A transactional analysis of truth

Individuals A and B had known one another for over fifty years, at one time being best friends. Continue reading

Hey, Mueller! Look over THERE!

Election theft is on the rise in America, that’s for sure. But Robert Mueller is definitely looking in all the wrong places. “Psst, Bob. . . .” Continue reading

Trump labor secretary cited in pedophile sweetheart deal

The rumored nomination of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta as attorney general in the wake of Jeff Sessions’s firing is apparently what spurred the Miami Herald to publish a detailed 3-part series look at the sweetheart plea agreement worked out by Acosta with convicted child molester and Donald Trump’s close friend Jeffrey Epstein. The Miami Herald story resulted in a public rebuke for the story’s reporter, Julie Brown, from former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, who appears to have taken over as Trump’s “muscle” to attack journalists who investigate Trump and those tied to him. Continue reading

Ukraine: US-installed fascist tyranny in Europe’s heartland

Ukraine matters. It’s territory is Europe’s largest after Russia’s. It borders seven countries in Europe’s heartland—Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Russia. Continue reading

Britons should be allowed to decide their fate

Voters must be allowed to decide between crashing out, staying-in or accepting the offer

The fact that all EU member states have so readily agreed to the British prime minister’s compromise deal, while few UK lawmakers are celebrating, more than two years of negotiations speaks volumes. No one can accuse Theresa May of not trying to please everyone but she has ended pleasing hardly anyone. Diehard Brexiteers and Remainers are united in their vehement opposition to her one foot-in and one foot-out solution. Continue reading

The two magical words that could have Trump gone by Earth Day

Our long-awaited “Mueller Time” has filled the punditocracy with tales of collusion and delusion. But most have missed the two-word trapdoor through which Donald Trump is likeliest to fall. Continue reading

Human extinction: Not with a bang but a sore throat

I just got a small taste of what it’s gonna be like here on Planet Earth in the year 2028—and, frankly, it scared the holy crap out of me. “So. What happened?” you might ask. Continue reading

48 hours of Trump lies in a few tweets

In a mere 48 hours, incessant Donald Trump lies, communicated via Twitter, have rocked the stock market, enraged union workers, and have further eroded public confidence in the ability of the White House and its enablers in Congress to govern. Continue reading

Challenge to Trump’s environmentally disastrous plan to ‘wreak havoc along the border’ blocked by Supreme Court

'A human-made barrier on the scale of the proposed border wall would have a serious impact on animals,' conservation group had argued

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear (pdf) a challenge to President Doanld Trump’s proposed expansion to the U.S.-Mexico border wall brought by conservation and animal protection groups who said the administration improperly skirted environmental laws in its pursuit of the project. Continue reading

What does inequality cost the average American? About $150k

Americans pay a steep price for not spreading their wealth around as well as other developed countries.

Belgian waffles. Belgian beers. Americans love ’em. Continue reading

US facing a national security crisis?

According to a mid-November National Defense Strategy Commission (NDSC) report to Congress, US military superiority “eroded to a dangerous degree,” the nation facing a “crisis of national security.” Continue reading

What’s a subpoena—and should Trump fear it?

You’re probably hearing a lot about subpoenas. Or you will very soon, once Democrats take control of the House. Continue reading

The Bush family dynasty

World headlines announced the passing of GHW Bush at age 94, eulogizing him, ignoring the disturbing Bush family legacy. Continue reading

Free the free press from Wall Street plunder

Our right to a free press is meaningless if hedge funds can gobble up and gut the community newspapers that exercise it.

A two-panel cartoon I recently saw showed a character with a sign saying: “First they came for the reporters.” In the next panel, his sign says: “We don’t know what happened after that.” Continue reading

‘Easy to pay for something that costs less’: New study shows Medicare for all would save us $5.1 trillion over ten years

BURLINGTON, VT—Confronting the question most commonly asked of the growing number of Americans who support replacing America’s uniquely inefficient and immoral for-profit healthcare system with Medicare for All—”How do we pay for it?”—a new paper released Friday by researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) shows that financing a single-payer system would actually be quite simple, given that it would cost significantly less than the status quo. Continue reading

Opioids for depression? Not so fast says an FDA advisory committee

The mental illness “franchise” has been very good to Pharma. While it could not “grow” the number of people with actual schizophrenia, it has successfully grown those diagnosed with amorphous “schizoaffective” and bipolar disorders and, of course, depression. Continue reading

Shut the f*ck up, Missy

A couple of hours after reading the Trump administration’s devastating climate report, I was assaulted by Tangerine Nightmare’s ignorance, his tweet: “Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS—Whatever happened to Global Warming?” Continue reading

Trump tries to play ‘Cowboys and Indians’ with international treaties

Donald Trump is attempting to do something that no previous recent president of the United States has attempted. Trump is trying to abrogate longstanding legal international treaties signed by some of his predecessors with sovereign Native American tribes. The Trump administration is using a requirement that Medicaid recipients work in return for health benefits to deny Native American tribes the right to govern themselves as sovereign entities. The Trump administration is denying an exemption for the work requirement for tribal nations by reclassifying Native Americans as a racial group subject to federal law, not as separate sovereign nations bound by distinct tribal laws. Continue reading

Yes, you have the right to talk back to the government, but it could get you killed

What the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t step out of line. Continue reading

Netanyahu’s predicament: The era of easy wars is over

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his army to carry out a limited operation in the besieged Gaza Strip on November 12, he certainly did not anticipate that his military adventure would destabilize his government and threaten the very survival of his right-wing coalition. Continue reading

Ukraine on brink of war with Russia?

Ukraine’s military under US-installed putschist rule is notoriously dysfunctional. Continue reading

The Blue Wave: A new shampoo?

The recent five billion dollar exercise in market democracy we call mid-term elections in the USA got rid of a few brain dead conservatives and brought in a handful of decent new faces but any notion of real victory for the people is a product of political mind management. This commercial process given a name that sounds more like a hair product than any exercise of the power of the people changed the identity group and possible toilet use balance in Congress which, however heralded as a loss for the current president, saw fewer seats changed than in the midterm after the last president’s first two years. As important issues like staggering debt and Israel remained mostly unmentioned, this was a political mall serving consumers the usual product of mostly regressive forces but with a progressive rhetorical brand name. Continue reading

Who’s funding Bannon’s Fourth Reich?

Former Donald Trump chief strategist and 2016 campaign manager Steve Bannon has become a neo-Nazi frequent flyer. Bannon established his organization, known simply as “The Movement,” with the help of some far-right Belgian politicians. In a worrying trend, The Movement is forging close ties with far-right parties and politicians around the world, including Brazil’s incoming president, Jair Bolsonaro, an admitted admirer of Adolf Hitler. Continue reading

Big lies drown out truth-telling

All politicians lie, some more than others. The Clintons, Bush/Cheney, and Obama were egregious serial liars. Continue reading

Freedom Rider: The Democrats win and black people lose

If the Democrats were a true political party, Nancy Pelosi’s failures would have taken her out of the running for any leadership position. Continue reading

Eyewitness Juarez: There’s no ‘you break it, you buy it’ policy here

“Oops, here come the Americans! Hide all the breakables! Quick!” Sorry. Too late. Continue reading

The president isn’t orange; he’s yellow

Our president is a coward. Continue reading

Major psy-op in Europe exposed: UK government tramples on values it vowed to protect

Those who have been saying that the West has turned Russia into a scapegoat to be blamed for each and everything that goes wrong have been proved right. We have witnessed concocted stories invented to denigrate Moscow that have gone viral as directed by the secret services. The UK, the country that is spearheading the anti-Russian information campaign, offers a good example that illustrates how this is being done. Continue reading

Trump to meet with like-minded dictators at G20 in Argentina

Donald Trump, who threatened to misuse the Department of Justice to prosecute 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey as part of a political vendetta, will be meeting like-minded dictators at the G20 summit in Argentina, which will be held from November 30 to December 1. These authoritarian leaders have criminally prosecuted their political opponents, with many currently serving long prison sentences. Continue reading

Israel and Saudi Arabia: Strange bedfellows

Ruling regimes in both countries allied against Iran. The unholy alliance began years ago, one fascist state supporting the other against a common adversary. Continue reading

Russia is disadvantaged by her belief that the West is governed by law

Ukrainian military ships have violated Russian restrictions in the Sea of Azov and Articles 19 and 21 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Ukrainian Navy crossed the Russian sea border and entered a closed area of Russian territorial waters. Clearly, Washington was behind this as Ukraine would not undertake such a provocation on its own. Continue reading

Assange vs. the Cabal

It is widely rumored that, with sealed indictments pending in the US, WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange may be imminently forced to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy which has provided him safe refuge since 2012. Continue reading