Recently the least popular person alive said, “I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”

Already unpopular with kind and decent people, Trump may have — with that comment — tanked his popularity with every weapons company public relations hack on Earth. Their most deeply held pretense has always been that military spending isn’t needed for wars but rather to prevent wars.

Of course, Trump promised not to start any read more

According to an email on Tuesday from The Hill newspaper, “The Iran war is on the ballot in South Carolina, where GOP primary voters will determine the political fate of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a steadfast ally of President Trump and one of the Senate’s most hawkish members. Graham is heavily favored to eventually secure the Republican nomination, but polls show he may need to win a runoff first, in what would be a first for the four-term senator.”

Everyone’s first thought read more

Remarks from a webinar about the Peace Manifesto.

Hi. This is David Swanson and I’m speaking as Executive Director of World BEYOND War. I’m honored to be a part of celebrating one year of the peace manifesto that people can find and promote at activatingpeace.org.

Maybe celebrating is the wrong word and recommitting is the right one. I am still sick and tired of the culture of war and supportive of a culture of peace. If it’s OK, I’ll tell you a bit about what I mean by that. read more

There are a lot of ways in which we could reduce electoral candidate scandals. I want to point to a few that are, I think, the most undervalued.

1. The Murder Problem

As a society, we recruit, train, and condition many thousands of people to engage in intense campaigns of mass killing and destruction abroad, and we reward and praise them for it. When they struggle with the shift to a nonviolent, non-hating environment after completion of their so-called “service,” we blame ourselves for not giving them more read more

Trump has a trillion dollars a year for wars — a record amount, more than most other countries combined, more than the non-war federal discretionary budget, enough to attack Venezuela and Iran on his whim, enough to send drone-murder missiles into houses and boats around the world, enough to keep the weapons falling on Gaza and Ukraine, enough to fill new countries with U.S. bases, enough to build new nukes, enough to create a “golden dome” fantasy death machine, enough to do read more

When I was a kid it was fun to hang out on the U.S. National Mall by the Washington Monument, which reflected just fine in the Reflecting Pool, on the Fourth of July. The Beach Boys would jam on an outdoor stage with about 35 opening acts. We’d bounce beach balls overhead. There were no jets or tanks in sight.

Now the psychopath across the road prefers weapons parades and is planning to put gladiators in a cage on the White House lawn and have them fight for his entertainment. This bothers read more

Is voting for a boot to your own face exclusively a Kansas problem?

What is going on in California?

There’s a primary election for governor with three leading candidates, the top two of whom will compete in a runoff.

One of the three is a pro-corporate-oligarchy rightwing Republican who will lose the runoff. He wants to stop regulating businesses, slash taxes on gazillionaires, end income taxes on most people to reduce their interest in government, and cover California in sprawling roads and read more