Dear Progressive Reader,

Negotiations continue around the debt ceiling even though Congress has gone into recess for the holiday weekend, and President Biden has left Washington, D.C., for the Camp David Retreat. As cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates, we are truly racing toward a cliff—even if that “cliff date” has been extended slightly from June 1 to June 5. A key issue in the conversations is the insistence by Republicans on increasing “work requirements” for people receiving federal assistance from safety-net programs like SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid. It has been pointed out that then-Senator Joe Biden in 1996 supported such requirements during the so-called reform of welfare programs under then-President Bill Clinton. However, President Joe Biden told members of the press last week, “I’m not going to accept any work requirements that’s going to impact on medical health needs of people . . . . I’m not going to accept any work requirements that go much beyond what already exists.”

And that’s a good thing. As Cara Brumfield and Emily Andrews of the Center for Law and Social Policy point out in an op-ed this week, “The reality is that millions of workers rely on programs like Medicaid and SNAP because they are paid low wages, have unpredictable schedules, and lack benefits—all of which make it harder to meet the work requirements.” Meanwhile, the largest consumer of federal dollars in our budget, the U.S. military, remains untouched and not even questioned in these debt ceiling discussions.

As numerous writers discussed in our April/May issue of The Progressive, the military is a giant sinkhole of taxpayer dollars that not only damages countless individual lives; it has a longterm global negative effect on the future environment by fueling climate change. As Nobel-nominated peace activist Kathy Kelly writes in that issue, “We owe to future generations every possible effort to renounce all war and protect the planet.”

Speaking of war, and war criminals, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger turns 100 years old today. Even today, Kissinger is looked to in Washington by many as an “elder statesman” and adviser on international affairs. So far, to his credit, Biden is the first U.S. President in more than sixty years not to seek Kissinger’s advice. In February 1961, John F. Kennedy named Kissinger as a “consultant for foreign affairs.” Lyndon Johnson used Kissinger in the early peace talks with Vietnam, much to his later regret. And Kissinger’s role in the Nixon and Ford Administrations is well-documented in a series of recent articles on our website. In recent years, President Barack Obama honored him with an award, and Donald Trump called him “a man of immense talent.” The late journalist Christopher Hitchens, on the other hand, pointed out in his 2001 book The Trial of Henry Kissinger, “At any moment, one of [the country’s] most famous citizens may be found liable for terrorist actions under the Alien Tort Claims Act, or may be subject to an international request for extradition, or may be arrested if he travels to a foreign country, or may be cited for crimes against humanity by a court in an allied nation.” So, contrary to publicized plans, this centenarian unindicted war criminal might find it safer to spend his birthday quietly at home.

Elsewhere on our website, Rebecca Kemble chronicles recent court actions and other efforts to stop the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline; Jeff Abbott reports on growing calls in South America for justice for the victims of the U.S.-backed “Operation Condor” in the 1970s and 1980s; Howard Schneider reviews the new book Fancy Bear Goes Phishing on the dangers of cyberwar; and poet and civil rights activist Margaret Rozga writes about the importance of teaching history and the “anti-woke” efforts to suppress it. “The students I’ve taught do not want someone else’s idea of a feel-good education,” she notes. “In their desire to keep students ignorant, these anti-woke politicians may actually be fostering the next generation of activists.”

Also, Sarah Lahm reviews the new memoir by Asian American journalist Crystal Bui who covered the 2020 protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, following the murder of George Floyd by former officer Derek Chauvin. Ths week marked the third anniversary of that tragic killing, and you can read much of the coverage on our website at that time and since by clicking here. Unfortunately, as Brian Gilmore wrote on last year’s anniversary, “Sadly, we also know the killing of unarmed Black people by police has continued unabated.”

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - The new 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is still available. You can order one online.

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