Of all the myths the Republicans have perpetrated, and there are a lot of them, perhaps none is more powerful or insidious than the foundational one that this is an overwhelmingly conservative country and that progressives are outliers in it, along with its pernicious corollary that conservatives are “real” Americans while liberals (and the minorities who support liberal policies) are somehow counterfeits. Continue reading
As the White House releases 112 pages of colorful comments—and personal information—after it asked for the public to weigh in on its so-called Election Integrity Commission and received an overwhelmingly negative response, a new lawsuit aims to protect voters’ privacy rights by stopping the controversial commission’s sweeping data demand. Continue reading
The Jim Crow GOP has stolen yet another congressional election, this time in Georgia. As always, the media and Democrats are saying nothing about it. Continue reading
Russia, Russia, Russia!!! But what about the Americans? Continue reading
In my wildest imagination I cannot picture President Donald Trump strolling along hand in hand with Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, even figuratively. But in this weirdest of worlds, they might find themselves in a position where they are forced to superficially get along to preserve the hallowed transatlantic alliance. Continue reading
Monday brought a victory for voting rights. Continue reading
Kris Kobach was spooning down vanilla ice cream when I showed him the thick pages of evidence documenting his detailed plan to rig the presidential election of 2016. Continue reading
Even in an election year as shot through with conspiracy theories as this one, it would have been hard to imagine a bigger bombshell than Russia intervening to help Donald Trump. But that’s exactly what the CIA believes happened, or so unnamed “officials brief on the matter” told the Washington Post. Continue reading
The claims that the Russian government hacked US voting machines are absurd. Voting machines are not connected to the Internet. To hack a voting machine you have to be physically in proximity to the machine and use a hand held device. The machines can be programmed to throw the vote count to one candidate or the other, and there are other ways to interfere with elections. Possibly if a foreign power had server presence in the US, some precinct reports of results could be intercepted and altered, although a voice check over the telephone is an easy way to verify the electronic transmission. What is clear is that Russia cannot hack the voting machines. Continue reading
Two, long, boring years before every presidential election, we hear a constant barrage of empty promises. Candidates will say whatever voters want to hear, but then once elected, they change their views and do a position switch. The result is that we get the same old prototypical leaders over and over again. It happens because “the system is rigged,” as George Carlin said. Our so-called “democracy” is a sham, a big joke. Voting does not change anything significantly, and it is understandable why many individuals do not even vote or vote for a third party. Continue reading
Universally, Trump was depicted as an anti-establishment candidate. Washington and Wall Street hated him, and the media were deployed to vilify him endlessly. If they could not discredit Trump enough, surely they would steal the election from him. Some even suggested Trump would be assassinated. Continue reading
There have been many thought-provoking articles in the alternative news lately. Robert Reich says all current members of the Democratic National Committee should resign so that we can have a new democratic party. Noam Chomsky says, “Trump’s win puts government in the hands of the most dangerous organization in world history.” Bill Gates has argued that we need socialism to save the planet. Robert Scheer says this [the election result] is “the revenge of the deplorables.” Chris Hedges exclaims in an article, entitled “It’s Worse Than You Think,+++++” that “Widespread social unrest will ignite when Donald Trump’s base realizes it has been betrayed.” Continue reading
A friend of mine who has dual Israeli-American citizenship tells the story of entering an elevator in Jerusalem shortly after a bullying right-wing government had taken over the country. Continue reading
That line from a 1960s lyric spoke to a society in the midst of social change totally misunderstood by opinion makers and their employers. The situation now is more serious, the changes needed more radical, and the degree of confused ignorance of the people and criminal immorality of the leadership greater than before. Thus, an election in which the ruling establishment demanded defeat of one of its own, a rich and unruly capitalist, in favor of one of its employees, a more reliable worker in the fields of empire, and they failed. Continue reading
As the unexpected US president-elect took to the stage, the crowds erupted in jubilation, basking in the historic moment of populist revolution, certain that reform and change had finally come. Continue reading
Within days of the U.S. general election, central elements of the result have already entered into American mythology: the revenge of the “white working class voter”; the unprecedented anti-establishment character of the president-elect; the populist revolution that led to Trump’s victory; and the years in the wilderness now facing Democrats and progressives in America. Continue reading
Yes, Donald Trump, a sexual predator, a misogynist, a racist, a liar, a cheat, a con man extraordinaire, and a narcissist, who has never held public office and may not even be as rich as he claims, will, barring anything unforeseen, become president of the United States on January 20, 2017. Continue reading
Brushing away the extreme claims and rhetoric of much election analysis, there are some observations which deserve attention. These unfortunately mostly provide hard lessons and not a lot of encouragement for people who hold to principles of democracy, enlightenment, and progressivity. Continue reading
It occurred to me in recent years that the act of being progressive is not a political position but rather a mental state. Continue reading
Why would the American people elect a racist, misogynist, narcissistic, criminal to the presidency of this country? Continue reading
A populist wave that began with Brexit in June became a tsunami as Trump’s cyclone hit Washington Tuesday night, leaving the capital in a shambles. His is a story straight out of Grimm’s fairytales. the peasants rose up. The phony civility of the neoconservative nightmare that Americans (and the world) have endured for years is cracking. Continue reading
One likely winner to come out of the 2016 US presidential election: accuracy in polling. Obviously not past but future polling! Continue reading
There has just been a generational political earthquake in the United States and the after shocks are potentially going to be huge. Indeed, on November 8, 2016, against all odds, the Republican candidate Donald Trump (1946- ) was elected to serve as the 45th American president, repeating ad nauseam his main slogan, “Make America Great Again.” He will be the first American president since Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) to occupy the White House without having personal political experience. Continue reading
This columnist did not see a Donald Trump victory coming. The degree of disgust directed at an awful candidate was more than I had predicted. Neither the corporate media, nor Wall Street, nor the pundits, nor the pollsters saw this coming, either. Their defeat and proof of their uselessness is total. Those of us who rejected the elite consensus and didn’t support Hillary Clinton should be proud. Continue reading
I will not be surprised if President-elect Trump changes the national motto from e pluribus unum to capto per naturale eius debent (grab them by the pussy). This will show the rest of the world that our leader is a celebrity and we may do whatever we want, not that the rest of the world doesn’t already know the Empire feels this way, just clarifying. Continue reading
Well, the angry white vote did the trick and Ms. Killary went down in defeat. One hopes that many will realize that this election was not about what people voted FOR . . . but rather AGAINST. Continue reading
Our world is on the cusp of a new era. Traditional taboos are being smashed. Respect has become an old-fashioned word. Nothing is too low or too dirty to be ignored, overlooked or even applauded by some. Continue reading
It is impossible to count the myriad ways in which the media botched FBI Director James Comey’s Friday announcement that the agency had found a cache of emails that seemingly (a key word) pertain to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server. I heard the news via CNN at an airport while waiting to board a plane. No one needs to be told that CNN is a journalistic disgrace—a textbook case of the decline of American media, all the more depressing because, unlike Fox News and MSNBC, it purports to be a real news organization. Instead, it is a ratings machine, and it is beyond contemptible. Continue reading
As U.S. officials continue to accuse Russia of meddling with the U.S. presidential election, an accusation that they have provided no evidence whatsoever to support, let’s review some of the U.S. government’s history of meddling with elections in others countries. Continue reading
As millions prepare to do just what Smith warns against, including hundreds of thousands who think themselves dedicated to ending such control, it’s time we understand American mind management’s great success at reducing voters to herds of human cattle whether from a conservative right, a liberal left, or trapped in the middle of the political desert called the two party system under one class control. Continue reading
With less than a week until the election, just about every voter in the swing states has received dozens of robocalls, e-mails, letters, postcards, and exposure to almost-uncountable radio, TV, digital, satellite, and social media ads. Most are attack ads, with similar messages. Continue reading
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Democrats keep missing the election boat
Posted on June 23, 2017 by Wayne Madsen
In the wake of Georgia’s 6th U.S. House district Democratic Party hopeful Jon Ossoff’s loss to Donald Trump-endorsed Republican Karen Handel, Democrats are crying in their cups of Starbuck’s latte and chai. In what was the most expensive House races in American history, Handel beat Ossoff by 3.8 percentage points. Continue reading →