America Needs To Tax Its Own ‘Second Estate’: Billionaires

The United States has no nobility, according to our Constitution. But our tax code does protect the very rich.


Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk attend the inauguration of Donald Trump at the US Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Julia Demaree Nikhinson - Pool/Getty Images)

Paul F. Delespinasse
Dec 04, 2025

Common Dreams

Pre-revolutionary French aristocrats—the “Second Estate”—didn’t pay taxes. Amazingly, America too has a second estate, billionaires who pay virtually no taxes. In her very outstanding recent book, law professor Ray D. Madoff shows how they get away with this.

The United States has no nobility, according to our Constitution. But our tax code does protect the very rich.

Federal taxes on income and estates—intended to fund government and prevent development of a hereditary financial aristocracy—were enacted early in the 20th century and originally worked well.

But since about 1980, the estate tax—infested with loopholes—has been nearly abolished for practical purposes and now produces trivial income.

Madoff wants to get rid of the ability of ultra-rich people—billionaires—to avoid having any taxable income in the first place.

Madoff suggests that the estate tax should be completely eliminated because its existence deceives the public about what is really going on. People falsely think that billionaires who pay no federal income tax will at least pay the estate tax when they die. In fact, they are paying neither kind of tax.

Billionaires avoid the income tax by arranging to have no taxable income.

Before 1982 ultra-rich people could not avoid paying income tax. Their income consisted of dividends and capital gains harvested by selling shares of stock, the price of which had increased. Dividends and capital gains are taxable income.

But in 1982 federal regulators weakened a rule prohibiting corporations from buying back their own stock. Since then, many corporations have used profits to buy back stock shares instead of issuing dividends. With fewer shares of stock outstanding and the value of the corporation increasing, the value of each share of stock began increasing dramatically.

What used to be taxable dividends turned into large capital gains benefiting the stock owners, including very rich ones. If shareholders need cash and sell appreciated stock, of course they would owe income taxes on the capital gains (selling price of the stock minus how much the shares cost them). But capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than normal income like salaries, bank interest, and returns on bonds.

As Madoff points out, however, billionaires need not sell any stock to get cash to live on. Instead, they can borrow the money, using their stock as collateral. Borrowed money is not taxable income, so they owe no tax while living extravagantly.

And when they die, the stock they bequest to their heirs gets a stepped up “basis,” so if their heirs sell the stock they will owe no taxes because the stepped up basis leaves no taxable capital gains.

And inherited money is not considered taxable income. Someone who earns $50,000 pays significant income (and payroll) taxes on it, while someone who inherits $1 billion pays no income or payroll tax on it.

Madoff rightly objects to this situation, but she is not arguing that we should “soak the rich” with higher income tax rates at the top. She points out that there are two kinds of “rich” people. One is the working rich, skilled professionals earning high salaries and, usually, already paying very high taxes. A high percentage of all income tax receipts come from these people.

Increasing the high tax rates these “rich” people are already paying would produce insignificant extra revenue for the government.

Instead, Madoff wants to get rid of the ability of ultra-rich people—billionaires—to avoid having any taxable income in the first place. She wouldn’t tax them while they are alive, but would tax whoever inherits from them.

Rather than trying to fix the estate tax, Madoff would abolish it, eliminate the stepped up basis for inherited stock, and make inherited money and other gifts received taxable income for the recipients.

Assuming an exemption for small gifts (to allow birthday presents and the like), this could be a reasonable reform. It would bring in very large amounts of taxes while reducing today’s extreme economic inequality.

For further details, see Ray D. Madoff, The Second Estate: How The Tax Code Made An American Aristocracy. This is one of the two best books I have read since retiring in 2000.

 

Wind Farm to Power Amazon and Google Sends First Power to German Grid

Germany's Borkum Riffgrund 3 started feeding power and when completed it will send power to major corporations including Amazon and Google (Orsted)

Published Dec 4, 2025 9:47 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm started feeding its first power to the German grid on December 3. The wind farm marks another milestone both for Germany and the EU, becoming the largest offshore wind farm in Ørsted’s German portfolio and one that has contracted more than four-fifths of its power with long-term corporate power purchase agreements.

Located about 45 miles off the German coast in the North Sea, the project is being developed in a partnership between Ørsted and Nuveen Infrastructure.  When it is fully commissioned in the first quarter of 2026, it will have a total capacity of 913 MW, making it just slightly smaller than EnBW’s He Dreith (currently Germany’s largest) and among a crop of new large offshore wind farms that are planned to reinvigorate the EU’s drive to renewable energy.

“The generation of the first power at Borkum Riffgrund 3 is both a significant landmark for German offshore wind and our commitment to accelerating the EU energy transition,” said Jordi Francesch, Managing Director, Renewable Energy Investments at Nuveen Infrastructure.

The companies note that the project illustrates the depth of the EU supply chain for renewable energy. The wind turbines and foundations came from Germany and Denmark, cables from Germany and France, and installation vessels from the Netherlands and Belgium. Operation and maintenance for all Ørsted’s German offshore wind farms is carried out from Norden-Norddeich and Emden in East Frisia.

The project will consist of a total of 83 wind turbines, each with a rated capacity of 11 MW. The companies note that when it is fully operational, it will produce the same amount of electricity that a large city uses every year.

Borkum Riffgrund 3 is supported by several long-term corporate power purchase agreements (CPPA), which they highlight create long-term price security for the project developer and for the customers. Offtake agreements ranging between 10 to 25 years and totalling 786 MW have been entered into with Amazon (350 MW), BASF (186 MW), Covestro (100 MW), Energie-Handels-Gesellschaft/REWE Group (100 MW), and Google (50 MW). 

The project is also the first offshore wind farm to be built by Ørsted in Germany without an offshore substation (OSS). The new connection concept provides a direct connection between the wind turbines via a 66 kV connection to the DolWin epsilon offshore converter platform, installed and operated by the German transmission system operator, TenneT.

As it completes commissioning, Borkum Riffgrund 3 joins a growing portfolio of German offshore projects. Earlier this year, Ørsted and Nuveen Infrastructure’s other jointly owned offshore wind farm, Gode Wind 3, was fully commissioned. The project is located close to Ørsted’s existing wind farms: Borkum Riffgrund 1 and 2 and Gode Wind 1 and 2. With these recent additions, Ørsted's installed offshore wind power capacity in Germany increases to around 2.5 GW in early 2026, making the company the market leader in Germany, operating over 20 percent of the country’s total offshore wind capacity.

Germany’s largest offshore wind farm to date, EnBW’s He Dreith, generated and delivered its first kilowatt-hour of electricity on November 25 as it started the commissioning process for its turbines. It is expected to be completed during the summer of 2026, making another major addition to Germany’s renewable energy supply.

Germany's current offshore wind power capacity is just over nine gigawatts. The country has set ambitious targets to reach 30 GW by 2030, 40 GW by 2035, and 70 GW by 2045. It has not been immune to the pressures on the industry, and in August, for the first time, reported it had received no bids in its latest leasing round. The commissioning of the two large wind farms in 2026 will be a boost as the government explores future policies to encourage the next phase of development.

From Soaring Energy Prices to Climate Threat to AI Bubble, Experts Warn Against Data Center Buildout

“Tech giants are cutting backroom deals with utilities and government officials to build massive data centers at breakneck speed, while passing the costs onto working families,” said the author of a new Public Citizen report.


Attendees await the arrival of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the Google Midlothian Data Center on November 14, 2025, in Midlothian, Texas.
(Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Dec 04, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

As the construction of artificial intelligence data centers expands across the nation largely unregulated, experts warn that the unrestrained buildup of these facilities is causing electricity costs to skyrocket, accelerating the climate crisis, and putting the economy at risk.

A new report out Thursday from the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen highlights the “unchecked expansion” of these data centers, often with little oversight, input from communities, or even financial responsibility on the part of the Big Tech firms profiting.
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“We’re watching Big Tech overlords write their own rules in real time,” said Deanna Noël, Public Citizen’s climate campaigns director and one of the report’s authors. “Tech giants are cutting backroom deals with utilities and government officials to build massive data centers at breakneck speed, while passing the costs onto working families through higher electricity bills, polluted air and water, and false claims about job creation.”

A forecast published earlier this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance projected that the power demand for AI facilities will hit 106 gigawatts by 2035—a 36% jump from what it predicted back in April.

That dramatic increase, it said, can be attributed not just to the more rapid buildup of AI facilities, but also to the size of the ones being constructed: “Of the nearly 150 new data center projects BNEF added to its tracker in the last year, nearly a quarter exceed 500 megawatts,” it found.


This faster-than-expected expansion has come with massive consequences for the people living near the power-sucking behemoths. Public Citizen’s report found:
Residents’ electricity costs in some data center-dense areas have surged over 250% in just five years. At PJM—the world’s largest power market—capacity auction prices spiked 800% in 2024, in part due to data center growth. That same year, consumers across seven PJM states paid $4.3 billion more in electricity costs to cover data centers’ new transmission infrastructure.

On Wednesday, CNBC reported on findings from a watchdog report that PJM’s 65 million consumers will pay a total of $16.6 billion to secure future power supplies needed to meet demand from AI data centers from now until 2027, approximately $255 per person on average.

In some of the states with the most data centers, residential electricity prices have spiked considerably over the past year. In September, they were up 20% in Illinois, 12% in Ohio, and 9% in Virginia, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration.

The massive surge in electricity usage is also fueling the climate crisis. As of March 2025, 56% of the electricity used to power data centers came from fossil fuels, a share that is likely to increase now that the Trump administration has pushed to expand the extraction of coal and other planet-heating energy sources in order to power them.

“At the very moment we must rapidly phase out fossil fuels,” Noël said, “the Trump administration is doing the opposite—fast-tracking data center development powered by coal, oil, and gas.”

Tech companies like Amazon, Meta, and Google that benefit from these projects rarely have to bear the full economic cost, instead passing some of it onto taxpayers, often without public debate due to nondisclosure agreements that keep the details of proposals under wraps until deals are finalized.

“In the race to attract large data centers, states are forfeiting hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue,” a June CNBC investigation found. The report determined that 42 states provide full or partial sales tax exemptions to data centers or have no sales tax at all. Thirty-seven of those states have legislation specifically granting sales tax exemptions for data centers.

While these exemptions are often granted following promises of economic growth and job creation, as the Public Citizen report argues: “They rarely deliver on these promises. Data centers create few permanent, high-paying jobs, and generous tax breaks deprive communities of critical revenue needed to fund schools, infrastructure, and other public services.”

Data centers have increasingly faced pushback from local communities. On Wednesday night in Howell, Michigan, over 150 people assembled at a town hall in opposition to a proposed $1 billion “hyperscale” data center project backed by Meta, following days of protest.




“Already we have started to see many regions (across the country) realizing that the huge spike in electricity demand from data centers is straining the grid, and this is only going to get worse as the growth of data centers increases based on the projected and planned investments,” said one of the panelists, Ben Green, an assistant professor of information and public policy at the University of Michigan.

Economic analysts, meanwhile, remain skeptical about whether the rapid buildup of AI infrastructure will be sustainable in the long term, given the extraordinary energy demand.

In November, Morgan Stanley projected AI-related data center spending will total $2.9 trillion cumulatively from 2025 to 2028, with roughly half requiring external financing.

Abe Silverman, general counsel for the public utility board in New Jersey, pointed out to CNBC the unease communities are feeling about “paying money today for a data center tomorrow.”

“We’re in a bit of a bubble,” he warned. “There is no question that data center developers are coming out of the woodwork, putting in massive numbers of new requests. It’s impossible to say exactly how many of them are speculative versus real.”

Cathy Kunkel, a consultant at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said, “It does tend to be consumers—residential, commercial, and other industrial ratepayers—that end up paying for overbuilt electrical infrastructure.”

The health of the entire US economy, it turns out, may be hitched to this “bubble.” As the Wall Street Journal reported in late November, “business investment in AI might have accounted for as much as half of the growth in gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, in the first six months of the year.”

OpenAI founder Sam Altman raised eyebrows last month when he suggested that if the bubble bursts, his company is too big to fail, and would likely receive a large taxpayer-funded federal bailout: “When something gets sufficiently huge... the federal government is kind of the insurer of last resort as we’ve seen in various financial crises,” Altman said. “So I guess given the magnitude of what I expect AI economic impact to look like, sort of I do think the government ends up as like the insurer of last resort.”

A looming financial bubble related to AI’s rapid growth, alongside the various other concerns related to the data center buildout, is why Public Citizen says policymakers must understand the gravity the situation and be willing to push back against an industry that has built an army of lobbyists to press its interests on Capitol Hill.

“Policymakers at all levels of government must act with urgency to rein in Big Tech’s unchecked expansion,” Noël said. “By demanding transparency and accountability, enforcing strong community protections, and requiring clean and cheap renewable energy, policymakers can shield consumers from soaring electricity costs, reduce emissions to protect public health, and align this buildout with the clean energy transition.

“Without urgent intervention,” she said, “Big Tech will continue getting a free ride while more neighborhoods are turned into sacrifice zones for Silicon Valley’s tech tycoons—fueled by the fossil fuel industry.”

 

The Judge at the End of Europe

By Yanis Varoufakis

December 4, 2025

Source: Project Syndicate

© European Union, 2025, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

When, in a few years’ time, almost everyone is claiming that they opposed Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, the world will remember Judge Nicolas Guillou of the International Criminal Court fondly. But the world will also remember how Europe’s leaders collaborated with Donald Trump by enforcing baseless US sanctions against Guillou.

ATHENS – Let us, for a moment, entertain the fanciful hypothesis that Europe cares about its values. Imagine a Europe where the principles so lavishly inscribed upon the banners of the European project – the rule of law, the dignity of the individual, a commitment to strategic autonomy – are more than just rhetorical filigree for grand speeches in Brussels.

In this parallel Europe, the story emerging from the pages of Le Monde concerning Judge Nicolas Guillou, the French magistrate at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, would be the political scandal of the century. It would be the kind of affair that topples governments and reignites a proud European mindfulness.

But we do not inhabit that Europe. In this really-existing Europe, Guillou’s ordeal has been shrugged off, a symptom of our continent’s descent into a state of uncontested vassalage.

Stripped bare, the facts of the case are disconcerting beyond measure.

Before us we have a French citizen. A magistrate of some note sitting on the bench of the ICC which European diplomacy went to great lengths to establish so as to turn the page from a past in which war criminals could hide behind their governments’ shielding. Meticulously following the procedures of his institution in the execution of his sworn duties, this judge authorized arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister for alleged war crimes in Gaza. In response, US President Donald Trump’s administration sanctioned Guillou.

The imposed sanctions are a masterclass in the evisceration of European sovereignty. They render Guillou a non-person, not only in the United States, but also in his own country – the beating heart of Europe. He has been locked out of the global digital realm (WhatsApp, all Google apps, and social media like Facebook and Instagram). Even his French bank account is virtually useless, given the ban on all payments that require the cooperation of Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and the supposedly European SWIFT interbank messaging system. As if that were not enough, when he recently tried to book a hotel room in France, Expedia canceled his reservation a few hours later.

Trump’s success at “flooding the zone” with outrageous behavior must not cause us to miss the significance of these developments. The US government has decided to sanction – or, essentially, de-person – a European judge for carrying out his official duties in Europe while working in an institution established by Europe’s elected representatives at great cost and effort.

The real tragedy is not that Trump is throwing his weight around. It is in the nature of hegemons to bully those who inconvenience them. The real tragedy, or perhaps farce, lies in Europe’s reaction. Did our governments respond with a unified, thunderous condemnation? Did they trigger retaliatory measures and immediately create European financial and digital channels to protect their own judiciary and citizens from extraterritorial bullying? Alas, the response was a tragicomic spectacle of utter and complete acquiescence.

European banks, cowed by a stern look from a US Treasury official in Washington, rushed to close Guillou’s accounts. European companies, whose compliance departments act as extensions of the US authorities, refuse to provide him services. Meanwhile, European institutions – the Commission and the Council – look the other way, wringing their hands and muttering platitudes about the “complexities” of transatlantic relations. They are not merely failing to protect Guillou; they are actively enforcing US sanctions against their own citizen.

During a week when European leaders loudly protested how the US had sidelined them in drawing up a peace deal for Ukraine, their silence over Guillou’s treatment completely normalized the erosion of their authority. From Trump’s perspective, they swapped the challenging, messy project of sovereignty for the comfortable decline of a US protectorate. How else could French President Emmanuel Macron have expected Trump to interpret his decision to treat the economic assassination of a French judge on French soil as nothing more than an unfortunate technical glitch or a minor bureaucratic snafu? Did he and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz really believe that sacrificing their citizens to Trump would gain them a seat at the negotiating table on issues such as Ukraine and Palestine, which are of existential importance to Europe?

No, Guillou’s Kafkaesque nightmare should not surprise us. What should be shocking is the silence surrounding it. We should be outraged not only by US actions, but also by Europe’s inaction. Guillou’s case is a stark metaphor for Europe itself: a union of nation-states that helped build an international court to uphold its values, allowing a foreign power to punish its own judge for doing so, and then helped to enforce the punishment. This is a union that has lost its way, its soul, and its spine, turning Europeans into willing extras in the theater of our own diminution.

When, in a few years’ time, almost everyone is claiming that they opposed Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, the world will remember Judge Guillou fondly. But the world will also remember Europe’s leading politicians not just for their cowardice but for their inattention to the simple fact that those who fail to uphold their own values become irrelevant.Email

Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis born 24 March 1961 is a Greek economist, politician, and co-founder of DiEM25. A former academic, he served as the Greek Minister of Finance from January to July 2015. Since 2019, he is again a Member of Greek Parliament and MeRA25 leader. He is the author of several books including, Another Now (2020). Varoufakis is also a professor of Economics – University of Athens, Honorary Professor of Political Economy – University of Sydney, Honoris Causa Professor of Law, Economics and Finance – University of Torino, and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Political Economy, Kings College, University of London.

In this livestream, Yanis Varoufakis and Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko explore how EU leaders are undermining Ukraine to justify their plans to re-arm Europe. If EU leaders won’t send troops and won’t negotiate, whom does their “solidarity” really serve? And why are some in Brussels worried that peace itself would threaten their new militarisation agenda?

Cocks Coming Back Home to, well, not Roost, but to Gouge, Scratch, Cut, Swipe, Kill

“Even an empire cannot control the long-term effects of its policies. That is the essence of blowback.”

by Paul Haeder / December 2nd, 2025

Hmm, genocide and boat captains and mates murdered by accused sexual predator and alcohol abusing Cap’n Crunch Pete, a-okay, but cock fights in how many states, a federal crime?

This is yet more breaking news (sic) I have to contend with as I get ready to give a crowd a short-short master class on why media and the press are on life support with the plug almost completely pulled out by the, err, oligarchs, err, billionaires, err, multimillionaires?

Outlets that reach millions of news consumers are being denied access to rare briefings by Pentagon officials this week — sessions that are being held instead for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s hand-picked media organizations.

It’s not as if there’s little to talk about, with both the Senate and House Armed Services committees opening investigations into U.S. military strikes against alleged drug couriers in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Hegseth’s team says the briefings are part of special orientation events for a newly credentialed Pentagon press corps, consisting primarily of conservative outlets that agreed to his new rules for operation. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson is due to meet reporters Tuesday and Hegseth will do so Wednesday.

Most mainstream outlets exited the Pentagon this fall rather than agree to the new rules. The Defense Department says they are “common sense” regulations designed to prevent the spread of classified information. Most news outlets are worried they would effectively be agreeing only to report news approved by Hegseth.

 

Oh, Google AI says only “underdeveloped nations let the cocks fight:

• Countries with legal cockfighting: Legal in some regions of India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and parts of Mexico. It is also a popular sport in Spain and certain Latin American countries.
• Countries where it is illegal: In contrast to the above, many developed nations like the United States and the United Kingdom have made it illegal due to animal welfare concerns. Colombia recently banned it along with bullfighting.

The origin of cockfighting dates back thousands of years, but it was during Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage to the Philippines in 1521 that modern cockfighting was first documented by his chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, in the kingdom of Taytay. It’s a grisly and still-rampant blood sport, unnervingly present in the Volunteer State.

Most states banned cockfighting in the 19th century, and in the 21th century, Congress has made cockfighting a felony and banned it everywhere in the U.S. That federal legislative effort started in earnest in 2002 and it’s now a crime to fight animals in every part of the U.S. It’s also a crime to train birds for fighting, ship them across state, territorial or national lines, to traffic in the fighting weapons cockfighters attach to the birds’ legs, or to attend a fight or bring a minor to one.

Most recently a provision that outlawed cockfighting in the U.S. Territories was signed into law in the 2018 Farm Bill. We worked hard to secure the latest provision – banning animal fighting in the U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and Guam – and it won bipartisan support from Reps. Scott DesJarlais, R-Jasper, Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, Chuck Fleischman, R- Ooltewah, Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and then-Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Brentwood, who cast an ‘AYE’ vote to pass it.

Chickens . . . coming . . . home . . . to blowback, err, roost:

What are war crimes?

Murder, rape, torture… the chaos of wartime often leads to impunity for the crimes committed by the parties at war. These crimes car be carried out against combatants as well as innocent civilians.

Not all violations committed during war are legally considered war crimes. To qualify, they must fulfil certain criteria of purpose and gravity, notably:

Existence of an armed conflict

Nexus between the conduct and the armed conflict (the crime was committed in pursuit of the conflict’s aim)
Serious violation of international humanitarian law
Criminal conduct engaging individual criminal responsibility
Unlike other human rights violations, war crimes do not engage State responsibility but individual criminal responsibility. This means that individuals can be tried and found personally responsible for these crimes.

Prohibited acts include:

Murder;
Torture or other cruel or inhuman treatment (including mutilation);
Taking hostages;
Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population;
Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historical monuments or hospitals;
Pillage
Rape and other forms of sexual violence
Conscription or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities.
Unlawful deportation transfer or confinement of protected persons.

Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms Sunday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed a war crime following a report that he ordered a follow-on attack to kill survivors of a boat strike in September.

“It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda.” ― Chalmers Johnson,Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was arrested for shooting two National Guard soldiers last week in D.C., was briefly imprisoned in Afghanistan alongside other members of his Zero Unit team, according to five Afghan sources. The detention by local government forces came after Zero Units killed Afghan police forces in Kandahar they were supposed to be defending.

Notwithstanding their arrests, there were no longterm consequences for the Zero Units; the Afghan state had no authority over them and the Americans shielded them. During his few days in prison, which Lakanwal and his comrades had to face after the incident in Kandahar, they still received their pay from the CIA, sources said.

The CIA did not respond to a request for comment. Story by Emran Feroz and Abdul Rahman Lakanwal

The Ones We Left Behind

The Hmong ethnic group made up a large portion of the CIA’s “Secret Army” in Laos during the Vietnam War. The Hmongs conducted operations against the North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong guerrillas staging along the Ho Chi Minh trail, as well as against the Laotian Pathet Lao communists.

Hmong fighters were central to CIA operations between 1962 and 1975. Vast though they were, these ops were always regarded as secret. As a result, when the Pathet Lao rose to power, the CIA more or less disavowed the Secret Army.

 

A similar but more obscure story concerns Vietnam’s Degar people, better known as the Montagnards, a French term meaning “mountain people.” America’s collective amnesia about the Motagnards is odd, considering they featured prominently in stories by Time and in John Wayne’s The Green Berets.

The Montagnards are descendents of Polynesians who settled in Vietnam’s rugged central highlands. The Montagnards and Vietnamese never really got along. The mountain people sided with Saigon during the Vietnam War, but never trusted the southern regime.

Christ, it has been a while since I tuned into Aaron Mate and Katie Halper, and, well, no thanks. Their long  yammerings and side-mouthed jokes, well, not my cup of tequila these days, as I tire of the soft-shoeing so-called alt media and their secular attitudes. Have at it, though:

This America, the racists, along with France and Germany and UK and Israel (sic), so much pain and suffering in African countries, but now?

Listen up:

Chickens, uhh, coming back to roost? All those uniformed, err, soldiers of fortune, and blood lust hunters, uh? Hundreds of U.S. troops have been denied VA claims linked to 1980s duty in Panama amid toxic chemicals and Agent Orange remnants.

Steven Price grew up in Panama and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1981. For his first base, he “signed up to go back home,” volunteering for duty at the Panama Canal Zone, where more than 10,000 soldiers were stationed in the 1980s.

He spent three and a half years in Panama, first as a radio operator and then as a linguist, deploying to Honduras and El Salvador. He was, he remembers, constantly amid toxic pesticides. To control insects, it the poisons were mixed with diesel to be sprayed from trucks. Duty in Panama also meant exposure to the remnants of herbicides, including Agent Orange, that had been routed through the bases in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s on its way to combat in Vietnam.

Price left the Army in 1987. Now 66, Price is a 100% disabled veteran who was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Ischemic Heart Disease. In recent decades, Price and hundreds of other veterans of Panama discovered troubling information they were not privy to during their service, but became relevant as they were diagnosed with a range of health issues.

And where was he during the Obama Administration? Fred, come on, the country was always GOING backwards?

Fred Gray, who still practices law every day, will turn 95 a few days after the nation marks the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But now, Gray worries that the progress he and so many others fought for against those problems is under threat and says that the nation is due for a second civil rights movement.

*****

This is the reality of Amerikkka, way before Ike’s Military Industrial Complex speech.

Rockefeller! Always something to do with those folk. Wall Street has overlooked a class of stocks that typically outperforms the market but is currently offering the best bargain in nearly 30 years, according to Ruchir Sharma, chair of Rockefeller International.

We are DEAD: There’s a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’ in these stocks right now, no matter how the AI boom ends, market veteran says

What is it about those chosen ones always sticking together?

Scarlett Johansson has defended her ongoing support for Woody Allen, who has been disavowed by much of the film industry over sexual abuse allegations made by his stepdaughter, Dylan Farrow.

The actress — who has starred in three movies directed by Allen in “Match Point,” “Scoop” and “Vicky Christina Barcelona” — is one of few names to have publicly stood by the filmmaker over the claims, first made in 1992 and brought up again in the wake of the #MeToo movement, claims that Allen has consistently denied and have been investigated and dismissed by New York authorities.

War, Wall Street, Worthless Workers, We the People: Oregon’s largest transit agency will reduce bus service on a handful of routes beginning Sunday. This is the first of three service cuts that Portland metro area’s TriMet expects to make over the next 13 months.

The immediate schedule change will reduce frequency on five bus lines after 7 p.m., when passenger loads are at their lowest. The lines affected are FX2, 35, 52, 77 and 81.

We can keep saying Banana Republic, but many I have been in have bus services!

Buses or bombs on our minds?

Service members’ uncertainty over whether they will be asked to carry out an illegal order or pressured to go against their training is likely to be exacerbated after The Washington Post and CNN late last week reported that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors aboard a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea this fall.

*****

Again, double taps:

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Monday that on Sept. 2, Hegseth authorized Adm. Frank Bradley to carry out a follow-up strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean; the strike reportedly killed two people who were hanging onto the burning vessel, having survived an initial strike.

*****

Ghouls, man, these Anglo-Franco-Germanic-Saxon ghouls!

Klanada: Canada clinches deal to join Europe’s €150B defense scheme

“Welcome to SAFE, Canada!” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media. “When like-minded partners join forces on security and defence in a turbulent world, our countries grow stronger, our industries benefit and our citizens are safer.”

The timing aligns with a major SAFE milestone: Kubilius announced on X that all 19 participating EU countries had submitted their spending plans that will be financed by low interest SAFE loans.

He added that 15 members included support for Ukraine in their plans, involving “billions, not millions” — something the Commission has been keen to encourage.

*****

Lawyers, again and again, ruling the roost.

Fucking LAWYERS.

A federal appeals court said on Monday that Alina Habba had been serving unlawfully as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, dealing a blow to the Trump administration and most likely setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court.

Ms. Habba is one of a number of U.S. attorneys whom the Trump administration has sought to keep in power through a series of unusual maneuvers even though she was neither confirmed by the Senate nor appointed by district trial court judges — the two traditional pathways. Defendants in New Jersey had challenged her authority as U.S. attorney, leading to Monday’s decision.

*****

Chickens coming home to, well, TikTok?

 

“Part of the problem for the shortage of manufacturing jobs is the lack of education and training. For example, learning to take a diesel engine out of a Ford Super Duty truck takes at least five years. The current system is not meeting the standard,” he noted.

Farley also pointed to the lack of investment in education for such jobs and lack of trade schools to conduct trainings. “We do not have trade schools. We are not investing in educating a next generation of people like my grandfather who had nothing, who built a middle-class life and a future for his family,” he felt.

CHICKENS coming home to ROOST?

Jews in Politics: At a campaign event in the Bronx last month, a congressional candidate quizzed a cheering crowd:

“What do you think would happen if the US ended all aid to Israel?”

At a Thanksgiving gathering with voters, another candidate in the same race fielded questions about affordability – but also about “moral leadership” when it came to Israel’s war in Gaza. A third candidate vying for the same seat devoted much of his campaign’s launch video to lambasting the current member of Congress representing the district over the funding he’s received from the pro-Israel lobby.

The incumbent in question – congressman Ritchie Torres – is one of the most staunchly pro-Israel advocates in Congress. Dalourny Nemorin, one of his challengers for the Democratic nomination to represent the district calls him the “poster boy” for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac. “Ritchie Torres cares more about Bibi than he does about the Bronx,” Michael Blake, another challenger, said in the launch video.

We are currently in the Age of Trump, where genocide in Gaza is unapologetically livestreamed. The Nobel Committee could have awarded the 2025 prize to Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu, but the optics would have been too blatant. Instead, they selected a photogenic longtime war monger and coup collaborator, a full-throated proponent of violence, an habitual liar, a Trump sycophant, and an ardent Zionist.

That laureate is Venezuelan ultra-right politician María Corina Machado. As an added bonus for Washington, her award boosts the escalating US war against Venezuela. Marco Rubio, a senior US government official and key architect of the regime-change crusade, campaigned for her with the Nobel Committee. — Trump Commands Venezuela’s Heavens Closed

 

In striking contrast, the US Peace Prize – an arguably more honorable honor than the Nobel –was awarded on November 23 to Gerry Condon, a Veterans for Peace former president and current board member. He accepted the award “on behalf of many wonderful activists who work for peace and solidarity with people around the globe.”

Michael Knox, chair of the US Peace Memorial Foundation, presented the award. Since 2009, its honorees have included Christine Ahn, Ajamu Baraka, David Swanson, Ann Wright, Veterans For Peace, Kathy Kelly, CODEPINK, Chelsea Manning, Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Dennis Kucinich, and Cindy Sheehan.  — Roger D. Harris

 

Russia, anyone? China?

Maduro:

“I say it clearly to the world: The United States is planning to plunder Venezuelan oil… they want to seize the largest oil reserve in the world as if Venezuela were a land without a people.

That will not happen… not while I am leading this nation.”

Whitney Webb:

I’m excited to announce that Iain Davis’ new amazing book is available for pre-order via Papercut Publishing House, a new publishing company brought to you by Mark Goodwin and myself that will be publishing more books in the future as well as an upcoming Unlimited Hangout-affiliated print magazine.

Iain’s new book, due to print+ship later this month, is a masterpiece and a must read to understand the new “counter-elites” that have risen up on the wave of discontent of the Covid era and post-Covid era to ostensibly replace and challenge the previous crop of unelected elites. Using their own words and works, Iain artfully details the counter-elites’ philosophies, ambitions, and desired policies and what they actually portend, using their own words and writings as evidence for his arguments. Far from offering a favorable alternative to the digital tyranny that many rightfully oppose, these counter-elites have merely re-branded many of those same tyrannical policies, with the only meaningful difference being that they have optimized those policies even more for oligarchs like themselves. While many have worked to brand themselves as “libertarians,” their actual beliefs will shock you.

This is not populism and nothing these people offer is about promoting freedom, democracy or even free markets. All of those things will become relics of the past if the so-called counter-elites succeed. Iain has unmasked the would-be wardens of the digital gulag and there has never been a more important time to educate yourself about these dangerous ideas and just how intimately tied to the halls of power they have become.

 

Venezuelan citizens join local militias to defend their homeland from a US attack

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Paul Haeder has been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.