Category Archives: Commentary

The horrifying collapse of a south Florida condo should alarm us all about the next reactor catastrophe. Continue reading →

The American political system is complicated, but fixing it doesn’t have to be. Continue reading →

Last week, when I received an email from former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel’s wife, Whitney, I figured the news would not be good. Mike, whose longshot presidential campaign I supported after he announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination on April 17, 2006, had been transferred to hospice care in California. Sadly, Mike succumbed on June 26 to multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood plasma cells. Mike’s family and I were hoping he would, at least, make it to June 29—today—the 50th anniversary of his reading of the then-classified Pentagon Papers in the Senate and, thus, into the Congressional Record. Continue reading →

The killing of a Muslim family on June 6 in Ontario, Canada, again presented an opportunity for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to brand himself as a voice of reason and communal harmony. However, Trudeau’s amiable and reassuring language is designed to veil a sinister reality which has, for many years, hidden the true face of Canadian politics. Continue reading →

While multimillionaire well-vaccinated Fox “News” hosts continue to sow doubt about masks and Covid vaccines to jack up the billions in revenue the channel brings in every year for the Murdoch family, the CEO of a hospital chain in Missouri is begging them to tell the truth. Continue reading →

When former US President Barack Obama used an old cliché to denigrate his political opponent, the late US Senator John McCain, he triggered a political controversy lasting several days. Continue reading →

If there is an absolute maxim by which the American government seems to operate, it is that the taxpayer always gets ripped off. Continue reading →

House Republicans are blaming Democrats for the rise in Chipotle burrito prices. Continue reading →

It was common knowledge that a U.S. failure to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) before Iran’s June presidential election would help conservative hardliners to win the election. Indeed, on Saturday, June 19, the conservative Ebrahim Raisi was elected as the new president of Iran. Continue reading →

The US government has shut down multiple news media websites based in the Middle East, including Iran’s state-owned Press TV, and al-Masirah TV which is owned by the Houthi group Ansarullah in Yemen. The Department of Justice said on Tuesday it had seized 36 Iranian-linked websites, claiming without evidence that they were associated with “either disinformation activities or violent organizations” and were shut down for a violation of US sanctions. Continue reading →

Not that you asked, but I’m fine, thanks, how are you? Elated, energized, depressed or indifferent? Lately, it feels as if the country is going through a lengthy bout of bipolar disorder. Each highlight of our glorious post-Trump, semi-post-pandemic lives is countered by moments so dismal it sometimes feels as if we may never come out of the hole of anger, despair, and bigotry he and his followers created. But we can. Continue reading →

In a world ravaged by a deadly viral pandemic and a nation recovering from a violent coup attempt, the words of famed science fiction writer Philip K. Dick are prescient. Continue reading →

The new CEO fronting for America Inc. completed his first meeting among our Euro lapdogs—officially known as NATO—and had a more important meeting with Putin in which, according to media servants of market forces, he let him know who’s boss of the universe. Politely, of course, because even this glorified clerk understands the danger of provoking a world war which would spare few of us if any. An unedited interview of the Russian president, available online if American authorities of freedom and democracy haven’t already removed it, clearly reveals the infantile ignorance of a network assailant posing as objective reporter and the often amused reactions of the Russian statesman and leader of a nation once hanging on the ropes under the abuse of global capital now a world power again and much of that due to his leadership. It, like so many other examples, glaringly highlights the descent of the American empire with little global power remaining but its ability to blow up earth and commit mass murder more effectively than any other nation. But it is also susceptible to almost as much horror as it might inflict on powerless nations by powerful nations now able to retaliate in kind, which we can all be thankful for since it’s the only thing stopping us from attempted greater slaughters than we already conduct which we sell as advancing the cause of peace and democracy. Continue reading →

Fifty years ago this month, on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a “full scale attack” on drug use. It was the beginning of the War on Drugs. Continue reading →

China’s increasingly aggressive geopolitical and economic stance in the world is unleashing a fierce bipartisan backlash in America. That’s fine if it leads to more public investment in basic research, education, and infrastructure—as did the Sputnik shock of the late 1950s. But it poses dangers as well. Continue reading →

In the later years of an abusive relationship I was in, my abuser had become so confident in how mentally caged he had me that he’d start overtly telling me what he is and what he was doing. He flat-out told me he was a sociopath and a manipulator, trusting that I was so submitted to his will by that point that I’d gaslight myself into reframing those statements in a sympathetic light. Toward the end one time he told me “I am going to rape you,” and then he did, and then he talked about it to some friends trusting that I’d run perception management on it for him. Continue reading →

Ronald Reagan, the most anti-woman president of the 20th century, was buried 17 years ago this June. Too bad his policies weren’t buried with him. Continue reading →

The new Israeli government takes office already largely paralyzed. With eight diverse parties, they agree only on two things. Continue reading →

On June 16, US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a Joint Statement on Strategic Stability, in which they “reaffirm the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” and “seek to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.” Continue reading →

Back in the mid-nineteen-fifties, the prolific, progressive political economist, Harvard’s John Kenneth Galbraith, developed his “theory of countervailing powers.” He asserted as big business got bigger, its overreach would be constrained by strong labor unions, regulators, and antitrust enforcement. Inside the realm of large companies, big retail chains could check the power of large manufacturers. Continue reading →

On the evening of July 17, 2016, as delegates, media, and VIPs gathered for a Republican National Convention eve “Welcome to Cleveland” bash at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the shore of Lake Erie, Tucker Carlson, who is increasingly using his Fox News program to tout lunatic conspiracy theories, hosted a hush-hush strictly invitation-only dinner meeting at the downtown Hilton Hotel. Carlson recently brandished a new bit of lunacy by stating that this year’s January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was planned and carried out by the FBI. Continue reading →

Here’s a thought-provoking bumper sticker: “The system is fixed. We must break it.” Continue reading →

Juneteenth has become the latest iteration of liberal capture of Black politics, opportunistic virtue signaling, and the intentional misrepresentation of America’s history. Continue reading →

Between daycare closures, school closures, and nursing homes becoming hotbeds for the deadly virus, the COVID-19 pandemic turned millions of people into caregivers overnight. Continue reading →

Who hasn’t had difficulty just getting through the multi-layered, often automated call center of your telephone company? Never mind getting a solution to your problem in due time. Continue reading →

West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin represents the last of the segregationist southern Democrats, once known as the Dixiecrats. The term Dixiecrats was the slang term given to the breakaway States’ Rights Democratic Party who followed South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond out of the party in 1948 in protest of the desegregation policies of President Harry S Truman. In 1964, Thurmond left the Democratic Party to support GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. By 1968, Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon cemented Republican control over the Dixiecrats by adopting his “Southern Strategy,” which saw the Republican Party adopt many of the anti-civil rights policies of the Dixiecrats. Continue reading →

Was SARS-COV-2—the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic—created (or at least weaponized by being made transmissible to and between humans) in a Chinese research lab? Was it then leaked, accidentally or intentionally, from that lab into the human population? It’s impossible to overstate the explosive potential of a provable “yes” answer to those two questions. Continue reading →

ProPublica’s bombshell report on America’s super-wealthy paying little or nothing in taxes reveals not only their humongous wealth but also how they’ve parlayed that wealth into political power to shrink their taxes to almost nothing. Continue reading →

I signed up for the COVID-19 vaccine on a public health website and got my two shots at a Salvation Army facility on the northwest side of Chicago. The site was efficiently and competently run. The experience provided a small glimpse into how a true national health care system—like they have in other developed countries—might look and feel. No one demanded to see my insurance card or sent me a bill. Continue reading →

Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned. So consider this a first draft. Continue reading →

“Defunding” the police has often turned out to be an accounting trick, but community control of police—a righteous demand—must also ensure that all government functions address human needs. Continue reading →