And so, after all the anticipation, the rampant sports metaphors and the breathless, sensationalized buildup (MSNBC’s headline in the minutes before the event was “Clinton/Trump Showdown”), the first debate is over. Continue reading
The final countdown has begun to the 2016 presidential election, and you can expect to be treated to an earful of carefully crafted sound bites and political spin. Continue reading
At a spring 2016 Republican debate attended by the Bushes, George H.W. “Poppy” Bush, looked directly at Donald Trump and gave him the “throat slit” gesture, the traditional threat of murder. The Bushes want the Clintons back in the White House. Continue reading
Let’s call the whole thing off. Continue reading
If you are an alien, terrestrial or extraterrestrial, looking at our nation these days, you would be scratching your head trying to figure out why our country is known as the USA and not the DPA (Disunited Peoples of America). Only thing that appears to unite us—not all but most—is the love of empire and pride in a corporate-military war machine that mercilessly sucks a great part of our economic, intellectual and moral resources; truly impoverishing our people and making Americans friends of some but enemies of most people around the world. Continue reading
When voters go to the polls this November, they won’t just be choosing the next president, they’ll also be deciding the direction of the Supreme Court. Continue reading
Hillary Clinton is recovering from a mild case of pneumonia. However, shortly after she collapsed at Ground Zero while part of the 15th annual memorial of 9/11, her campaign staff said she was just exhausted and suffered heat exhaustion. It took a couple of days for her to reveal the extent of her medical issue. Continue reading
Glenn Kessler was going to take the night off from The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” blog and just watch Donald Trump’s long-awaited immigration speech in Phoenix on Aug. 31. Continue reading
Politicians are human and occasionally they cannot contain themselves, allowing their true sentiments to come out; sometimes in droplets hardly noticed, but sometimes in damaging blurbs. We, certainly the media, usually point to these blurbs as gaffes. But in reality they simply represent what these politicians think but are not supposed to acknowledge in a world where we must try, at times force ourselves, to be painfully politically correct in order to achieve some modicum of conviviality. Continue reading
For some years I have used the term “delusional democracy” to describe the condition of the US. It seemed obvious to me that the vast majority of Americans have deliberately chosen to fool themselves. They have been brainwashed to believe what no longer is true. Become convinced that you do not live in a true and terrific democracy, or that your democracy is the best in the world. Continue reading
To say that a voter cares whether or not a given politician is a liar, is to say that even if the politician is of that voter’s own political party, the voter will reject the politician for being a liar. Continue reading
Sadly for most Americans, the more we examine our choices for president, arrogantly referred to as “the leader of the free world,” the more our 2016 presidential election is starting to look as a simple referendum, the flip of a coin that has either two heads or two tails: a toss of a coin that no matter how we call it, as it lands, we are all likely to lose. The question we might want to ask this year, however, is how reparable we want that loss to be. And the answer, as unhappy as it may seem to most of us, appears to be rather clear. Continue reading
The recipe could not be simpler. Mix cynicism with greed, quickly stir and voila! American politics and government served up on a platter to the highest bidder. Continue reading
From its creation, the citizens of the United States have had a special relationship with the person they choose to lead their republic. Given extraordinary powers by the Constitution, the president is expected to not only be a wise and effective administrator, but to possess the moral compass established by George Washington, the Nation’s first president. Continue reading
Finally, the major for-profit media is approaching consensus that it’s easy to hack U.S. political elections. Even candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are raising unprecedented doubts—from very different directions—about the reliability of the upcoming vote count. Continue reading
Ahead of the fall campaign season, which unofficially kicks off on Labor Day, we asked our Facebook audience what their biggest concerns are for Election Day: Nov. 8. Continue reading
A generation ago, many white working-class Democrats bought into Ronald Reagan’s promise of a better nation. Eager for “morning in America”—and swayed by fear that advances for black people would come at their expense—they didn’t see that the shadow of a long sunset was creeping over their lives. Continue reading
I read a piece that said Hillary, with her speech about racism and extremists taking over the Republican Party, was making a play for a one-party state. That seems rather an exaggeration, but it does contain an important bit of truth. I do indeed believe Hillary thinks along the lines of a one-party state as suggested, but without ever saying so directly, and she is not focused on the particular political party with which she is now associated. Continue reading
Donald Trump has expressed the belief that the November 8 election could be rigged in favor of his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. He has reason to be concerned. Continue reading
Paul Wolfowitz and the lies that he told in the high government positions that he held are responsible for a massive number of deaths and massive destruction in seven countries. Wolfowitz has announced his vote for Hillary Clinton. Does this make you feel reassured? Continue reading
Donald Trump says he watched the destruction of the World Trade Center, and saw “thousands and thousands of people [who were] cheering as that building was coming down.” Every non-partisan fact-checking site and news medium debunks Trump’s faulty recollection. But 9/11 burnished an image in his mind of terrorism by Muslims. His solution is to issue an unconstitutional moratorium against Muslims who wish to emigrate to the U.S. Continue reading
The FBI is worried: foreign hackers have broken into two state election databases. Continue reading
Donald Trump, who is commanding all of 1 percent of Black voters, according to an impartial Quinnipiac poll, says he could get as much as 95 percent of the Black vote in a second term. In June 2011, he had said, “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” It’s nothing less than political hyperbole in a campaign for a first term, and meant to get a few thousand more votes in key states. However, Trump’s past actions don’t mitigate whatever future plans he has. Continue reading
In most cases satire reveals so many hidden truths. Such is the case with the 1997 Barry Levinson film Wag the Dog. Obviously done as a spoof on the Bill Clinton sexual imbroglio with Ms. Lewinsky and the damage control done to modify it. The inner meaning of the film reveals just how foolish the Amerikan public is and how susceptible many are to well thought out propaganda. Well, isn’t that how we really are folks? Continue reading
The Florida Panhandle has seen its share of sketchy Republican office holders. Few local voters who were around in 2001 can forget the suspicious death of Lori Klausutis, a 29-year old constituent services staffer for retiring Florida GOP Representative Joe Scarborough. Klausutis’s body was discovered at 8:00 in the morning on July 20, 2001, by a couple who arrived at Scarborough’s North Fort Walton Beach office for a meeting. Klausutis is said to have died from a skull fracture. The local coroner’s determination that the very physically fit Klausutis died from accidental causes left many voters in Florida’s First Congressional District convinced that Scarborough, now the host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” somehow knew more than what was revealed about the circumstances of his aide’s death during the middle of the night. Continue reading
Why, I am constantly being asked by my overseas peers, do you Americans have such affection for a creepy old pretender, a political candidate who’s been around forever, and all he has done is have his way with you? Does the “me-or-else” political ultimatum award Lesser Evil license to govern and rape? Whether dressed as Tweedledee or as Tweedledum, Lesser Evil righteously appears to so think; adding one more rosary bid in our march towards the 2016 presidential election . . . just as it happened in 2012 and, as I tap into my memory, to all other quadrennials before then. Continue reading
Just about everyone now concedes that the media have it in for Donald Trump. A survey of eight major news organs during the primaries, conducted by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy—one I cited in a previous post—showed that the press grew increasingly hostile to Trump, peaking at 61 percent negative to 39 percent positive at the end of the primary season. Even the conservative, Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal editorialized that he should consider quitting the race, and the normally cautious NBC Nightly News has turned reporter Katy Tur into a one-woman truth squad, correcting Trump whoppers. Continue reading
Despite her best efforts and those of her friends in the corporate media, Hillary Clinton cannot escape her email scandal. In an attempt to comingle her responsibilities as secretary of state with her influence peddling at the Clinton Foundation, she used a private server to conduct all of her official, classified government duties. Continue reading
Years ago when my husband Charles and I moved to Nashville, we were feted, intro’d to the Vanderbilt Medical Center community. As I mingled, the vice chancellor’s wife approached. “Have you found your church home?” Continue reading
The man formerly known as The Donald is entwined in a ball of contradiction. Continue reading
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Trump and Hillary fiddle while Planet Earth burns
Posted on September 28, 2016 by Stephen Lendman
Monday night was more evasion, distraction and political fraud than anything resembling real debating—like all previous encounters of the same kind preceding them, demagoguery and bad theater instead of substance, failing to give voters real information on where candidates stand on major issues of our time. Continue reading →