were both involved with a company called sPower, which has built and operates 150 utility-scale solar and wind power projects across the U.S. and the U.K.

‘No Walls, No War, No Warming’-Progressives Call For Priorities Shift

April 5, 2017 Deirdre Fulton, www.commondreams.org ,
By Deirdre Fulton for Common Dreams - Social movement leaders from groups across the progressive spectrum launched a campaign on Tuesday denouncing President Donald Trump's proposed $54 billion increase in the U.S. military budget, which is coming at the expense of the environment, education, human and civil rights protections, and public health. The #No54BillionforWar effort is launching on the 50-year anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence," which warned that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." But Trump's proposal, which pays for increased military spending by slashing everything from the Environmental Protection Agency to diplomacy...

Protesters Hang ‘Impeach Trump’ Banner At Nats Game

April 5, 2017 Hayley Miller, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
By Hayley Miller for The Huffington Post - Some Twitter users called opening day at Nationals Park a win for the home team — and America. Protesters Hang Giant ‘Impeach Trump’ Banner At Washington Nationals Game. Protesters unfurled a massive banner, styled like a Russian flag and reading “IMPEACH TRUMP #RESIST,” on Monday during the Washington Nationals’ first game of the season. The giant message hung from the observation deck on the first base side as more than 40,000 people filed out of Nationals Park ― just a few miles away from the White House ― on opening day, The Washington Post reported. The Nationals clinched a 4-2 victory against the Miami Marlins. Jason Charter, a member of populist network Americans Take Action, tweeted that his group was responsible for the act.

Native American Uranium Miners & Trump Budget

April 5, 2017 Robert Alvarez, www.thebulletin.org , , ,
By Robert Alvarez for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - For minimum wage or less, they blasted open seams, built wooden beam supports in the mine shafts, and dug out ore pieces with picks and wheelbarrows. The shafts penetrated as deep as 1,500 feet, with little or no ventilation. The bitter-tasting dust was all pervasive, coating their teeth. They ate in the mines and drank water that dripped from the walls and, sometimes, developed chronic coughs. And much worse. Native American uranium miners were essential to the United States’ efforts to create a nuclear arsenal. From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Indian people dug up approximately four million tons of uranium ore—nearly a quarter of the total national underground production in the United States used in nuclear weapons.

Now Republicans Want To Screw The Ill

April 4, 2017 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org ,
By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. The Republicans are taking another try at a healthcare law to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) after their stunning failure to even vote on the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Under the new bill, which has yet to be drafted, the current national requirements for what insurance must cover would be left up to the states to determine; and people with a serious illness could face a massive increase in premiums, putting insurance out of reach for many who need it most. The White House is pushing because a two-week spring recess begins at the end of the week, creating a sense of urgency for Republicans. Seek to rush the bill to the House Floor, without new committee review and without a Congressional Budget Office evaluation, by substituting the new bill for the failed ACHA. They need to rush this through because the more this is examined; the more people will see this bill is another terrible deal.

Trump Meets Egypt’s Sisi, Human RIghts Violations Continue

April 4, 2017 Staff, www.reprieve.org.ukwww.thehill.com , ,
By Staff of Reprieve and The Hill - This is the state of human rights in Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who meet President Trump at the White House on April 3, 2017. Weeks after overthrowing Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013, Sisi's security forces stormed pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo, killing at least 817 people in one day, the worst peacetime massacre of Egypt's modern history. Since then, the right to protest has all but vanished in Egypt. Police routinely suppress anti-government demonstrations with violence. The authorities have imprisoned tens of thousands of political opponents of Sisi's government, often in appalling conditions, with lack of access to medical care that in some cases has led to death. Police and National Security agents routinely use torture and enforced disappearances against criminal suspects and political opponents alike with near impunity. In North Sinai, the military commits egregious abuses including extrajudicial executions and unjustified home demolitions in its fight with the local franchise of the extremist group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

UN: Americans’ Right To Protest Is In Grave Danger Under Trump

April 3, 2017 Staff, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Staff for Common Dreams - At least 19 U.S. states have introduced bills that attack the right to protest since Donald Trump's election as president, an "alarming and undemocratic" trend, U.N. human rights investigators said this week. Maina Kiai and David Kaye, independent U.N. experts on freedom of peaceful assembly and expression respectively, are calling on lawmakers in the United States to stop the “alarming” trend of “undemocratic” anti-protest bills designed to criminalize or impede the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. "The trend also threatens to jeopardize one of the United States’ constitutional pillars: free speech," they said in a statement, calling for action to reverse such legislation.
«12345678910»
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.