The Digger

I've been hanging out on Twitter a bit where the narcissist Joshua Frank, co-editor at Counterpunch, has been sounding off quasi-centrist fumes while Russiavapping. Link:   To Celebrate or to Not? The Mueller Question Finally, it’s over. Well, sort of, anyway. Late Sunday afternoon, Attorney General Bill Barr released his much-anticipated  summary  of Bob Mueller’s Russia investigation. The big news, of course, was that nobody in Trump’s orbit “knowingly” coordinated with Russian efforts to disrupt the 2016 election. Trump won’t be charged with obstruction of justice and not a single American was indicted for conspiracy. To the delight of Russiagate skeptics, it was a complete vindication. To the dismay of the liberal establishment and MSDNC — who all cashed in on the chaos — it was an enormous letdown. Much of the celebration, however, took on a twisted form. Matt Taibbi was the most contorted, writing in a  column  that, “WMD was a pimple compared t...

by Nick Reid -  Uniting the Fringe Against the Center Watching the news lately, you get the impression that the world is being ripped in two by the scourge of the far-right and the far-left. Populism they call it. Warring tribes in a binary war for the soul of the free world. In the US, Our dear orange Pericles is scheming mightily to manipulate the already unconstitutional powers of executive privilege to follow through with his promise to militarize the commons at the boarder. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is in virtual upheaval over how to contain a 5-foot-2 congresswoman for making the “antisemitic” observation that perhaps Israel has too much influence over Washington while the rest of the party keep McCarthyism alive with their own Russophobic “tropes”. Across Europe and many other parts of the world, you here a similar tale of the populist left and/or the populist right going too far in one direction or the other, many times both simultaneously in an act of sociopo...

Venezuelan Coup Democrats Vomit on Green New Deal  -  by   PATRICK WALKER In humanity’s current existential climate crisis, leftists who see any hope for humanity put our faith in movements. Without movements relentlessly pressuring them to do the right thing, politicians of both US major parties—especially at the crucial national and state levels—will remain their bought-off pro-corporate warmongering selves, and powerful corporate media will provide them propaganda cover. US media providing propaganda cover for politicians doing the  wrong thing has been “a thing” almost forever, especially in foreign policy, where we’ve persistently done the  murderous  wrong thing in distant lands most Americans know or care little about. Among almost countless instances, the Vietnam and Iraq wars spring powerfully to mind. Our government lied, our media spread their lies, and our government mass-murdered, while We the People helped foot the bill with our taxes. Bu...

Excerpt: SEPTEMBER 03, 2018,   BY  MICHAEL HOWARD Earlier this year  Diana Johnstone , author of “Fool’s Crusade” and other books, wrote  an article  for  Consortiumnews.com  critical of the left’s most self-regarding media outlet,  CounterPunch . In it she analyzed the website’s creeping embrace of establishment narratives vis-à-vis Russia and Syria; she also touched on its efforts to legitimize “Antifa” shenanigans. (To its credit,  CounterPunch  ran a number of counterarguments, a few from Johnstone, attempting to save the “Antifa” enthusiasts’ souls. Alas, these were mostly drowned out by a deluge of screeds from “Antifa” pamphleteers, who seem to comprise a tiny yet ferocious army.) Implicitly, Johnstone announced a split from her erstwhile political ally—she does not appear to have published in CounterPunch since. Nor could I help noticing that articles written by Mike Whitney, once one of the website’s most prolific c...

Excerpt: "On Dec. 21sthis nearsightedness emerges with even greater clarity. In order to secure $5 billion in funding for a completely unnecessary border wall Trump is willing to shut down the government just in time for Christmas. Forget the fact people don’t want it, and that it cannot get the votes to pass, the cost to taxpayers for a government shutdown is $6.5 billion per week. It is a repetition of his coercive practice. Trump has regularly used this terrorist tactic, earlier this year in an effort to block funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program is one example. But what if it is all much much worse? Trump is making everyone pay a huge price. His nuclear bomb on the economy could very well be another stunt. He has called himself a debt master, so I wouldn’t doubt that he has plans. He seems to have learned that destruction is easier than creation decades ago; he stole fortunes and left people in ruins by not paying his own bills. His echo chamber continues to...

Excerpt: "Are you frustrated with The Resistance©, still fronting for Hillary Clinton while thousands of kids whose families fled the killing regimes in central America that she enabled are being held in concentration camps ? You’re not alone. Here at CounterPunch we get lots of calls from readers this time of year asking: where are the good groups? Where can I send a year-end check and know that the money will be well spent, not recycled into a fat executive salary or an annoying direct mail campaign? There are many such groups out there; indeed, there is a vibrant and thriving grassroots movement across a whole range of issues. Unfortunately, we can’t bring all of them to your attention. But once or twice a year we devote the pages of CounterPunch to a survey of what these organizations are up to. Here’s our end of the year list of good groups, the real resistance, fighting on the frontlines against ICE, the coal companies, the police, the CIA, the warmongers, the banks, the s...