Category Archives: Commentary

Resign, Donald Trump. There will now be a pause for gales of laughter. As if that will happen. Unless he bails a day or two before the inauguration so Pence can pardon him… Continue reading →

It can happen four ways. Continue reading →

In a sign that 2021 may get even more darkly weird than 2020, a mob of Trump supporters pushed their way into the US Capitol on January 6, putting politicians to flight and delaying, for a few hours, Congress’s quadrennial ritual of counting electoral votes and blessing the enthronement of the next President of the United States. Continue reading →

What should we expect in 2021? Continue reading →

After ruling for Assange against the Trump regime’s extradition request, UK Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied his legal team’s bail request for urgently needed/long denied medical care—unjustifiably saying the following on Wednesday: “I am satisfied that there are substantial grounds for believing that if Mr Assange is released today he would fail to surrender to court to face the appeal proceedings [sic],” adding, “As far as Mr Assange is concerned, this case has not yet been won…The outcome of this appeal is not yet known.” Continue reading →

In his infamous one-hour shakedown of Georgia’s secretary of state, wise-guy Donald Trump TWICE calls himself a “schmuck.” It’s a gross undershot. Continue reading →

Black people suffer because they have no real representation in Congress. The Congressional Black Caucus takes its orders from Nancy Pelosi, who serves corporations, not people. Continue reading →

The threat of fascism will hardly disappear when Donald Trump moves out of the White House in two weeks. On Capitol Hill, the Republicans who’ve made clear their utter contempt for democracy will retain powerful leverage over the U.S. government. And they’re securely entrenched because Trumpism continues to thrive in much of the country. Continue reading →

With their army destroyed and their last, best troops wiped out in one morning on the outskirts of their capital,, Mekele, the last remnants of the leadership of Ethiopia’s TPLF regime were forced to retreat to the secret Hagarasalam underground bunkers near the capital. Continue reading →

Sometimes a couple of nominations convey an incoming president’s basic mindset and worldview. That’s how it seems with Joe Biden’s choices to run the Office of Management and Budget and the State Department. Continue reading →

About the only good thing that can be said about 2020 is that it’s over. It was an annus horribilis. Continue reading →

Ever since it first was published in 1956, there has been a joke about John F. Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage (largely ghosted by speechwriter and advisor Ted Sorensen), historical portraits of eight US senators who demonstrated bravery in the face of enormous political opposition. Continue reading →

No doubt about it: 2020—a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for freedom—was the culmination of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad decade for freedom. Continue reading →

Remember that old joke they used to tell—and maybe still do—in luxury retail circles? The customer, precious product in hand, walks over to a haughty sales clerk at a high-end emporium and timidly asks: “How much does this cost.” Continue reading →

In the last 16 days of Donald Trump’s occupancy of the White House, what does he have to do that finally brings about his immediate removal? Shoot someone on Pennsylvania Avenue? Lob a nuke at Iran? Continue reading →

And it came upon a midnight clear during this holiday season that after weeks and months alternating between negotiation and inertia, Congress finally reached agreement with the White House and passed a new $908 billion relief bill that provided a stimulus payment of $600 to each qualified citizen. Continue reading →

Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to reelect Donald Trump—46.8 percent of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election—don’t hold Trump accountable for what he’s done to America. Continue reading →

If a private citizen wants to open a bank account, board an airplane, buy tobacco or alcohol, or engage in many other perfectly ordinary activities, government requires that citizen to present photo identification which includes personal information, including his or her home address and date of birth. Continue reading →

Pardon my silence these last few days, but the out-of-control firehose that is the Trump White House has upped the water pressure with increased insanity, mendacity and just plain idiotic behavior. It can overwhelm. Continue reading →

The US Constitution gave presidents “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment (Article II, Section 2).” Continue reading →

The civil rights groups’ rather basic requests for voting rights protections and the need for federal intervention to address police brutality were minimized and dismissed by the president-elect. Continue reading →

As a former secretary of labor, I often receive mail from workers with job complaints, who apparently believe I still have some authority. But the email I received a few days ago from a worker at Amazon’s Whole Foods delivery warehouse in Industry City, Brooklyn, New York, was particularly distressing. Continue reading →

In Joe Biden’s “Emergency Action Plan to Save the Economy,” the president-elect proposes to “[f]orgive a minimum of $10,000 per person of federal student loans.” Continue reading →

Ho ho ho, wait till you hear about the gifts I gave to some of America’s power elites for Christmas. Continue reading →

Bernie Sanders is not in a good political position right now. Yes, he continues to speak vital truths to—and about—power. His ability to reach a national audience with progressive wisdom and specific proposals is unmatched. And, during the last several decades, no one has done more to move the nation’s discourse leftward. But now, Sanders is in a political box. Continue reading →

“Life is going to return to normal,” Joe Biden promised in a recent address to the nation. He was talking about life after COVID, but he might as well have been making a promise about life after Trump. Continue reading →

Shiva is the deity of transcendence, the cosmic force that returns all matter and energy, all manifestation and activity, back to its Source. This return is the final stage of an evolutionary process that begins with creation through the power of Brahma, maintenance through the power of Vishnu, then dissolution through the power of Shiva back into the unified field of pure consciousness, the same unified field that quantum physics has discovered. This ground state is the universe’s interface with God. Manifested forms dissolve in it into waves of a nonmaterial, abstract field, and new forms continually emerge from it to continue the cycle. Continue reading →

Public health workers, election officials, and political office holders — from city commissioners to governors — are all reporting death threats and other threatened acts of violence by a group of people who seem to have become zombified as mindless sycophants of Donald Trump. For those who have been in range of the dead-eye stares of mouth-agape Trump supporters pounding on windows and doors, it is literally out of a scene of a George Romero zombie flick. Yes folks, we have a zombie apocalypse on our hands! Continue reading →

“2020: The Worst Year Ever,” reads the cover of Time magazine’s December 14 issue. Continue reading →

Smedley Butler won’t be around next year to save us. Continue reading →

So the United States wants to play hardball with China; and, naturally Russia, by resurfacing the Cold War era doctrine of Containment, along with Nuclear Triad upgrades, a 500 ship US Navy, new Long Range Bombers—and a replacement for the F-35—hypersonic weapons and, of course, more bodies for the all-volunteer US military. That means more dollars have to be funneled to the Pentagon and its suppliers. But there is more: US military initiatives in Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, Autonomous Combat Drones (undersea and air), Space Based Weapons, and Synthetic Biology all add to the truckloads of dollars needed to take on China and Russia, never mind North Korea and Iran. Continue reading →

The Black Misleaders give the impression of exercising black empowerment when they are in fact only promoting themselves. Continue reading →