Live Video – By Glynn Wilson – President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the White House for the first time on Thursday night on the one year anniversary of the national emergency declaration over the coronavirus pandemic, and broke the news that his administration will beat previous announced deadlines for getting Americans vaccinated and…
Relief On the Way: House Passes Senate Version of Biden’s $1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan
By Glynn Wilson – Nanci Pelosi’s House approved the amended Senate version of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan on Wednesday by a vote of 220 to 211, sending the historic anti-poverty legislation to the president for his signature. It could be signed and become law by the weekend, with $1,400 coronavirus pandemic…
Penny Dreadful Showtime Series Ends With the Words of Wordsworth
Spoiler Alert By Glynn Wilson – What would we do without television entertainment and literature in the age of COVID? While I’m not a huge fan of Hollywood monster movies, it was hard to resist John Logan’s Penny Dreadful, a Showtime series now on Netflix depicting the dark side of Victorian England in the 19th…
Toxic Coal Ash is Back on the Agenda as an Environmental Issue of Our Time
Editor’s Note: For the past five years, while the New American Journal has continued to keep up with some major stories related to the natural environment such as the latest news on global warming and climate change, our priorities have tended to focus largely on coverage of national science and public affairs, and some state…
Bloody Sunday Anniversary Commemoration Goes Virtual in 2021 Due to COVID
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It was 56 years ago today (Sunday) that John Lewis led civil rights marchers north across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to face Alabama State Troopers and Dallas County sheriffs deputies on the other side with billy clubs, cattle prods and tear gas. By putting their…
Relief is On the Way: Senate Passes Biden’s $1.9 Trillion American Rescue Plan
House to Vote on Changes Tuesday – By Glynn Wilson – In a historic vote of epic proportions that demonstrates the paramount importance of voting and elections in a democracy, Democrats in the Senate voted 50-49 on Saturday to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan for coronavirus pandemic relief without a single…
House Impeachment Manager Sues Trump In Federal Court for Inciting Capitol Insurrection
By Glynn Wilson – House impeachment manager Eric Swalwell, a Democrat in Congress from California, filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday against former President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the Capitol insurrection on January 6 to delay certifying Joe Biden as president. Attempting to move the impeachment case made by the…
Trump Insurrectionists Whine About Jail Time: Will Trump Be Charged With His Crimes?
By Glynn Wilson – Poor Richard. It’s not fair. Richard Barnett, that is, the Arkansas redneck Trump supporting insurrectionist and domestic terrorist who was infamously photographed during the Capitol riot on January 6 with his feet propped up on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk. He shouted at a federal judge during a virtual court appearance…
More Right-Wing Extremists Arrested for Threatening Congress
Staff Report – The Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to make arrests of right-wing extremists for threatening members of Congress, according to new announcements from the United States Department of Justice. Jaap Willem Lijbers, a Dutch national and member of the Bugaloo Bois, was arrested Tuesday on a federal criminal complaint charging him with illegal…
Broad, Bipartisan Support Persists for $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Package as Senate Debates Bill
Staff Report – As the Senate prepares to debate President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, new public opinion polling shows strong bipartisan support for the legislation is holding up against an uptick in Republican attacks on its size, scope and price tag. In the new survey, conducted Feb. 26 to March 1, 77…
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer Reintroduces ‘For the People Act’
Guest Column – By House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer – Originally written for Roll Call – In 2018, House Democrats won the majority on a promise that we would refocus the chamber on delivering “For the People.” The centerpiece of that effort was HR 1, the For the People Act, comprehensive legislation to root…
Capitol Insurrection Investigation: Senate Hearings Probe Defense Officials
By Glynn Wilson – The public will get another chance to hear from Defense Department, intelligence agency and law enforcement officials this week in another Congressional hearing called to investigate the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6. It was a historic tragedy for American democracy incited by the former president and…
Two Independent Thinking News Writers Pass On in Knoxville
Editor’s Note: This news comes with no personal regrets, since I didn’t know either of the deceased. But I knew Jack Neely some when writing for Metro Pulse myself, one of the most interesting alternative weeklies in the country in print and online in the late 20th century. It’s a sad day when anyone dies,…
Black History Month: National Park Service Designates 11 New Historic Places to Civil Rights Network
Staff Report – As the nation continues to commemorate Black History Month, the National Park Service has added 11 new places to its growing system of sites and programs that chronicle the African American Civil Rights Movement. In the continuing struggle for racial equality, as told through a collection of powerful historical resources that commemorate,…
Wake Up: National Public Sleeping Day is No Excuse for Not Reading This
Sunday Reader – By Glynn Wilson – KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The east-facing window in this humble abode was enshrouded in fog the first thing Sunday morning, not the famous smoke you sometimes see in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Since it’s National Public Sleeping Day and the weather was not conducive to…
House Passes Biden’s $1.9 Billion American Rescue Plan With $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Increase
By Glynn Wilson – After working late into the night on Friday, the House passed a $1.9 trillion pandemic stimulus bill called the American Rescue Plan advocated by President Joe Biden by a party-line vote of 219 to 212, including an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. The bill…
Help is On the Way for People Searching for COVID Vaccines
By Glynn Wilson – After a year of federal confusion over the coronavirus pandemic and 500,000 deaths in the United States in large part because of the lack of a plan by the Trump administration, it’s only taken the Biden administration a month in office to come up with a national website to help Americans…
Capitol Insurrection Investigation: First Senate Hearings Probe Congressional Security Officials
By Glynn Wilson – The public will get its first chance to hear from the Congressional security officials this week who resigned in the wake of the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6 incited by the former president and commander-in-chief that disrupted the peaceful transfer of power as Electoral College votes…