FEATURE

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Trumpenstan December 23, 2019

Ralph Nader Lays Out Nancy Pelosi’s Missed Opportunities With Impeachment

“It’s truly tragic.” Democracy Now! (12/16/9) Donald Trump is set to become the third president to be impeached when the Democrat-controlled House votes Wednesday on two charges related to his attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. The vote will send the charges to the Republican-controlled Senate, which will then hold a trial on whether to remove Trump from office. Witnesses who could be called to testify include former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Early Monday, the House Judiciary Committee released its full report on Trump’s impeachment…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Democrats, FEATURE, War State America December 19, 2019

‘Democrats Must Do Better’: As Poverty Spreads, Corporate Dems Ignore Progressives & Vote With GOP To Pass Bloated $1.4 Trillion War Budget & Funding Of Trump’s Wall

  “We must fund the government without funding hate.” — Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (12/17/19) The leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus condemned the $1.4 trillion spending package that passed the House Tuesday, calling the legislation a massive giveaway to the Pentagon and a green light for President Donald Trump’s “immoral mass detention policies.” “The bill before us today will not stop the abuse and wrongful detention of people in custody, nor will it prevent the Trump administration from misusing federal funds to advance their horrific mass detention and deportation agenda,” Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.),…

ALL ARTICLES, American Socialist Tradition, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know December 19, 2019

America’s Rich Socialist Tradition Is As American As Apple Pie — Especially In Wisconsin!

  By Nathan Robinson The Guardian (12/10/19) It is often claimed that the United States differs from Europe in that it lacks a socialist tradition. The title question of Werner Sombart’s 1906 book Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? was answered nearly a century later by Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Wolfe Marks’ It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States. It is common to say that socialism “failed” here; this is true insofar as socialists never became a substantial force in American politics. But it overlooks the fact that we did, for a short time, have…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Health Care, Resist! December 5, 2019

‘So If You’re Poor, You’re Dead’? Watch These Brits Gasp When They Find Out The Deadly, Crippling Cost Of Corporate Run Medical Profiting In The US

“Brits can’t fathom the barbarity of America’s healthcare system.” By Eoin Higgins Common Dreams Britons in a video released Tuesday expressed incredulity and shock at the high cost of healthcare in the United States and thanked the United Kingdom’s publicly-funded and administered National Health Service for sparing the country’s people such exorbitant prices. “So if you’re poor, you’re dead,” one young woman tells the interviewer from Joe Politics after hearing an asthma inhaler in the for-profit U.S. system costs between $250 and $300. Two different men appear shocked when told Americans can be charged $2,500 for an ambulance ride. “For real?” one…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, FEATURE, One Percenters, Progressive History, Resist! November 25, 2019

The ‘Audacity Of Nope’ — Actually, Barack, We Do Need To Tear Down The System

By John Atcheson Common Dreams (11/21/19) There are two ways to practice politics: you can either follow polls or shape them.  For four decades now, Democrats have been poll followers, and Republicans have been poll shapers. Recently, President Obama urged the Democrats to continue being poll followers, saying, “The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”  The evidence suggests he’s wrong about that, but even if he isn’t, Democrats need to change the mind of the average American, not be led by it. Here’s why. “The system” was designed by and for corporate America and…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, M. Taylor Columns, One Percenters, Police State America, War State America November 21, 2019

Cashing In On Murder, Mayhem & Profit Making: Women CEO’s Of Top Weapons Manufactures Cash In On International Murder & Mayhem

“This is the diversity of the ruling class. This is what the ruling class does to let us think there has been progress.” By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (11/21/19) Jimmy Dore (10/23) and his panel of comedians take on a recent Fortune magazine feature celebrating the rise of women executives to lead American war profiteering corporations, beginning with Lockheed Martin’s CEO Maryliyn Hewson, who began her work life as an ambitious teen dishing up ice cream at her hometown Dairy Queen and now markets weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction used to maul, main and murder families around the…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, One Percenters November 18, 2019

Senate Dems Join GOP To Back ‘Automatic Austerity’ Bill That Will Lead To Gutting Social Programs, Hamstring Needed Reform & Investment

By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (11/14/19) A handful of Senate Democrats joined forces with Republicans last week to advance sweeping budget legislation that would establish an “automatic deficit-reduction process” that could trigger trillions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and other social programs—and potentially hobble the agenda of the next president. The Bipartisan Congressional Budget Reform Act (S.2765), authored by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), passed out of the Senate Budget Committee on November 6. The legislation is co-sponsored by five members of the Senate Democratic caucus: Whitehouse, Mark Warner (Va.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Chris Coons (Del.),…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, One Percenters November 14, 2019

Inside ‘The Corporate Coup D’Etat’ That’s Created A New, Brutally Unjust Gilded Age

“They are just looting and stealing as fast as they can as everything collapses.” — Author Chris Hedges, interviewed in The Corporate Coup D’Etat.   [Editor’s Note: Film producer Jeff Cohen has pointed advice for democrats in 2020 regarding the party’s timid, go-slow, incremental ever corporate-friendly posture. Advice, that if ignored could well assure Trump victory in 2020. — Mark L. Taylor] Status Coup (7/20/19) Status Coup’s Jordan Chariton speaks with Jeff Cohen, the founder of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) and executive producer of the film “The Corporate Coup D’Etat’.” Link to 19-Minute Video (Commoner Call art by Mark…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Right Wing Religion November 14, 2019

Evangelical Foster Mom Challenges Religious Right On Hypocrisy Regarding Govt. Abuse Of Migrant Children

By Rachel Martin Morning Edition / NPR (11/12/19) NPR’s Rachel Martin talks to Gena Thomas about how she helped a five-year-old girl from Honduras reunite with her mother. Thomas is the author of: Separated by the Border. Link To 7-Minute Audio (Commoner call cartoon for Mark L. Taylor, 2019. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org ) ***** U.S. Held Nearly 70,000 Migrant Children In Government Lock-Up In 2019 “There was despair everywhere.” By Christopher Sherman, Martha Mendoza & Garance Burke Associated Press (11/12/19) COMAYAGUA, Honduras (AP) — The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, One Percenters November 11, 2019

Cornered Billionaires Are Freaking Out!

Bill Gates is thinking about voting for Donald Trump, while Mike Bloomberg intends to vote for himself. By Zach Carter HuffPost (11/8/19) Since early summer, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been drawing huge crowds to their rallies, dominating the televised debates, and setting fundraising records with support exclusively from small donors. Most importantly, their surging popularity stems from their plans to dramatically expand the federal government, paid for in large part through a wealth tax. This populist turn has the rest of the Democratic presidential field scrimmaging for what’s left — namely, the support of the party’s super-rich….

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ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Deep State, Documentaries, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, War State America November 11, 2019

Sheldon Wolin & Inverted Totalitarianism: Don’t Call It Democracy. Putting Understanding To What America Has Become

A corporate war state cannot be a democratic state. By Chris Hedges TruthDig (11/2/15) Sheldon Wolin, our most important contemporary political theorist, died Oct. 21 [2015] at the age of 93. In his books “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism” and “Politics and Vision,” a massive survey of Western political thought that his former student Cornel West calls “magisterial,” Wolin lays bare the realities of our bankrupt democracy, the causes behind the decline of American empire and the rise of a new and terrifying configuration of corporate power he calls “inverted totalitarianism.” Wendy Brown, a political…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Rethuglicans November 7, 2019

Behind Closed Doors Wimpy Little Republicans Offer NO Defense Of Trump In Released Impeachment Depositions

Trump’s Cowardly Lions Of The Far Right. MSNBC (11/4/19) In the first batch of transcripts released from the impeachment investigation depositions, House Republicans make no attempt to defend Trump and fail to undermine the expert witnesses who testified. Link To 8-Minute Video (Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2019. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org ) ***** Impeachment Transcripts Expose The Shameful Truth: House Republicans Don’t Give A Damn About Protecting America By David Cay Johnston Raw Story (11/5/19) Transcripts of closed-door testimony in the Trump impeachment investigation show a disturbing pattern of behavior…

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, One Percenters November 7, 2019

McDonald’s Fired CEO Is Getting Cushy $42 Million Pay Out While Many Of His Workers Depend Upon Welfare To Survive

More than half of fast-food workers rely on public assistance programs like food stamps. By Alina Selyukh NPR (11/6/19) Former McDonald’s CEO Stephen Easterbrook is getting an exit package of almost $42 million after his relationship with an employee was found to violate company policy. The size of his compensation puts a new focus on the widening gap between the pay at the top and the bottom of the corporate ladder. According to an analysis by executive-compensation experts at Equilar, Easterbrook’s exit package totals $41.8 million, which includes six months of severance pay, shares he can cash out in the future and…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Police State America November 4, 2019

Cuccinelli Open About Trump Admin Casual Cruelty To Sick Immigrant Infants & Children

MSNBC (10/30/19) Rachel Maddow reports on acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, being open in his answers to Congress about the cruelty of the policy he implemented, threatening extremely ill immigrant kids and their families with deportation. Link To 5+-Minute Video Five-Year-Old Boy Facing Deportation From Australia Because Of Mild Disability — A five-year-old boy born in Australia is facing deportation to Bangladesh with his family after their visa applications were refused because his “mild disability” would be a burden on the medical system. Dr Mahedi Hasan Bhuiyan arrived in Australia on a student visa in…

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, One Percenters November 4, 2019

Not To Worry, We’ll Just Put It On Your Tab: Trump Treasury Moves To Eliminate Rules Against Corporate Tax Cheating

Companies will avoid taxes on $235 billion in profits each year going forward. By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (11/1/19) President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department on Thursday took the first step toward eliminating remaining regulations designed to prevent corporations from avoiding U.S. taxes by storing profits overseas, a move critics decried as yet another harmful giveaway to big business. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, said in a statement that the 2017 GOP tax law—which disproportionately benefited the rich—rendered Obama-era rules against offshore tax avoidance “obsolete” by significantly reducing the corporate tax rate. “The corporations that got a massive taxpayer handout are getting another gift…

'Just-Us' System, ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, FEATURE, Resist! October 31, 2019

The Revolution Is Here Democrats: Ignore It At Your Peril

By John Atcheson Common Dreams (10/29/19) Despite the yammering by the mainstream media and the neoliberals running the Democratic Party—not to mention Republicans and Fox News—the overwhelming majority of voters support progressive issues on a case-by-case basis, and the majority support the candidates who espouse them. Doubt that? See here, or here, or here, or any poll based the issues, not on political labels that—as a result of a four decades long branding effort funded by the oligarchy—have ceased to represent any real political perspective. As for the majority supporting the progressive candidates, Sanders’ and Warren’s combined share of the voters exceeds Biden’s by a factor of two,…

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ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know October 31, 2019

Filmmaker David Lynch’s Chillingly Prescient Vision Of Modern America

When they were first released, Lynch’s films may well have appeared as funhouse mirror reflections of society. Not so anymore. By Billy J. Stratton The Conversation (10/25/19) “There’s a sort of evil out there,” says Sheriff Truman in an episode of David Lynch’s iconic TV series, “Twin Peaks.” That line gets to the heart of Lynch’s work, which reflects the dark, ominous, often bizarre underbelly of American culture – one increasingly out of the shadows today. As someone who teaches film noir, I often think about the ways American cinema serves as a mirror to society. David Lynch is a master…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Health Care October 28, 2019

As He Attacks Medicare For All, Mayor Pete Paddles Along In Flood Of Corporate Cash From Health Care Executives

    By Alex Kotch Sludge (10/18/19) Thirty-seven-year-old South Bend, Indiana mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has undergone a dramatic shift in health care policy in less than two years. Responding to criticism of his vague health care policies in early 2018, Buttigieg “declared” on Twitter that, “Most affirmatively and indubitably, unto the ages…I do favor Medicare for All.” Later, as he entered the Democratic presidential primary, he landed on a kind of compromise: a single-player option he likes to call “Medicare for All Who Want It” that lets him show support for those frustrated by the high costs…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, Trumpenstan October 24, 2019

Pity The Kurds (And Curse Our Callous, Cowardly Betrayal)

They were cannon fodder for the United States. By Chris Hedges TruthDig (10/21/19) I stood on the wind-swept Kalowa Hill in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya as Pershan Hassan, a stocky 53-year-old woman, clambered quickly up the dirt track leading to where a mass grave was being excavated. She clutched a framed black-and-white picture of a boy. She pushed her way through the crowd that was looking down at the unearthed remains of dozens of bodies. Suddenly, she let out a gasp of pain and recognition as she saw the skeletal remains of her 13-year-old son, Shafiq. A faded…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, M. Taylor Columns, Resist! October 24, 2019

Umbrellas Up! Hong Kong Youth Can Teach A Thing Or Two To Timid, Passive America About How To Confront Corrupted Power

  By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (10/ 24/19) The National Public Radio show This American Life recently traveled to Hong Kong to join protesters on the streets and in their living rooms to learn about what it is like to participate in risky mass protests against corrupted power. The massive weekend protests began several months ago over a now withdrawn extradition law that could have made Hong Kong residents subject to disappearance in mainland Chinese prison camps. Hong Kong police have grown increasingly aggressive with one protester recently being shot. In response some demonstrators have become increasingly aggressive…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, One Percenters, Rethuglicans October 14, 2019

Precious Slackers: Hunter Biden Is A Reminder Of The Deep Moral Rot Of BOTH Political Parties

When you are the son of a famous and powerful politician, you are showered with opportunity, whether you deserve it or not. This is nepotism, but it is also, if we are being direct, a form of corruption. Moral corruption.  By Hamilton Nolan The Guardian (10/11/10) One of the peculiar stupidities of the American political mind is its resolute refusal to hold two separate ideas at once. Our dominant political narrative is like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book for morons, offering only a conservative red storyline or a liberal blue storyline, with nothing in between or outside those primary color bounds. Politicians themselves, out…

ALL ARTICLES, CAFOS, FEATURE October 14, 2019

‘Unacceptable’: Family Farms, Ag Advocates Hit Back After Sec Perdue Says Small Dairy Farms Destined To Die

  By Eoin Higgins Common Dreams (10/2/19) Furious family farmers flamed Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue Wednesday after comments he made on the future of the dairy business that cast doubt on the future of small farms during a stop in Wisconsin Tuesday. “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” said Perdue. “I don’t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.” The secretary added that in his view the industry was leaving smaller producers behind. “It’s very difficult on an economy of scale with the capital…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE October 7, 2019

Howdy, Modi! Tulsi & Trump All In For The Indian Fascist Leader’s Fan Club

The greatest diplomatic triumph for the American Sangh was rehabilitating Modi’s tainted reputation in the United States. Gabbard played a significant part in that project. By Pieter Friedrich The Caravan (9/1/19) TULSI GABBARD, a United States Congresswoman, entered the historic First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles to the strains of Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” She shook hands with her cheering fans, leaped on stage with a smile, accepted a garland of white flowers from a supporter, folded her hands in greeting and said, “Aloha.” It was a sunny Saturday morning in March 2019, and she was campaigning for…

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ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Health Care October 7, 2019

The Dark Web Is Saturating Our Communities With Deadly Fentanyl Imports From China

  China encouraging and subsidizing production and export of fentanyl and other drugs of abuse to US. Fresh Air (9/4/19) ‘Fentanyl, Inc.’ author Ben Westhoff says the synthetic opioid, while useful in hospitals, is killing more Americans as a street drug than any other in U.S. history. More than 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year. Westhoff talks about how it moves from China to your corner. Link to 35-Minute Audio

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, Police State America, Rethuglicans, Right Wing Religion, Surveillance State, Trumpenstan September 30, 2019

Pathocracy: The Pathological Power Of Governments Led By Narcissists & Psychopaths

The danger of democracy transitioning into pathocracy is always real. It is always closer to us than we think, and once it has a foothold, will crush every obstacle in its way. By Steve Taylor The Conversation (9/19/19) After spending his early life suffering under the Nazis and then Stalin, the Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski devoted his career to studying the relationship between psychological disorders and politics. He wanted to understand why psychopaths and narcissists are so strongly attracted to power as well as the processes by which they take over governments and countries. He eventually came up with the term “pathocracy”…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, Police State America September 16, 2019

Creator Of Stanford Prison Experiment On ICE & Trump’s Camps: It’s How Nazi Guards Behaved

Philip Zimbardo, whose work explored the psychology of cruelty: America under Trump is a “nightmare situation” By  Chauncey Devega Salon (9/12/19) Thousands of migrant and refugee children have still not been reunited with their families. Many may never be returned to their parents. Children being held in Donald Trump’s concentration camps and other detention centers have been sexually assaulted by staff members. A new lawsuit against the Trump administration alleges that Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol enforcers are abusing teenage girls and young women by denying them proper sanitary products, leaving the girls in bloody clothes and refusing to allow them to properly…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, CIA, FEATURE, Police State America, Surveillance State September 16, 2019

Edward Snowden Memoir ‘Permanent Record’ Lays Out The Emerging Worldwide Surveillance Threat

“The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as facial and pattern recognition.” By Ewen MacKaskill The Guardian (9/13/19) The world’s most famous whistleblower, Edward Snowden, says he has detected a softening in public hostility towards him in the US over his disclosure of top-secret documents that revealed the extent of the global surveillance programmes run by American and British spy agencies. In an exclusive two-hour interview in Moscow to mark the publication of his memoirs, Permanent Record, Snowden said dire warnings that his disclosures would cause harm had not come to pass, and even…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, Resist! September 12, 2019

Shut It Down: Veteran Organizer Lisa Fithian Offers A Guide To Resistance In Era Of Climate Crisis

“Learn Your History.” Democracy Now! (9/6/19) Lisa Fithian is a longtime organizer and nonviolent direct action trainer since the 1970s. She has shut down the CIA. She has occupied Wall Street, disrupted the World Trade Organization and stood her ground in Tahrir Square. She has walked in solidarity with the tribal leaders at Standing Rock and defended communities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. “It’s an incredibly painful time, but we can’t let that pain de-stablize us.” She joined us at the Democracy Now! studio to talk about her new book, which was published this week, titled “Shut It Down: Stories…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Police State America September 9, 2019

When The ICE Police State Drag Net Hits Close To Your Home & Family

By Tom Balistrieri Special to the Commoner Call (9/9/19) Big ICE Border Patrol check-point stop on I-89 in West Lebanon, New Hampshire  yesterday [9/5]  near the exit to a popular local Mexican Restaurant named Gusanoz. The owner, Nick Yager, was interviewed by the local newspaper, and he told them that immigrants have been his best workers. A young Mexican American woman and her kids were caught in the stop. She said they didn’t give her any trouble, but she was scared and she had to explain it to her kids, who were in the backseat. (That ‘Young Mexican American woman…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, War State America September 9, 2019

Joe Biden Lying About His Role In Disastrous Iraq War Is Typical Of American Pols & Shows Why We Have So Many Wars

In Biden’s case, he attempted to take a Sharpie to the entire war and black-out his name. By Jonathan Turley The Hill (9/7/19) Former French President Charles de Gaulle once explained that “since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.” This week, no one is more surprised than President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump succeeded in turning an innocent mistake about the weather into a giant lie and then, after days of determined effort, into a full-fledged scandal. Biden succeeded in denying his own words in…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Democrats, FEATURE, Police State America, Rethuglicans, Surveillance State, Trumpenstan September 5, 2019

America’s Slow-Motion Coup Keeps Grinding Forward: But Is Donald Trump Really The One To Blame?

We need to understand that Trump is a symptom, not the problem. By Andrew O’Hehir Salon (8/2/19) We are in the middle of a slow-motion coup in the United States of America. Even the phrase itself is banal, which is itself a symptom of our moral and political exhaustion. But sometimes clichés are on the money. Most of this coup is happening right out in the open, where those of us who are somewhat paying attention can notice it, bemoan it and then move on to the next day’s real or manufactured outrage. That doesn’t seem to be helping. There…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Deep State, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, One Percenters, Police State America, Screwing With Your Vote, Surveillance State, War State America September 5, 2019

The Deep State Government Hiding In Plain Sight

[Editor’s Note: Be sure to watch all the way through to the end to catch Bill Moyer’s commentary. — Mark L. Taylor] Moyers & Company (4/15/16) Mike Lofgren, a congressional staff member for 28 years, joins Bill Moyers to talk about what he calls Washington’s “Deep State,” in which elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. “It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war,” Lofgren tells Moyers. Link to 27-Minute Video ***** Essay: Anatomy Of The Deep State In terms…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Media Hits & Misses September 2, 2019

Wisconsin Journalist & Media Commentator John Nichols Talks With Ralph Nader About The Corporate Takeover Of Newspapers

  By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (8/2/19) Wisconsin is about to see a big media change as the Gannett-owned Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel is about to be taken over by GateHouse media, a corporation known for stripping assets out of papers, slashing reporting staffs and diminishing the amount and quality of local reporting. The combination of Gannett and GateHouse will create the largest media conglomerate that will own 1 out of 6 newspapers in the country. More and more communities are going without local media, which means local government at the municipal and county levels goes unreported. Without the light…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Resist! August 29, 2019

Undercover: Reports From A Vancouver Democrat Who’s Been Working Against The Far-Right Extremist Group ‘Patriot’ Prayer From The Inside

[Editor’s Note: A hero in an era of cowards. — Mark L. Taylor] By Alex Zielinski Portland Mercury (8/26/19) Since 2017, far-right groups have flocked to notoriously liberal Portland to march, yell, and engage in violent clashes with left-wing activists. Most of these demonstrations were planned by Patriot Prayer, a small coalition of Trump-supporting provocateurs based in Vancouver, WA. Ben has marched alongside Patriot Prayer for nearly every major Portland demonstration—events with such vague names as “Rally for Trump and Freedom,” “Freedom March,” and “Trump Free Speech Rally.” What the far-right group didn’t know was that Ben was a spy. “I…

ALL ARTICLES, American Socialist Tradition, FEATURE August 26, 2019

After Decades Of Corporate ‘Decimation’ Of Unions, Sanders Calls For Workers To Win The Class War Waged Against Them

“If there is going to be class warfare in this country, it’s time that the working class of this country won that war.” By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (8/21/19) After he unveiled a comprehensive plan to double union membership and strengthen labor rights, Sen. Bernie Sanders said during an AFL-CIO event in Iowa on Wednesday that it is time for America’s workers to win the class war against corporate elites. “If there is going to be class warfare in this country,” said Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, “it’s time that the working class of this country won that war.” Sanders explained…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Trumpenstan, Your Brain On Politics August 26, 2019

Goebbels: The Truth About Political Lying (Or Why Trump Lies So Much)

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” — Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda.

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE August 22, 2019

‘A Snake Eating It’s Tail’ — Stock Buybacks Are Yet Another Wall Street Scam You Will Pay For

“All those billions are not just going into the air, they are going into someone’s pocket.” [Editor’s Note: One of the business experts interviewed warns we are at grave risk of yet another financial meltdown on the scale of what we experienced in 2008. — Mark L. Taylor] Business Daily / BBC (8/16/19) Share buybacks are when a publicly-listed company uses some of its spare cash to buy up shares in itself, in order to drive the share price up and benefit shareholders. The practice has become so common that the amount of buyback money extracted from corporations exceeds their…

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ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, M. Taylor Columns, Police State America, Your Brain On Politics August 12, 2019

Bearing Witness. Telling Truth In A Time Of Lies: Why It Is Important To Call Them What They Are — Concentration Camps

“Terrible things are happening outside… poor, helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find their parents have disappeared. “ — Anne Frank ***** By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (8/12/19) On Saturday I got into a fiery Facebook squabble with a frequent corporate dem critic objecting to something I posted about the growing network of concentration camps popping up along the southern border. I was accused of “extreme exaggeration” because the situation now is nothing like the death camps in Nazi…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Gun Cult August 12, 2019

“F-you, I like guns.” — Army Veteran Gets Real About Military Grade Firearms In The Hands Of Civilians:

This rifle is so deadly and so easy to use that no civilian should be able to get their hands on one. We simply don’t need these things in society at large.  By Anastasia Bernoulli Anastasia Writes (2/15/18) America, can we talk? Let’s just cut the shit for once and actually talk about what’s going on without blustering and pretending we’re actually doing a good job at adulting as a country right now. We’re not. We’re really screwing this whole society thing up, and we have to do better. We don’t have a choice. People are dying. At this rate, it’s…