Welcome to The Now

 The Professor and host of Democracy @ Work explains:

 Fiorella Isabelle from Convo Couch talks about her visit:

 Second Thought explains:

 ... in particular because of the circumstances : Their issue lies with Alabama’s accomplice liability law which allows a suspect to be charged with murder if someone is killed during the commission of a crime regardless of whether they caused the death. When the five teens broke into a Millbrook home, suspect A’Donte Washington was fatally shot by a responding Millbrook Police officer after he charged the officer with a gun.   As a result, Smith and three other co-defendants were charged with murder for Washington’s death. On Friday, Smith appeared before Elmore County Circuit Judge Sibley Reynolds in a post-conviction hearing. Smith’s attorney, Leroy Maxwell argued that Smith’s trial attorney failed to present mitigating evidence that could have helped to shorten his sentence. So instead of just being charged with breaking and entering and/or theft, Smith was charged with the death of someone he didn't kill (again, the police did that).  65 years seems like a long time to be serv

 Apparently being a nuclear power for 80 years makes you a bit arrogant. Since WWII, America has, militarily-speaking, had little to brag about. As professor Dominic Tierney put it  : " Since 1945, the United States has very rarely achieved meaningful victory. The United States has fought five major wars — Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan — and only the Gulf War in 1991 can really be classified as a clear success ." This has not stopped the Military Industrial Complex, however. America is a war economy, as in , it's economy is completely dependent on war to survive . Politicians , entertainment and other entities are caught up in it. Preparations are being made for future wars . One problem with war running a nation's economy is that the conflict has no moral ground to stand on; the purpose is simply to keep the system alive. Because the military is now simply a mechanism to generate wealth, things like "history" "diplomacy" and &q

 If you're going to exploit, why not use one of the most corrupt countries?

 People are all a flutter about President Biden's decision to send tanks to Ukraine ( especially after Germany promised to do the same ), but there's not much spotlight on the fact that the NSC is clarifying to say that this will take " many months " and require " extensive training ."  I'm sure Russia is just going to wait until the tanks show up to get serious.  Or, maybe twiddling your thumbs during winter against an opponent who EXCELLS in fighting in cold climates will blow up in your face:

 Reps. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar apparently aren't going to be serving on any committees in the new GOP-controlled House of Representatives , and they aren't happy about it. Instead of holding press conferences to complain, they should use their positions of power to make the GOP regret making that decision.

"Workers in America have the fundamental right to strike, and American workers have died on picket lines to protect it. The ability to withhold your labor is the one powerful tool throughout the history of unionization that has ensured that workers can improve their working conditions. This right is now on trial at the Supreme Court. The anti-worker case before the Court is undemocratic and disregards long-standing legal precedent." -- International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean M. O'Brien in a 1/10/23 press release, regarding the Supreme Court potentially dismantling the National Labor Relations Board in the   Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union 174 case. 

 Sabby's video really hit home how far Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez has fallen: The one-time firebrand who talked about "bringing the ruckus" to DC, who camped outside Nancy Pelosi's office, and who talked about preferring to be an effective one-termer than a re-elected rubber stamp has now supported weapons systems, breaking railroad strikes and arming proxy wars that's full of Nazis.  And one of her constituents was having none of it! The voter confronted AOC in Spanish, and then called for a break from the Democratic-Republican team-sport duopoly machine (it was at that time "town hall" security started to move her out).  Both the Democrats and Republicans are too corrupt to take over, if the goal is reformation into a party that puts the needs of the poor and working class first. There are factions in each party willing to aid any other demographic as long as that demographic has money (and can influence a significant number of voters). 

 Lee Camp explains:

  Via the Black Agenda Report : It is important to understand that the concept of white supremacy extends beyond the recognized understandings of race, racialization, and racism. White supremacy certainly depends on the construction of the idea of race as a hierarchical relationship of power based  on presumed biological and cultural difference, as well as related practices of racism, the valorization of whiteness and the denigration of non-whiteness. But we should also recognize that the workings of race depends on racialization processes where racial meanings are often in  flux and can be malleable and shifting in various contexts – even as whiteness retains its power  position. The articulations of white supremacy, therefore, may shift depending on cultural and political contexts. There remains, nevertheless, a set of specific power dynamics inherent in  the construction of race: that is, the hierarchical categorization of ‘white’ as racially superior.  The point is to be explicit

 The debacle over how to help the railroad workers exposed it, as Second Thought explains:

For this streamer, living in America for three months has been less than ideal . My question: when people from other countries stop coming to the U.S. en masse, who are politicians going to blame for all of the America's problems?

  From speeches at pretty much any occasion to ceremonies to magazine covers , The (mostly American) media has focused on Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky  as prop for the conflict PR more than a military leader. Also, he wears green T-shirts a lot . 

By now many are aware that some time after the "Trump still has classified documents" story died down there is now a similar story, this time with President Biden at the center. Suffice it to say, the same people who defended/attacked the former have now changed their tune on the latter.  But what about the media?   So here is the criteria that the AP used to judge the stories of Trump and Biden dealing with classified documents : The Number of Documents. The Speed in Which the Documents Were Turned Over. Whether the Discovery of the Documents Will Result in Charges. The President's Comments on the Discovery of the Documents. The Political Implications.  Let's be honest (and brief) here: #1 through #4 are different variations of #5. The amount, how fast the documents were returned, any charges, whatever half-baked response these human gaffe-machines give as a reason...it's all political. The question that should be asked is, "has exposure of these documents h

  Via the Black Agenda Report , Ricardo Vaz or the Venezuelanaysis describes Juan Guaido's final moments in the spotlight: There is an old British sitcom called “Keeping Up Appearances” which revolves around the efforts of a suburban middle-class woman to look important and impress upper-class people. Among other things, she insists that her last name, “Bucket,” be pronounced “bouquet.” This was more or less the scene at the event that saw Guaidó ousted. While those present thought of it as a “National Assembly session to vote on a reform of the ‘Transition Statute’” there was a lot to unpack. This National Assembly was elected in December 2015 and had its term run out in January 2021. The “Transition Statute,” from where the “interim government” was axed, is an absurd text rejecting several electoral processes (that the opposition boycotted) and giving this expired parliament the possibility of extending its own mandate indefinitely. In summary, this was a bunch of well-off people

 So what if Blackrock (a company so predatory they got criticized by FOXNEWS among others to the point that they had to put out a statement to save face) is making a deal with Ukraine (one of the most corrupt countries on Earth)? What's the worst that could happen?

 Finally, the "three-sea shells" gets answered:

  More MLK: MLK's last year was no picnic, especially due to liberals . MLK's most anti-capitalist quotes . MLK's " Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence " speech. 

 Lee Camp talks to Prof. Wolff about " the rise of the multipolar world ."

 "Yes and no," according to Professor Richard Wolff:

 To say that Kyle Kulinski likes talking about political stories is an understatement. As his YouTube pays states, his channel is "Home of news & politics commentary from the populist left perspective" (NOTE: it used to be from a "libertarian left perspective").  I've referred to him as a political gossip expert. Not in the intrusive TMZ-type way, but if you ever wanted to know who said what about anything even remotely political, Kulinski was the one to follow and watch. Also, whether the topic/subject/person is popular or obscure makes little difference.  So imagine my surprise to find out that Kulinski seemed to completely ignore a political story that one would think is right in his wheelhouse: That up there was a video on Bad Faith where Briahna Joy Gray and Kshama Sawant talk to Ryan Grim about the Squad's role in Congress forcing the railroad workers to accept a bad contract (that while included a bump in pay did not include any sick leave whatsoe

 They can't admit that they have been propping up a puppet to unconstitutionally take over the country, so they are trying their best to re-write history and change the narrative .

 WSWS's article talks about XBB.1.5, aka, "Kraken." At the press briefing by the World Health Organization last week, lead scientist Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove called XBB.1.5 “the most transmissible Omicron subvariant detected yet.” She added, “We do expect further waves of infection around the world, but that doesn’t have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work.” What this optimistic assertion conceals is that XBB.1.5 will lead to more infections and reinfections, these will inundate health systems, and people will die unnecessarily. Additionally, allowing SARS-Cov-2 to continue its rampage unimpeded by any efforts on the part of national and international health agencies to bring the pandemic to an end means that the virus will continue to mutate genetically in ways that will enable it to bypass the current immunity built up in the population and potentially evolve into a more pathogenic form, making it deadlier and more virul

The lead Russia investigator for Bellingcat is not sure why he's now on Russia's most-wanted list .  It might have something to do with how Bellingcat applies their brand of journalism: Or maybe how they have pushed for war: Or the role they played in spreading propaganda: You know, little things like that. But don't worry, Bellingcat: Brazil's new president Lula was on Ukraine's list , and he isn't running to his lawyers for explanations. 

 The very politically influential company is hurting, and it's taking it out on their employees : Goldman Sachs will lay off as many as 3,200 employees this week as an uncertain economic and market climate pushes the bank to hunt for cost savings, according to a person familiar with the matter. More than a third of the job cuts are expected to be from the firm’s trading and banking units, the person said. Like its Wall Street rivals, Goldman Sachs has been hit by a slump in global dealmaking activity as fewer companies merge or seek to raise capital. Hiring for roles in other areas will continue and the new analyst class will start later this year as planned, the person added added. News of the layoffs was first reported by Bloomberg. The bank declined to comment. Goldman Sachs (GS) had 49,100 employees at the end of the third quarter. It added thousands of jobs to its headcount during the pandemic recovery as markets and investment banking boomed. And what caused this? But the mo

  A notable update regarding the Uvalde school shooting : Uvalde school police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo told investigators he was more concerned about saving students in other classrooms than trying to stop a gunman who had already shot children and teachers. An interview with investigators the day after the May 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary shows Arredondo talking bluntly about his recollection of events. CNN obtained a video recording of the previously unreported interview, where some of Arredondo’s answers conflict with his limited public statements. It was the only meeting about his role that he had with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). He stopped cooperating with the DPS inquiry after its director labeled him as incident commander and blamed him for decisions that left dead, dying and traumatized children with a gunman for over an hour while officers waited in the hallway outside. The critical moment in his decision making, Arredondo said, was when he saw childr

 The two review AOC's latest word salad during their guest hosting of Status Coup:

 Unfortunately, yes : ProPublica has come out with an investigation entitled “The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater.” After World War II, the Cold War started between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. because the rich needed to stop the damn Communists from pushing their furry hats on everyone! There was a feverish need to build loads of nuclear weapons. To do that, the U.S. needed uranium, and its ruling class didn’t care how they got it. More than 50 uranium mines popped up across the Western U.S. But they didn’t just turn our weapons radioactive. They also “dumped radioactive and toxic waste into rivers like the Cheyenne in South Dakota and the Animas in Colorado. … Some of the more than 250 million tons of toxic and radioactive detritus… scattered into nearby communities, some spilled into streams and some leaked into aquifers.”

 The time is took McCarthy to secure the bag is not that significant historically: What's interesting is that in comparison, other Speakers have been rubber-stamped so quickly without much debate.

 Second Though reviews this:

 He may look Ronald Reagan did back in the 80's, but as a central figure in Iran-Contra North knows all about foreign policy scams:

 Sometimes the owner class comes right out and says it:

 A phrase that has been run into the ground way more than others and used as the opening argument for why Democrats are preferable to Republicans (of course this argument is being made by Democrats and their allies) served it's purpose until 2024. So now that the GOP will control the House of Representatives, what have Democrats to say about the state of things? Well: Yep. After "the most important election of our lifetime" has passed and the Democrats lost the House, House Dems mock the fact that the GOP is taking the leadership position seriously enough to not rubber-stamp their choice for Speaker of the House. After weeks and months of scaring voters, now they're all smiles. (See, to Democrats, such spats are signs of disarray. But notice that every time the GOP goes through one of these "growing pains," they come back strong enough to put someone in the White House; i.e., Reagan, GW Bush, and Trump?)

 At this point, the only people still calling for war (ie, weapons) in Ukraine are those who are uninformed or are profiting from the conflict.