As the country ushers in commemorations for ‘International Women’s Month’, 42 million households have been hit with a significant reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits impacting the ability of millions of mothers to feed their children. In December 2022, Congress voted to end the pandemic emergency allotments after passing the government funding package the previous year. After nearly three years, the program that temporarily increased federal SNAP benefits for low-income families came to an end on March 1st. Eighteen states already ended the pandemic increase in SNAP benefits before March. The remaining 32 states and the District of . . .
ukraine
Why and How To End The War In Ukraine
Jacqueline Luqman was a panelist on the February 16, 2023 webinar Why and How to End the War in Ukraine , which was sponsored by Chicago Area Peace Action. These were her remarks. What I think we need to be clear on is that the US, the EU, and NATO are directly responsible for lighting the embers of war in Ukraine back in 2014. From late 2013 until February 2014, the Obama/Biden administration sent weapons, money, and encouragement to anti-democratic right-wing elements in Ukraine to execute “regime change” and overthrow the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. The coup . . .
Why Are You Actually Mad about Viktor Bout?
The news of Britney Griner’s release in exchange for Russian Viktor Bout was met with some very interesting and troubling conversation at least in the social media world yesterday. For some reason people took great objection to the trade, bemoaning the fact that Griner – a star of the WNBA – was exchanged for a “convicted arms dealer” Viktor Bout, and such a trade was a bad one. I had several people comment that because Bout is such a bad guy because he is a “convicted arms dealer,” they had nothing to celebrate since he was released. Oh, celebrating Britney . . .
Liberal Democracy: The Bedfellow of Fascism
Antifascism, as a politic and concept, has grown more appealing in the last 6 years because of the rise of right-wing authoritarianism domestically and globally rooted in patriarchy and ongoing (settler) colonialism. Nonetheless, there remains much confusion about fascism. Earlier this month, I was a featured panelist for a roundtable discussion with the editors of For Antifascist Futures: Against the Violence of Imperial Crisis and author of On Microfascism: Gender War and Death at the Red Emma’s bookstore in Baltimore. It was a compelling cultural and political exploration wherein we engaged the feminist and anticolonial dimensions of antifascism with readers . . .
For Haitian Asylum Seekers, Biden is the More Effective Evil
For many 2020 voters of Presidential candidate Joe Biden and Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, their historic electoral win would symbolize a drastic change from the vituperative language and callous policies that came to define the chaotic and destructive Trump years. Whether it was the Trump administration’s criminalization of asylum seekers, separation of mother and child at the border through their cruel “zero tolerance” strategy, reduction in refugee resettlement, or use of xenophobic rhetoric before racializing a viral disease like COVID-19 that would stoke rampant Sinophobia, a more “compassionate” approach was promised by his would-be successors. However, as the late journalist . . .
Biden Gaslights Us With $10,000 Student Loan Forgiveness
Just as I suspected, Biden is announcing that he will approve the cancellation of $10,000 in federal student loan debt. I guess Biden is expecting some kind of returns on his efforts in the midterm elections, but I seem to recall his campaign promise to “Forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities and private Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) for debt holders earning up to $125,000.” That’s directly from the Biden/Harris campaign website as confirmed by Politifact and their Biden Promise Tracker (which you should definitely check . . .
Biden Could Cancel Your Loan If He Wasn’t Busy Arming Cops & Ukraine
The Biden Administration is facing yet another looming deadline as the last extension on the pause on student loan repayments is approaching the August 31 deadline. The Department of Education has been telling student loan servicers however NOT to contact borrowers to start demanding that money as the deadline approaches, which signals they are expecting the Biden Administration to announce another extension. And honestly, that’s the least, and I mean the very absolute least Biden could do; he should have done it already. Scott Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, which represents all of the companies . . .
Complicity, Imperialism, & the Summit of the Americas
The U.S. excluded Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the recent Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles. While there was widespread condemnation against the U.S., only six heads of state had the courage to decline the invitation. An opportunity to strike a blow against U.S. imperialism was lost. And so it was that another historical opportunity was missed by the countries of the Caribbean, Central and South America, with the exception of a few who had the courage to take a stand. The majority of leaders from the region, those who Maurice Bishop so aptly called “yard fowls”, and . . .