Tomgram

What put the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), with an annual budget hovering at just about 1% of federal spending, at the top of Elon Musk’s budget-cutting target list? Was it just a political calculation that foreign aid is a safe target because it’s unpopular with so many Americans and cutting those funds will only hurt foreigners, not U.S. voters? Or was Musk motivated by some other grudge we haven’t even heard about? A related question: Why is his invective about that particular agency — “a criminal organization,” “a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America,” and similar blasts — so much more inflammatory in tone and content than his statements about other government programs? As reported by... Read more

I read the news today, oh boy. About a lucky man named Elon Musk. But he lost out on one thing: he didn’t get a top secret briefing on Pentagon war plans for China. And the news people breathed a sigh of relief. With apologies to John Lennon and The Beatles, a day in the life is getting increasingly tough to take here in the land of the free. I’m meant to be reassured that Musk didn’t get to see America’s top-secret plans for — yes! — going to war with China, even as I’m meant to ignore the constant drumbeat of propaganda, the incessant military marches that form America’s background music, conveying the message that America must have war... Read more

Source: Ending Militarism in America appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

The news of Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest surprised me. It’s not that I doubted the former leader of the Philippines was guilty of the horrific crimes detailed in his International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant. Duterte himself boasted quite openly of the mass killings he’s been accused of. But I always thought that the prospects of bringing that brutal, outspoken politician to justice were remote indeed. After all, Duterte’s daughter Sara is currently the vice president of the Philippines and that country is no longer a member of the ICC. On top of that, Duterte himself was so sure of his immunity that he was running for mayor of the city of Davao. In mid-March, after returning from campaigning in the... Read more

Source: Surviving a Political Dark Age appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

The second administration of President Donald J. Trump has already started working its special magic across the Washington, D.C. capital region. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have fired tens of thousands of federal workers, with more to come. Those who have lost their jobs include people who find housing and other support for veterans struggling with mental illness. They include civil servants who maintained safeguards to prevent our nuclear weapons from becoming dirty bombs. They include healthcare researchers developing treatments for cancer and other killer diseases; workers who ensured that low-income, homeless, and rural students were able to get an education; agricultural researchers who opened up international markets to American farmers; and too many others to... Read more

During the 2024 election campaign, candidate Donald Trump’s most controversial rally occurred at New York’s Madison Square Garden. A comedian on the program referred to the island of Puerto Rico — and by implication Puerto Ricans — as garbage. He and the Trump campaign were rightfully pilloried and called out for his disgusting bigotry. Little notice was given, however, to another noxious racist moment at the same event. On Trump’s playlist for the rally was the Confederate and White nationalist anthem “Dixie.” Notably, that song was played as Trump loyalist and harsh defender Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL) was coming on stage. Donalds is African American and perhaps Trump’s most visible Black sycophant. While Black social media and journalists crucified Trump... Read more

Four years ago, I published Subtle Tools, a book on the erosion of American democratic norms in the face of what came to be known as the Global War on Terror. Both what had been done in the name of “national security” in response to the 9/11 attacks and how it had been done — through the willing neglect of procedural integrity, the exploitation of all-too-flexible norms, a remarkable disregard for transparency, and a failure to call for accountability of any sort — left the country wide open to even more damaging future abuses of the rule of law. And — lo and behold! — now, that future is all too distinctly here. What happened in the first quarter of... Read more

Source: The First 50 Days appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Allow me to stipulate that I do not wish to die. In fact, had anyone consulted me about the construction of the universe, I would have made my views on the subject quite clear: mortality is a terrible idea. I’m opposed to it in general. (In wiser moments, I know that this is silly and that all life feeds on life. There is no life without the death of other beings, indeed, no planets without the death of stars.) Nonetheless, I’m also opposed to mortality on a personal level. I get too much pleasure out of being alive to want to give it up. And I’m curious enough that I don’t want to die before I learn how it all... Read more

Source: Trump Rages to Snuff Out Democracy’s Candle appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Yes, “shock and awe” is back in the second age of Donald Trump. His border czar, Tom Homan, used that very phrase to describe border policy from day one of the new administration and, whether the president has actually said it or not, it’s now regularly in headlines, op-eds, and so much else. If you remember, it was the phrase used, in all its glory, to describe America’s massive bombing and invasion of Iraq in 2003. (You remember! The country that supposedly threatened us with nuclear weapons but, in fact, didn’t have any!) We Americans were, of course, going to shock and awe them. But from that moment on (if not from the moment, in the wake of the 9/11... Read more

Source: Shock and Awe appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Alex Karp, the CEO of the controversial military tech firm Palantir, is the coauthor of a new book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. In it, he calls for a renewed sense of national purpose and even greater cooperation between government and the tech sector. His book is, in fact, not just an account of how to spur technological innovation, but a distinctly ideological tract. As a start, Karp roundly criticizes Silicon Valley’s focus on consumer-oriented products and events like video-sharing apps, online shopping, and social media platforms, which he dismisses as “the narrow and the trivial.” His focus instead is on what he likes to think of as innovative big-tech projects of... Read more

Source: The New Age Militarists appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Some years ago, I faced up to the futility of reporting true things about America’s disastrous wars and so I left Afghanistan for another remote mountainous country far away. It was the polar opposite of Afghanistan: a peaceful, prosperous land where nearly everybody seemed to enjoy a good life, on the job and in the family. It’s true that they didn’t work much, not by American standards anyway. In the U.S., full-time salaried workers supposedly laboring 40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20% clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand, worked only about 37 hours a week, when they weren’t away on long paid vacations. At the end of the work day, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three in... Read more