Some might call the Trump administration a murderous mob. Specifically, they’ve been serial killers of the English language. Continue reading
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What’s the point of satire anymore?
How can anyone satirize a presidency that gleefully flaunts its own awfulness every day?
Live from Reno: Gambling on Trump & friends is a really bad bet!
I’m up here in Reno, Nevada, right now, attending a convention of murder-mystery writers and readers—and guess what? I’m actually going to speak at an authors’ discussion panel this Friday. So exciting! It’s like unexpectedly winning the jackpot on a slot machine. Not something that happens every day. Continue reading
Possessed! Europe’s American demon must be exorcised
Europe is suffering the tortures of the damned as it struggles with split-personality psychosis. Continue reading
While America remains silent
It’s encouraging to see the young people take to the streets demanding that the adults in the room do something about the gun violence in this country. But our young people are just that . . . young and in most respects naive. Continue reading
Low energy, high profits: How privatizing public utilities left us all in the dark
PHILADELPHIA—The Maryland rapper Sean Born’s 2012 album Behind the Scale includes what one reviewer described as the “candidly soulful single” “Lights On,” which has the driving and catchy up-tempo beat that tends to characterize much of contemporary hip-hop. Its lyrics, however, have none of the swagger that the genre is known for and is, in fact, so achingly honest that it seems an apologia of sorts to explain the emcee’s drug-dealing past. Continue reading
Alley culture, zoning laws and anomic Americans
Even more than eating for fun, the main pleasure of Vietnam is mingling, but that’s only if you enjoy being around people, which Vietnamese obviously do, and here, community life is most intense and intimate in alleys. Continue reading
The stock buyback boondoggle is beggaring America
Trump and Republicans branded their huge corporate tax cut as a way to make American corporations more profitable so they’d invest in more and better jobs. Continue reading
Foreshadowing the Trump legacy and what the genuine left must do to counter
President Trump has eluded predictions since he began his quest for the White House, most not imagining he would ever govern. Now it is possible to see where all of this is going, but, before that, we must assess how he got there. Continue reading
The war on the post office
The US Postal Service, under attack from a manufactured crisis designed to force its privatization, needs a new source of funding to survive. Postal banking could fill that need. Continue reading
Has Britain jumped the gun on Russia’s culpability?
UK should produce convincing proof that Russia carried out the Salisbury nerve gas attack
Britain is justifiably angry at the attempted assassination of a Russian double agent and his daughter currently critically ill in a Salisbury hospital and the fact that a Russian nerve agent was the deadly contaminant is cause for serious consternation. That said, Prime Minister Theresa May’s rush to point a finger at Moscow with which her government has long had a frosty relationship, is open to question; except those who do ask inconvenient questions are shouted down as being unpatriotic in an atmosphere reminiscent of Cold War ‘Reds under the bed’ hysteria. Continue reading
Trump’s witch hunt
Remembering two politicians of conscience as the president dismantles democracy.
What a petty, venal, corrupt and foul thing it is. More media-generated homunculus than man, every day, Donald Trump behaves more and more like the cornered animal desperately trying to save itself by viciously biting in every direction, pulling out every nasty trick that has worked for him before. But now he gnashes his teeth on a global stage so vast that the pettiness of his vindictiveness is unconcealed, cast in a spotlight that diminishes every American. Continue reading
Trump’s firing of Tillerson was another insult to Africa
What was lost on the corporate media’s coverage of this past week’s sudden firing by Donald Trump of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was that it was carried out while Tillerson was on an official trip to Africa to smooth over fractured relations stemming from Trump’s referral to African countries as “shitholes” and his statement that Nigerians live in “huts.” In fact, Tillerson was forced to cut short his trip while in Nigeria, where he was expected to apologize to Nigerian leaders for Trump’s past racist statements. Continue reading
The Cold War forever
On March 7, British police said that a former Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury, a city southwest of London. The police said that Skripal had been “targeted specifically” with a nerve agent. Skripal was jailed in Russia in 2006 for passing state secrets to Britain. He was released in 2010 as part of a spy swap. Continue reading
The rise of fascism . . . the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment once again
Approximately 82 years ago I was born in New York City to Jewish parents. Therefore, I am a Jew by birth but an atheist by choice. However, as far as the fascists are concerned, as demonstrated in the 1930s and 40s, I am a Jew regardless of my beliefs or lifestyle. Continue reading
Inside the medical device racket
Millions of Americans have under-regulated and overhyped devices in their bodies.
Imagine a TV ad for a hip replacement device. Over scenes of the puppies and sunsets, a voiceover warns, “Hip replacements may cause tissue death, the destruction of muscles, bones and ligaments, nerve damage, mental changes, thyroid disorder, vision and hearing problems and heart failure.” Such ads may soon be part of primetime viewing, not just because the device industry is starting to advertise but because medical device side effects are as scary as, if not worse than, drug side effects. Continue reading
Cambodia’s illegal immigrants
When the French ruled Indochina, they had a shortage of white collar workers in Cambodia and Laos, so solved it by bringing in many thousands of Vietnamese, which, understandably, didn’t please the Cambodians and Laotians too much. Most of these Vietnamese would be kicked out in waves, sometimes violently, as happened in Cambodia during the ‘70s. Continue reading
Further signs of more war: A most dangerous game
Donald Trump’s days of playing the passive-aggressive host of a reality-television game show are coming to an end. Either he fires all the apprentices who might slightly hesitate to wage a much larger world war and lets the bombs fly, or he will be replaced by one who will. Signs are that he has learned what his job entails and the world will suffer more death and destruction as a result. Continue reading
The most perilous time in world history got worse
Events ongoing should terrify everyone—things likely heading for greater war than already. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: Talking to North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly referred to as North Korea, has every right to develop nuclear weapons. It is a sovereign state and should be able to produce weapons that the United States or other nations already possess. In any case the Koreans would be very foolish not to have the protection that may keep the empire at bay. The DPRK is acutely aware of the fate that befalls nations that do not possess these arms. Iraq attempted to create a nuclear program but it was destroyed by Israel in an airstrike. Libya didn’t have a nuclear program and neither did Syria. All were attacked by the United States and NATO because they were naked in the face of aggression. American hysteria over North Korean nuclear development is a fraud that must be ignored. The DPRK’s right to self-determination must be defended. Continue reading
Say no to “hardening” the schools with zero tolerance policies and gun-toting cops
Just what we don’t need: more gun-toting, taser-wielding cops in government-run schools that bear an uncomfortable resemblance to prisons. Continue reading
Will Israeli policies change if Netanyahu leaves office?
If scandal-plagued Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exits his country’s political scene today, who is likely to replace him? And what does this mean as far as Israel’s Occupation of Palestine is concerned? Continue reading
Why super-rich rush to buy nuclear-proof bunkers
The rush amongst the super-rich started after the key event of 2014; this single stunning event suddenly sparked that rush by the super-rich to buy nuclear-proof bunkers, and the rush has been nonstop since that event. Though many news media in the West have reported on the existence of this suddenly booming market for luxurious and supposedly nuclear-proof bunkers, none has reported on what actually caused it—the event that had sparked it. In fact, that event is still a secret in the West—not publicly mentioned here; it is, practically speaking, banned from being publicly even mentioned in the West. Continue reading
John Bolton seen more frequently around the White House
John Bolton, the only unconfirmed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to have ever represented his country in the international organization, has recently been seen more frequently around the White House. There are strong rumors that Donald Trump’s next purge will claim the national security adviser, Lt. General H. R. McMaster, and that Bolton has the inside track to replace him. Bolton taking over the National Security Council will, after a nine-year hiatus, put the neoconservatives back in the foreign policy and national security driver’s seat in Washington. Continue reading
What Secretary of State Tillerson’s firing means
Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY) says Tillerson’s firing indicates that the Trump administration is disintegrating. I understand why Senator Schumer sees it that way, especially following all the other dismissals and resignations. Continue reading
6 ways millennials will clean up the mess boomers left them
Baby Boomers—my generation, born between 1946 and 1964—dominated politics and the economy for years. There were just more Boomers than people of any other generation. But that’s no longer the case. Now, the biggest generation is the Millennials, born between 1983 and 2000. Continue reading
Forget the Dow Jones. How’s Doug Jones?
The stock market is owned by the rich. It tells you little about how ordinary Americans are doing.
Language matters. For example, the words that corporate and government officials use to report on the health of America’s economy can either make clear to us commoners what’s going on—or hide and even lie about the reality we face. Continue reading
Trump’s ‘enforcers’ reminiscent of mob actions
The actions of Donald Trump’s “enforcers,” particularly his personal and corporate attorneys, are more in keeping with those of a mafia chieftain than an American president. Those familiar with the Watergate scandal, which all-too-many media pundits are presently comparing to the investigation of Trump, concur that Richard Nixon, who was battling seen and unseen forces to his political right, never went to the lengths of Trump in attacking his accusers. Continue reading
Tillerson out and Pompeo in: ‘From Exxon’s CEO to the Koch Brothers’ most loyal lapdog’
The former congressman and current CIA director's climate denialism and praise of the United States' use of torture has raised alarm among green groups and human rights defenders
While applauding the end of former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson’s tenure as secretary of state, green groups and government watchdogs on Tuesday denounced President Donald Trump’s pick to replace him—current CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Continue reading
Pompeo replacing Tillerson at State
The change was unceremoniously announced by Trump with Tillerson abroad. Continue reading
World War 3 is approaching
The Russians, in their anxiety to show the West how friendly they are, left Washington with a toehold in Syria, which Washington is using to reopen the war. The Russians’ failure to finish the job has left Washington’s foreign mercenaries, misrepresented in the American presstitute media as “freedom fighters,” in a Syrian enclave. To get the war going again, Washington has to find a way to come to the aid of its mercenaries. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: Vladimir Putin and war propaganda
Posted on March 22, 2018 by Margaret Kimberley
Vladimir Putin is blamed for everything that goes awry in Europe and the United States. In the United Kingdom his country was even blamed for bad weather as tabloid headlines screamed about icy Russian winds. The Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s Electoral College victory are said to be the result of Putin’s interference, even though the machinations of American oligarch Robert Mercer are most responsible for both outcomes. Continue reading →