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Trump’s Frightening Picks for U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Stephen Zunes The Progressive
Among the many disturbing appointments by President-elect Donald Trump are the people charged with conducting U.S. policy in the Middle East. Trump’s ignorance of the region will make him even more dependent on his advisers than most Presidents. And that’s not good news.

The Green Party Should Stop Running Presidential Candidates

Tom Gallagher opEdNews
Could the Greens survive and even thrive as a strictly local party? Perhaps -- Canada does provide a nearby example of voters frequently supporting one party in local elections and another in national. But what does seem clear is that the Greens will not thrive as a presidential party. If Jill Stein wants to run, let her enter the Democratic primaries -- I might vote for her.

Cops of the Pacific? The U.S. Military’s Role in Asia in the Age of Trump

Tim Shorrock TomDispatch
Donald Trump is certainly an unpredictable figure, but at the moment it looks like the only genuine opponents of the status quo may be the democratic opposition movement in South Korea, the anti-base movement in Okinawa, and what remains of the peace movement in the United States. Unfortunately, while the Pentagon has been focused on the military situation in Asia, the American antiwar movement has largely left Asia behind in the decades since the Vietnam War ended.

Go Red! Thoughts on the Labor Movement in the age of Trump. Response to Fletcher and Wing, Portside December 5, 2016

Peter Olney Portside
I argue that a defection of working class voters to Trump was key to the loss of historic battleground states, and thus the election. These are voters who have been voting for change at least since 2008 and they haven’t gotten it from a corporatist Democratic party. The problem in Fletcher and Wing's analysis of working class support for Trump is that they resort to income as a proxy for class.

Activists: Charges in Flint Crisis Won’t Restore Faith in Government

Auditi Guha Rewire
Karina Petri, founder of Project Flint, said grassroots organizations like hers are struggling to find a voice for residents who have given up, some of whom have gone back to using the tainted water because they no longer care about the health consequences.

North Carolinians Revolt Over Republicans' Brazen Post-Election Coup

Lauren McCauley Common Dreams
"The avalanche of anti-voter surprise bills introduced yesterday by the extremist leadership of the North Carolina General Assembly in a constitutionally suspect 'extra session' is an insult to the democratic values held by all people of goodwill in this state."

What Percent Virus Are You?

Hannah Moots FiveThirtyEight
With advances in genome sequencing and computational tools to analyze genomic information, researchers are able to estimate that about 8 percent of the human genome is made of sequences that originated as invasive retroviruses. To put that number in perspective, genes make up about 1 percent to 1.5 percent of your genome.

Walter Rodney and the Racial Underpinnings of Global Inequality

Tianna Paschel Items
While inequality has become a topic of increased popularity and politicization in recent years, most of the attention has focused on how 1% own an increasingly large share of the world’s wealth, rather than on inequalities between nations. In a global context in which national borders and citizenship pose few barriers to the mobility of capital, the reality is also a story of the world’s richest nations continuing to reap a disproportionate amount of the globe’s profits.