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Common Dreams

News & Views | 1/7/20

Feature...


Marches against war with Iran will take place across the U.S.

by Eoin Higgins, staff writer
In communities nationwide, Americans "will urge restraint and that the United States avoid yet another unnecessary, costly war of choice in the Middle East."

News...


Trump and McConnell

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
A coalition of 29 national advocacy organizations argued Tuesday that "as long as the cloud of impeachment exists, it would be a grave mistake for the Senate to allow the president to continue making lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary."



by Julia Conley, staff writer
In a new Frontline documentary, a Border Patrol agent describes the pilot program he took part in nearly a year before the Trump administration officially unveiled its family separation policy—saying that while he was unhappy about separating children from their parents, he and other agents were following orders.



by Jake Johnson, staff writer
"Industry wants you to think universal healthcare is too expensive. In reality, it's our current system that's a wasteful, unsustainable disaster."



by Julia Conley, staff writer
Highlighting the thousands of dollars American households are forced to pay in healthcare costs that people in other wealthy countries save thanks to universal healthcare plans, two top economists wondered aloud this weekend why Americans have accepted increasingly high costs and poor health outcomes for decades.


U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's Vice Minister of Defense Khalid bin Salman meet Monday in the Oval Office.

by Eoin Higgins, staff writer
"A meeting with a foreign leader in the Oval Office should, at the very least, be on the public schedule with a read-out of the meeting released after it is over."



by Jake Johnson, staff writer
"Messages and bilateral exchanges are not enough," said Agnes Callamard.



by Jake Johnson, staff writer
"You can speak with American people from Tehran too and we will do that," said Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.


Bill de Blasio and Sadiq Khan

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
Ahead of a forum for local leaders from across the globe scheduled for March, Mayors Bill de Blasio of New York and Sadiq Khan of London on Tuesday called on every major city in the world to divest from the fossil fuel industries that are wrecking the planet.



by Jake Johnson, staff writer
Chris Dickman of the University of Sydney said "without any doubt at all" the animal death toll has exceeded one billion.


Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks as former Vice President Joe Biden gestures during the fourth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season in Westerville, Ohio on October 15, 2019.

by Eoin Higgins, staff writer
"I just don't think that that kind of record is going to bring forth the kind energy we need to defeat Trump."

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Views...


Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) march during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in the capital Tehran on September 22, 2018. (Photo: STR / AFP /Getty Images)

by Stephen Zunes
The assertions being repeated today seem based on apparently groundless claims from twelve years ago by the same people who said Iraq possessed weapons, weapons programs, and weapons systems that were such a grave threat that they ignited the U.S.-Iraq war.


Democratic presidential hopefuls (fromL) Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders arrive for the sixth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season co-hosted by PBS NewsHour & Politico at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California on December 19, 2019. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP / via Getty Images)

by Norman Solomon
Political positions on class warfare don't always run parallel to positions on military warfare. But they have now clearly aligned in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.


A woodchip mill burnt by bushfires is seen as smoke rises in Quaama in Australia's New South Wales state on January 6, 2020. - Reserve troops were deployed to fire-ravaged regions across three Australian states on January 6 after a torrid weekend that turned swathes of land into smouldering, blackened hellscapes. (Photo by SAEED KHAN / AFP)

by John Fleming
What’s happening Down Under is a dark preview of the kind of chaos and destruction that’s awaiting the rest of the world in this rapidly unfolding climate crisis... It sounds dramatic because it is.


Supporters cheer as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to the crowd at a campaign rally on July 26, 2019 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

by Ilana Novick
The moderates of the party can't stand what Bernie is and what he stands for, but they apparently can't find a way to beat him.


But really... what has the U.S. accomplished over the last thirty years?

by Andrew Bacevich
Since 1989, intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs.


Major General Qasem Soleimani, pictured here on April 11, 2016, was killed Friday in Iraq by a U.S. drone attack ordered by President Donald Trump. (Photo: Khamenei.ir/cc)

by Anthony Dworkin
This new development shows how the influence of the open-ended military campaign against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State is washing back into the inter-state realm, imperiling the line between war and peace.

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