Patrick Martin:  A United Nations panel … condemning Israeli military operations in Jenin and elsewhere on the West Bank … “amount to egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force and may constitute a war crime.” … Here is the brutal reality in the West Bank under Israeli occupation: ongoing and systematic violence and repression against the Palestinians.  … Israeli soldiers and ultra-right settlers are murdering people, shooting them down, destroying their homes, pillaging the land where they have lived for centuries. … Read here …

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Michael Hudson:  We are seeing not the End of History but a fresh alternative to U.S.-centered neoliberal finance capitalism and its junk economics of privatization, class war against labor, and the idea that money and credit should be privatized in the hands of a narrow financial class instead of being a public utility to finance economic needs and rising living standards … Read here …

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Connor Echols:  With military spending at record highs, many contractors have hiked the cost of relatively simple items. … Leading military contractors jacked up the price of several everyday products after receiving non-competitive contracts, costing taxpayers more than $1.3 million in apparently unnecessary markups, according to Pentagon contracting data  … Read here …

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Thom Hartmann: If previous Republican presidents had been held to account for their crimes the way it appears Trump is about to be, Trump may well have not been as brazen in everything from his violations of the Hatch Act to the Espionage Act to his explicitly asking Vladimir Putin to intervene in the 2016 election. … Nixon’s double-dealing (reached out to the South Vietnamese ambassador offering inducements to pull out of the peace talks) … the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with the leader of Iran’s radical faction — Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini — to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980 presidential election … Read here …

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William Hartung:  Weapons firms will likely rip off the US taxpayer once again when the military replenishes supplies sent to Ukraine. … the problems posed by the industry’s near monopoly on weapons production, the Pentagon has made matters worse through lax oversight practices … Another driver of Pentagon waste and contractor malfeasance is the continued U.S. quest for global military dominance.  … The strategy calls for the U.S. to be prepared to go almost everywhere and do almost everything … Read here …

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Nathan J. Robinson: Whether we let people have houses is a choice we make. But those who refuse to support guaranteed housing can’t complain when people end up living on the streets.  … But it’s perfectly possible to simply provide a guaranteed right to housing. … “Housing First,” i.e., give people housing before trying to address their health issues, has become accepted wisdom among those who work on housing policy. … Read here …

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Tharaphi Than : In the early days of a brutal 2021 military crackdown on anti-coup protesters in Myanmar, members of the nascent resistance movement began asking “how many dead bodies” it would take for the world community to act. … More than two years on from a coup that installed military rule in the Southeast Asian country, pro-democracy protesters say they have yet to receive an adequate answer…. Read here…

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Melvin Goodman: Last week, an unusually long editorial in the Washington Post documented Soviet efforts to use disinformation against the United States without ever mentioning the activities of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency … the worst example of a U.S. campaign of disinformation was … the joint efforts of the White House and CIA to create a case for war against Iraq. Read more…

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Alan Macleod: The Call of Duty franchise is an entertainment juggernaut, having sold close to half a billion games since it was launched in 2003. … Yet a closer inspection of Activision Blizzard’s key staff and their connections to state power, as well as details gleaned from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal […]

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Milicent Cranor: ‘Beyond amazing’: Navajo Nation’s AG Praises Irish Generosity to Coronavirus Fund … The Irish had donated over $1.5 million to something called the “Navajo & Hopi Families Covid-19 Relief Fund.” Even more amazing was their reason for the donation: It was “in remembrance of Native American aid to Ireland during the Great Hunger … […]

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Jenny Hocking and Peter Cronau: Queen Elizabeth II of England advised the Governor-General he could overthrow the elected government of Australia – and he did… Thanks to a series of archival declassifications, what has emerged reveals a complex web of deception, collusion, and denial in which the Palace was deeply and undeniably involved… The letters confirmed […]

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