ALL ARTICLES


On The Media: Getting Racist Ideas Backwards

    On The Media (3/2/18) Underlying much of the media’s fumbled white supremacist coverage is an enduring assumption about where racist ideas comes from: the poor, the uneducated, and the hateful. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the founding director of the Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University and author of “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.” He tells The Guardian US‘s Lois Beckett that this prevailing narrative is centuries old and completely backwards. Link to Story and 14-Minute Audio


Free Book Offer For Teachers: ‘The Color of Law’ Documents The Institutionalization Of Segregation

  Bumper sticker from www.frame4future.com   Zinnedproject.org (2/9/18) In the The Color of Law:  A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, author Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that U.S. cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation—that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation—the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments—that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day. We want to hear stories from teachers who have taught about this topic. Tell…


Don’t Equate Trump’s Linguistic Slip-ups With Stupidity

  By Mary Pipher The Toronto Star (2/1/18) I don’t know about you, but one of the ways I’ve been coping with the Trumpian horror-show to the south is watching late-night American comedy. A regular dose of the acerbic and principled witticisms of Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Samantha Bee helps release some of the terrifying tension doled out daily by President Trump & Co. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear different versions of the same jokes about pathetic crowd-size fixation, dangerous dictator-worship, or the entitled vapidity of Ivanka+Jared (Jarvanka?) — I laugh because I need relief from…


A Poem For The Last Days Of American Empire

    “The Second Coming” Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body…


Get Ready Fellow Citizens, This Is Going To Be A Whole Lot Worse Than Watergate

 Fair warning from the Under World…   By Michael Tomasky The Daily Beast (3/20/18) Something changed last weekend, did it not? The firing of Andrew McCabe. The statement by Trump lawyer John Dowd to The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff that Robert Mueller should end his probe soon. Donald Trump’s tweetstorm just after that, his first tweets mentioning Mueller by name along with promises by aides that more attacks are on the way. The amped-up speculation that Trump will fire Jeff Sessions and replace him with someone who hasn’t recused himself so that someone can fire Mueller. Somewhere in there also came an official reassurance by…


Gubernatorial Candidate Mike McCabe Stands With UW-SP Students & Positive Future Of Education In Wisconsin

  STEVENS POINT, WI, MARCH 21, 2018 – Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mike McCabe was invited to join with University of Wisconsin – Stevens Points students today [3/21] to protest the cutting of 13 humanities majors. Save Our Majors protest is scheduled from 1-3 today and will include sit-ins as well as students delivering a list of demands and requests to university administration. “Education has the power to make us better people, not just better workers. Universities shouldn’t just be about training us for the workplace. They should be about making us better citizens capable of fully participating in a democracy….


Welcome To America: UN Special Rapporteur’s Journey Through A Brutal Landscape Of Extreme Poverty

  By Ed Pilkington The Guardian (12/15/17) Los Angeles, California, 5 December “You got a choice to make, man. You could go straight on to heaven. Or you could turn right, into that.” We are in Los Angeles, in the heart of one of America’s wealthiest cities, and General Dogon, dressed in black, is our tour guide. Alongside him strolls another tall man, grey-haired and sprucely decked out in jeans and suit jacket. Professor Philip Alston is an Australian academic with a formal title: UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. General Dogon, himself a veteran of these Skid…


Given Her Crimes, Gina Haspel Should Be In The Dock At The Hague, Not Head Of CIA

  By John Kiriakou Reader Supported News (3/19/18) Gina Haspel’s appointment as CIA director sends a message that is clear to the CIA workforce, to our allies around the world, and to our enemies. That message is that any CIA officer can break the law with impunity and still get promoted; indeed, one can even be promoted to director. The message is that, when push comes to shove, the United States doesn’t care about human rights. We pretend to. We insist that other countries do. But that’s all for show. If you are a strategic ally of the United States (Saudi Arabia,…


Watch Your (Political) Language: Never Say Tax ‘Reform’, Say ‘Fairness’ To Be Accurate … And Effective

  (Editor’s Note: This article is from September, during the midst of the debate over the Republican tax giveaway to the wealthy 1%. The reason this article is still relevant is that the radical right has been devastatingly effective at twisting the language to its own ends. The left has been slow to the art. One of the words that has been distorted the most is “reform”, as in” Social Security reform” — which is all about just cutting hard-earned and deserved benefits. We on the left need to begin using the English language as the powerfully persuasive tool that…


Book Review: ‘Russian Roulette’ Documents Decades-Long Relationship Between Trumputin & Russian Interests

  By Charles Kaiser The Guardian (3/20/18) Whenever I finish a book like Russian Roulette, I ask myself the same question: why is anyone still debating whether there was collusion between the Russians and Donald Trump? Like Collusion, a comprehensive volume by the Guardian’s Luke Harding, this narrative by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn leaves the reader nearly overwhelmed by evidence that Trump and Vladimir Putin have been striving to collaborate for years. It was 2013 when Trump first tweeted that he wanted to be Putin’s “best friend”. Later he told Fox Putin looked “like a great leader”. Putin’s constant goals…


Russia Monitor: The Many, Many Faces Of Trumputin-Russia Deceit Can Fill A Book

    Art by Seth L. Taylor, 2017. By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/22/18) Dear Fellow Readers, As expected, the news of the Trump campaign illegal voter data initiative has even elbowed adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal out of the way for top billing. Let’s start by acknowledging the main players in this web of data theft and federal election law violations. Keep in mind, once something blows up around Trump, anyone or anything connected becomes explained away, like former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos who pleaded guilty, now a “low-level…


Right Wing Columnist Kurt Schlichter Cheerily Calls For Murder & Mayhem In The Coming “Second Civil War”

  (Editor’s Note: If you want a glimpse of what the far right is thinking check out the article below by Ken Schlichter, a former stand-up comic now merrily anticipating the opportunity for right wing militia to kill federal troops and hated liberals. Schlichter has turned his fantasy of domestic murder and mayhem into a novel, “Indian Country“, about armed resistance to a fantasized “politically correct police state”. In the early years of their rise to power German Nazis depended upon thugs, goons and gangs of semi-official enforcers to suppress dissent and terrorize demonized minorities. Ignore this stuff at our…


Telling Tales: The Tohono O’odham Nation And The Threat Of Trump’s Border Wall

  Telling Tales BBC (3/21/18) A retelling of an ancient Native American story from the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose traditional lands straddle the border between the United States and Mexico. The story encapsulates the tribe’s closerelationship with their land, plants and animals. But their ancient way of life is now under threat from President Trump’s plans to build a fortified wall across their sacred lands. The power of ancient tales is that they cross time and space, and resonate with us all as human beings. Penny Boreham explores the power of ancient stories by taking three traditional tales and juxtaposing…


All American Torture: Bipartisan Republican & Democrat Assault On Human Rights

  Democrats’ Abject Surrender On Torture Is Nearly Complete By Marcy Wheeler The HuffPost (3/15/18) In the same tweet he used to unceremoniously fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump announced the twin nominations of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement and CIA veteran Gina Haspel as the new head of the nation’s premier intelligence agency. Haspel, the CIA’s current deputy director, now stands to become the agency’s first female director, despite the fact that she previously supervised a CIA black site where detainees were tortured and was later implicated in the destruction of video…


A Worm’s-Eye View Of Weaponizing Your Facebook Data For The Russpublicans: Exploiting The Hearts & Minds Of Americans

As Wylie describes it, he was the gay Canadian vegan who somehow ended up creating “Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare mindfuck tool”. By Carole Cadwalladar The Guardian (3/17/18) The first time I met Christopher Wylie, he didn’t yet have pink hair. That comes later. As does his mission to rewind time. To put the genie back in the bottle. By the time I met him in person, I’d already been talking to him on a daily basis for hours at a time. On the phone, he was clever, funny, bitchy, profound, intellectually ravenous, compelling. A master storyteller. A politicker. A data science…


“What Velveeta Is To Cheese”– Bill Maher Delivers Spot On Critique Of Democrats Lack Of Political Courage

  By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (3/19/18) One can quibble with some details of Bill Maher’s critique of democratic candidates and the party, and I wish he would stop with the snarky generalizations about Trump supporters, but his central argument is spot on: “Republicans, they’re all claws and sharp teeth and fangs when they fight,” said Maher. “The Democrats? Their weapon of choice is adaptive coloration.” Maher further claimed Democrats were “to political courage what Velveeta is to cheese.” Link to 6-Minute Video ***** The Mall Of Hypocrisy: Kimmel’s Shopping Spree At Trump’s Store Turns Up Potential Violations…


Next Time Wall Street Needs You To Bail Them Out, Remember The Names Of These 16 Quisling Democrats

  By Jon Queally Common Deams (2/15/18) “Remember these names the next time Wall Street tanks our economy and taxpayers are left to bail out the Big Banks.”   That was the declaration by the progressive advocacy group Public Citizen late Wednesday after 17 members of the Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate joined with Republicans to pass a sweeping deregulatory banking bill, derisively referred to as the “Bank Lobbyist Act” by critics. In addition to Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), 16 Democrats joined a unified Republican caucus in approving the so-called “Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act”: Michael Bennet (Col.), Tom Carper…


Russia Monitor: From An FBI Firing To Facebook … Our Nation At Risk

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/19/18) Dear Fellow Readers, Trump had the Department of Justice fire FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe late Friday evening. McCabe had previously announced his intent to retire which would have been official on Sunday. If there were questions or alternative theories about ‘why’, Trump made his rationale clear with ranting tweets on Saturday and Sunday mornings: Trump Rails Against Mueller Investigation, Dismisses McCabe’s Notes As ‘Fake Memos’. Trump has only just started referring to special counsel Robert Mueller by name and with that, “witch hunt” Mueller gets top billing over former FBI Director James…


For Walker, It’s All About Self-Interest: What He Does, Not What He Says He “will do”

By Scott Wittkopf Frame4Future.com (3/12/18)   Since his state of the state address, Scott Walker has been attacked by Democrats as “stealing their best ideas” in an effort to “buy votes.” Wisconsin Democrats’ continued adherence to outdated political strategies are resulting in a critical failure that could again cost them votes in November. Because most of the Democratic strategists in Wisconsin view politics only through the narrow lenses of issues, personal identity, and celebrity, they are actually helping Walker by claiming that he is “stealing their ideas” on issues. Instead of focusing on who says what about which issue, they ought to focus…


Poll: Farmers Overwhelmingly Oppose Bayer Monsanto Merger

  Friends of the Earth (3/8/18) WASHINGTON, D.C. – An overwhelming majority of surveyed farmers are concerned about the proposed Bayer-Monsanto merger and believe it will have a negative impact on independent farmers and farming communities, a poll released today has found. According to the poll, of the farmers who responded: 93.7 percent are concerned about the proposed merger of Bayer and Monsanto (82.8 percent are very concerned/10.9 percent somewhat concerned); 93.7 percent of farmers are concerned that the proposed Bayer-Monsanto merger will negatively impact independent farmers and farming communities (83.9 percent are very concerned/9.8 percent somewhat concerned);   The farmer’s top…


Trump Is Unravelling, But He Won’t Fall Without Real Pushback From The Dems

  By Gary Younge The Guardian (3/15/18) Even by Donald Trump’s standards, Tuesday was extraordinary [3/13]. First came the tweet that he had fired his secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Then a state department spokesman issued a statement claiming Tillerson was “unaware of the reason” for his dismissal, and had heard about it on Twitter. A few hours later the spokesman had been fired too. Meanwhile the lawyer of porn actor Stephanie Clifford (stage name: Stormy Daniels), who allegedly had an affair with Trump, warned the country to “buckle up” as Clifford sought to extract herself from her non-disclosure agreement so she could “publish any…


50 Years After My Lai Massacre In Vietnam, Revisiting The Slaughter The U.S. Military Tried To Hide

  (Editor’s Note: With the country gearing up for yet another senseless war it is important to remember what war is really about. Between the dioxin contamination of the land and resulting birth defects and death by unexploded bombs Americans continue to kill innocent Vietnam civilians. Three heroic GI resisters are interviewed. — Mark L. Taylor) Democracy Now! (3/16/18) Fifty years ago, on March 16, 1968, U.S. soldiers attacked the Vietnamese village of My Lai. Even though the soldiers met no resistance, they slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese women, children and old men over the next four hours, in what…


Sacrifice Zone: A Cursed Appalachian Mining Town

  Video by Ivete Lucas & Patrick Bresnan The Atlantic (3/13/18) In the late 1800s, traveling preacher Robert Sheffey cursed the town of Ivanhoe, Virginia, after witnessing what one female resident describes as “houses of ill repute, fighting, drunkenness, and a rejection of his ministry by the townspeople.” Legend has it that Sheffey condemned the sinful town to sink into the earth and be consumed by the pits of hell. “Whether you believe in it or not, after that happened, we lost everything,” says the same Ivanhoe resident in the short documentary The Curse and the Jubilee. “We lost the rock quarry; we…


CARTOON: Evangelical Disfigurement And The Last Temptation

***** How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory. By Michael Gerson The Atlantic (April 2018) One of the most extraordinary things about our current politics—really, one of the most extraordinary developments of recent political history—is the loyal adherence of religious conservatives to Donald Trump. The president won four-fifths of the votes of white evangelical Christians. This was a higher level of support than either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, an outspoken evangelical himself, ever received. Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models…


Healthcare For All: Rep. Ron Kind Misses A Big Opportunity To Show Leadership & Listen To Voters

Rep. Ron Kind ignores the health care concerns of 3rd Congressional District democrats this past Saturday in Sparta.   By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (3/15/18) This past Saturday the Democratic Party Third Congressional District Convention was held in the American Legion Hall in Sparta. Somewhere around 100 democratic party activists from all over the far flung 3rd CD gathered to hear from candidates for a variety of offices, debate a slate of interesting resolutions and network with other activists. A contingent of Vernon County delegates (I was one) decided we needed to carry the cause of Medicare For…


‘The Crisis’ — Thomas Paine’s Call To Rebellion

  “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;” and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.” “Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.” “There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes…


No Image

Gun Violence Has Dropped Dramatically In 3 States With Very Different Gun Laws

  “When leaders act like kids and kids act like leaders, we need change.” — Protest sign at Wednesday student walkout at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. ***** By Mike Males Yes! Magazine (2/17/18) This week, 17 teachers, students, and visitors died in a Florida high school, in a country where mass shootings have been devastatingly routine. This was followed by another day of despairing, angry furor over guns, schools, and shootings that replayed the same reactions from dozens of past shootings. Once the warring factions settle into their talking points and scapegoats, the debate rages on for decades with little sign…


Depth Of Russian Politician’s Cultivation Of NRA Ties Revealed

  “NRA leaders still haven’t explained their close relationship with Russian officials in Putin’s orbit. Until they do, people will continue to wonder what the NRA is hiding.” By Tim Mak NPR (3/1/18) A prominent Kremlin-linked Russian politician has methodically cultivated ties with leaders of the National Rifle Association, and documented efforts in real time over six years to leverage those connections and gain access deeper into American politics, NPR has learned. Russian politician Alexander Torshin claimed his ties to the National Rifle Association provided him access to Donald Trump — and the opportunity to serve as a foreign election…


Russia Monitor: Russpublican Loyalties Do Not Include The Nation

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (3/15/18) Dear Fellow Readers, In the last edition of the Russia Monitor we reported on Putin’s attempt to kill a turncoat former Russian military intelligence colonel, Sergei Skripal, along with his 33-year-old daughter. This being one of more than a dozen such attacks on Russians in Britain by Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years. Theresa May Points to Russia while Trump Says “or whoever it might be”… British Prime Minister Theresa May declared it was “highly likely” that Russia was behind the nerve agent attack on Skripal that “also poisoned a British…


Tillerson Out & Pompeo In: ‘From Exxon’s CEO To The Koch Brothers’ Most Loyal Lapdog’

  By Julia Conley Common Dreams (3/13/18) 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. “Donald Trump has now somehow picked someone even worse than Rex Tillerson to run the State Department,” said Greenpeace USA Climate Director Naomi Ages in a statement.  “In addition to being a climate denier, like his predecessor, Pompeo is the Koch brothers’ shill who will denigrate the United States’ reputation abroad and make us vulnerable to threats at home.” May Boeve,…


Protecting Language Makes All The Difference In Political Debate: Regulations Are Really Essential Protections

  By George Lakoff georgelakoff.com (1/28/17) The American Majority got 2.8 million more votes in the 2016 election than the Loser President. That puts the majority in a position to change American political discourse and how Americans understand and think about politics. As a start, what is needed is a change of viewpoint. Here is a typical example. Minority President Trump has said that he intends to get rid of 75% of government regulations. What is a “regulation”? The term “regulation” is framed from the viewpoint of corporations and other businesses. From their viewpoint, “regulations” are limitations on their freedom…


Trump’s New CIA Nominee, Gina Haspel, Faces Possible Arrest Warrant In Germany On Brutal Torture Charges

  Democracy Now! (3/14/18) On Tuesday morning, President Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via Twitter. In the same tweet, the president announced CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who is a close ally of the Koch brothers, would be nominated to become the new secretary of state. Trump also tapped CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel to head the CIA. Haspel was directly involved in the CIA’s torture program under George W. Bush. She was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 where one prisoner was waterboarded 83 times and tortured in other ways. Both Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel must now face…


This American Life: Destiny Is All About What Class You Belong To

  This American Life (3/8/17) There’s a program that brings together kids from two schools. One school is public and in the country’s poorest congressional district. The other is private and costs $43,000/year. They are three miles apart. The hope is that kids connect, but some of the public school kids just can’t get over the divide. We hear what happens when you get to see the other side and it looks a lot better. Link to Story, Transcript and 60-Minute Audio ***** Low-Income Students Hit Hardest In Public Schools By Tracy Lee Newsweek (1/11/18) Poverty and segregation drive the gap…



Quislings: Meet The Democratic ‘Dirty Dozen’ Working Closely With Russpublicans To Gut Financial Protections

    By Marshall Auerback AlterNet (3/10/18) As if to maximize the possibility of another major financial crisis, the Trump administration and the GOP have recently been busy undercutting the limited safeguards established a decade ago via Dodd-Frank. The latest example of this stealth attack on Wall Street reform is the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, appropriately sponsored by Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Appropriate, because this is literally a “crapo” bill. It provides a few “technical tweaks” to Dodd-Frank in the same way in which protection payouts to organized crime…


Wake Up Workers! Empowering Lessons Of West Virginia Teacher Strike

By Eric Blanc Jacobin (3/9/18)The Great West Virginia Wildcat is the single most important labor victory in the US since at least the early 1970s. Though the 1997 UPS strike and the 2012 Chicago teachers’ strike also captured the country’s attention, there’s something different about West Virginia. This strike was statewide, it was illegal, it went wildcat, and it seems to be spreading.West Virginia’s upsurge shares many similarities with the rank-and-file militancy of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But there are some critical differences. Whereas labor struggles four decades ago came in the wake of a postwar economic boom and the inspiring successes of the Civil Rights…


The U.S. Lumbers, Lurches & Hurtles Toward Full-On Military Dictatorship

  By Andre Damon World Socialist Web Site (10/23/17) The militarist diatribe by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general, at a White House press briefing last week laid bare an open secret of American politics: behind the façade of democratic rule, the United States increasingly resembles a military dictatorship. Firing back at criticisms of President Donald Trump’s handling of the October 4 deaths of four US soldiers in Niger, Kelly called members of the US military “the best one percent this country produces.” He then announced that he would take questions only from journalists who were…



Do You Have The Stomach To Watch This Video? It’s Called ‘Pagpag’. How Meat Is Recycled From The Dump & Sold To The Poor In Manilla

  Editor’s Note Advisory: Some in the west may find this challenging video unsettling and gross, but before problems can be addressed they must first be seen and understood. The kind of grotesque, criminal concentration of capitalist wealth in which eight men own as much wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion people on the planet makes this kind of daily injustice and degradation inevitable. (In the U.S. three men — Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet own as much wealth as the bottom half of the American population.) — Mark L. Taylor By Video journalist: Howard Johnson / Producer: Virma…