Author: Common Dreams

A new report draws a “devastating” picture of press freedoms in the United States, finding that 2020 has seen a 1200% increase in the number of journalists arrested compared to 2019. According to Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), there were 117 arrests or detainments of journalists — a figure that stood at just 9 the year before. The organization used data from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — a project of FPF and the Committee to Protect Journalists — and found 1000 press freedom violations including physical attacks and border stops. “We know of no police officer criminally...

“Socialism is the fire department saving your house. Capitalism is the insurance company denying your claim…” – Internet Meme, Unknown The reason everybody is so angst-ridden about the economy is because we all have the wrong idea about what it is supposed to do and how it’s supposed to work. Most of us have a quaint, 19th century idea about free markets and all that up-by-the-bootstraps Horatio Alger stuff. You know, work hard, play by the rules, keep your nose clean, and you will do well. That is certainly the cultural myth our society bathes us in. But that...

The annu­al approval of the gar­gan­tu­an U.S. mil­i­tary bud­get is one of the most reli­able rit­u­als in Con­gress. It is so ordi­nary and over­whelm­ing­ly bipar­ti­san, it is bare­ly con­sid­ered news­wor­thy, and few out­lets fol­low the details of exact­ly how much the gov­ern­ment is allo­cat­ing to a nuclear weapons buildup, or deploy­ments to the Asia Pacif­ic, or the steady creep of U.S. mil­i­tary bases across the con­ti­nent of Africa. Even under Pres­i­dent Trump, when the Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship claims to have struck a more con­fronta­tion­al pos­ture, those same lead­ers have repeat­ed­ly hand­ed him bloat­ed mil­i­tary bud­gets, as we saw Wednes­day with...

Immigrant rights defenders celebrated on December 4 after a federal judge delivered yet another blow to the Trump administration’s drawn-out effort to kill Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program that protects certain undocumented residents who were brought to the United States as children from deportation. Building on his November ruling that was similarly welcomed by right groups, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis of Brooklyn ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to post a public notice by December 7 that it is accepting new applications for DACA, which enables Dreamers to legally live and work...

President Trump has made clear his threat to reject the results of an election he loses. Such an eventuality will pose the need for the American people to rally in their millions to remove this malignant authoritarian from office. A broad united front mobilized in street demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and other non-violent actions may be necessary to defend the most basic democratic integrity of the election. Actually, the need to mobilize a popular rebellion against Trump has been there from day one of his administration. Tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy, separating immigrant children from their parents at...