The calculated killing of 173 journalists in Gaza, the systematic torture and kidnapping of reporters in Ukraine by Russian forces, and the gutting of transparency laws in New Jersey represent a global continuum of authoritarian repression, differing only in method, not in intent.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, sparked by the militant group’s most deadly attack on Israel in history, 173 journalists and media professionals have been killed in the Gaza Strip.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Gaza is now the world’s most dangerous place for journalists.  

A new RAND report on the so-called Retirement Savings for Americans Act (RSAA) reveals the latest con job in a decades-long grift: a flimsy, means-tested band-aid slapped over the gaping wound of America’s retirement crisis, designed to pacify the masses while ensuring Wall Street gets its cut.

Let’s cut through the bureaucratic fog. The RSAA dangles a pathetic 1% federal match for low-income workers—peanuts compared to the pension plunder of the last forty years.

Sure, the RAND model suggests a bottom-tier earner might scrape together $126,000 after 40 years of faithful contributions—assuming they never get sick, never face unemployment, and never need that money early to avoid homelessness.

The American ledger is unbalanced.

On one side, a sum so vast it defies comprehension: the wealth of a handful of billionaires now exceeds that of the bottom half of the nation. On the other, a debt of dignity, security, and opportunity owed to the millions who labor yet find themselves sinking.

This is not an accident of fate or the natural order of the market. It is, as activist Lisa McCormick argues in her revival of Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth” plan, the intended outcome of a system built upon a false and brutal premise—that the prosperity of the few must be purchased with the servitude of the many.

Foreign aid serves American interests—and cutting it is a costly mistake. 

The Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) represents a dangerous retreat from America's strategic interests disguised as fiscal responsibility.

Majorities of Americans want to expand the federal budget for healthcare (67%), education (66%), improvements to public infrastructure such as highways, bridges, and airports (66%), and Social Security (58%). Half want to cut back government spending on military aid (50%) and economic aid (51%) to other countries, bit this last item is also mired in misinformation.

For 75 years, misconceptions have distorted Americans' view of foreign aid. While polls show people believe it consumes 25% of the federal budget—and say that is should be 10%—the reality, before Trump's reckless cuts, foreign assistance was less than one percent of US spending. 

The U.S. ranks near the bottom among wealthy countries that provide funds to assist poor countries, with America's share below 0.2 percent of GNP.

For just one percent of the federal budget, U.S. foreign aid has delivered outsized returns: preventing pandemics, creating stable trade partners, and reducing the need for costly military interventions.

The enduring promise of democracy lies not in the grandeur of its institutions alone, but in its capacity to elevate every citizen through the sacred flame of knowledge.

For it is education that kindles the mind, dismantles the walls of privilege, and ensures that the reins of power and prosperity are held not by the few, but by the many.

Yet today, this promise is imperiled by a false prophet—a movement cloaked in the language of choice and innovation, but rooted in the erosion of the common good. The charter school experiment, lauded by some as a panacea, has too often become a betrayal of democracy’s egalitarian creed, diverting treasure and trust from public institutions while deepening the fissures of inequality.

Americans stand today at a crossroads.

One path leads us deeper into a system where people are left to struggle alone—told that their misfortune is their fault, and that help is weakness.

The other path leads us toward a future rooted in unity, where we embrace collective responsibility, promote true equality, and practice solidarity—not as slogans, but as national commitments.

While those who are born into wealth and even some who achieve success through sheer luck would have us believe they are somehow more deserving than the rest of us, there is no valid logic to support the notion that America would be better off if it is every man for himself.

We are stronger together, and as Abraham Lincoln said, "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate and individual capacities." 

The promise of democracy has always been twofold—not merely the right to cast a ballot, but the power to shape one’s destiny.

No instrument has proven more vital in securing this promise than education, the great leveler, the force that arms the people with the knowledge to demand their fair share of the nation’s wealth and power.

Far from a radical notion, this redistribution is as American as the revolution itself, a tradition woven into the fabric of our republic from its earliest days. To fear it is to fear democracy’s fullest expression; to embrace it is to fulfill the nation’s founding creed.

Small Firms Shrink, Giants Swallow: How America’s Mom‑and‑Pops Have Lost Their Grip on Receipts

It was a spring morning—or maybe a nightmare masquerading as news—but the numbers don’t lie: Fifty‑odd years ago, small businesses earned well over half of American business receipts. Today, they’re barely scraping up a third.

That seismic shift marks not a stumble, but a rout. Industry by industry, state by state, the slide has been slow, steady—and nearly invisible to those living it, like most elements of the brutal class war waged against the 99 percent of Americans who have lost their political rights, prospects for future prosperity, and even their health in a battle in which only one side is fighting.

Along the way, the party of the people sold out to the modern-day robber barons of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, who have cleverly rigged the system so both ends of the political establishment are working in their favor.

Republicans cherry-pick outrage while children die every day

One death is too many—but only if it fits the narrative.

Republicans have mastered the art of selective outrage, screaming bloody murder when an immigrant commits a crime but falling eerily silent when children are obliterated by American guns, Israeli bombs, or the slow violence of poverty.

The modern American economic system cannot be understood without confronting the central role of slavery in its development.

The conventional narrative of a dynamic, industrial North juxtaposed against a backward, agrarian South obscures the deep economic interdependencies that bound these regions together.

The stories of New York financiers, Virginia slaves, Connecticut shipbuilders, and Alabama land speculators reveal an integrated national economy where slavery was not an aberration but a driving force of capitalist expansion, which explains why the United States cannot progress without reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.

Reparations are not a handout; they are a recalibration. Until the U.S. acknowledges and repairs the stolen labor that built its economy, it will remain trapped in cycles of inequality, racial strife, and financial predation. The choice is clear: either continue the extractive legacy of slavery and vulture capitalism—or commit to repair, justice, and a truly inclusive economy.

There is already a Class War raging in America—but for decades, the working people have been losing.

The billionaire class, corporate lobbyists, and their political puppets in both parties have rigged the system against us. They’ve stripped away worker protections, crushed unions, and handed our tax dollars to Wall Street while leaving everyday Americans drowning in debt, medical bills, and stagnant wages.

I’m not just pointing this out—I’m saying it’s time to fight back.