ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Health Care July 22, 2019

Bernie Is Ready To Rumble In Defense Of Medicare For All

  By Megan Day Jacobin (7/18/19) Bernie Sanders delivered a major speech on Medicare for All yesterday. He knows who his enemies are: the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and their friends in elected office — and he’s spoiling for a fight with them. In 1966, every American citizen over the age of sixty-five received a card in the mail emblazoned with the words “HEALTH INSURANCE” and an official seal from the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The card certified the right of its recipient to health care coverage, funded by progressive taxes. The elderly could no longer work? No problem….

ALL ARTICLES July 22, 2019

Class Politics Is Rising Across The Nation. Trump Hopes Diverting The Nation Into A Racial Culture War Might Stop it

Great Seal of the 45th President, Donald J. Trump. By Bhaskar Sunkara The Guardian (7/20/19) The 2020 elections are fast approaching, and Donald Trump is already perfecting his campaign strategy: disgust his opponents, embolden his base and distract the general public. As most people have heard by now, the president said that four congresswomen – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – should “go back” and try to fix the “crime infested places” they “originally came from”. He’s continued rallying against them, accusing them somehow of being both godless communists and radical Islamists. Outrage ensued across much of the political spectrum. Three…

ALL ARTICLES, Media Hits & Misses July 22, 2019

How Media Timidly Downplays & Enables Trump’s Ugly Racism

The only way to resist Trump’s firehose of Orwellian lies is to loudly, repeatedly and publicly call them lies. By Amanda Marcotte Salon (7/19/19) With plodding predictability, we’re now supposed to believe that Donald Trump is unhappy with racist chants by his followers and true believers. And that’s after he spent the better part of the past week defending and doubling down on his use of a classic white supremacist demand that people of color should “go back” to wherever their ancestors came from. Resisting Trump’s efforts at gaslighting and manipulating the media requires reporters and editors not to give more weight to…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor July 22, 2019

Russia Monitor: The Pressure Is On House Dems & Robert Mueller To Make It All Clear

“I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes, we were stablemates. We did well that night.” — Trump Nov 10, 2015 “why he understands Putin”. ***** “I’ve never met him. I have no relationship with Putin. I don’t think I’ve ever met him. I never met him . . . . I mean if he’s in the same room or something. But I don’t think so.” — Trump July 31, 2016 interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos. By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (7/22/19) Dear Fellow Readers, It turns out, in spite of all…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change July 22, 2019

Climate Crisis Activist Greta Thunberg Responds To Questions: ‘They see us as a threat because we’re having an impact’

  By Ali Smith The Guardian (7/21/19) Greta Thunberg. This time last year she was unimaginable. Then, pretty much from nowhere, there she was: small and slight, a girl just turned 16, the way-too-young odd person out on a panel of adults sitting in front of the world’s economic powers at Davos last January. Unshowy and serious, careful, firm, she said it. Our house is on fire. The ancient Greeks had a word for this: parrhesiastes. It means a person who speaks truth to power: you should not be behaving in this way. Don’t. More specifically it suggests someone in whom…

ALL ARTICLES, Health Care July 22, 2019

Corporate Profits & Poor Training In Pain Management Feed Pain & Nation’s Growing Opioid Crisis

Motorcycle Crash Shows Bioethicist The Dark, Painful Side Of Quitting Opioids Alone. By Terry Gross Fresh Air (7/8/19) In 2015, Travis Rieder, a medical bioethicist with Johns Hopkins University’s Berman Institute of Bioethics, was involved in a motorcycle accident that crushed his left foot. In the months that followed, he underwent six different surgeries as doctors struggled first to save his foot and then to reconstruct it. Rieder says that each surgery brought a new wave of pain, sometimes “searing and electrical,” other times “fiery and shocking.” Doctors tried to mitigate the pain by prescribing large doses of opioids, including morphine,…

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, History They Don't Want You To Know July 22, 2019

She Defended Her Land Against A Mine In Guatemala Then Had To Flee For Her Life

The roots of the mining industry in Guatemala are soaked in the blood of its 36-year civil war. By Alleen Brown Video by Martyna Starosta The Intercept (6/23/19) TERESA MUÑOZ WAS riding her motorbike along her regular delivery route on a winding Guatemala road, carrying the homemade cheese she sold for a living, when she saw in her rearview mirror one of the white sedans that employees of the Escobal silver mine drove. Mining company cars had followed her before, but this time, the vehicle swerved. The driver rammed her motorbike, pitching her into the street, and then sped off. Muñoz was left…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Police State America July 22, 2019

Online Masturbation: Texas Border Agent Allegedly Sexually Harassed Mother Of Child Held In Detention Center

“The man appeared to be lying on a bed, with the camera aimed at the lower half of his body. She could see his dark brown shorts, legs and bare feet.” By Sophie Weiner Splinter News (7/17/19) A border agent who worked at a child detention facility in Clint, TX allegedly sent harassing messages to the mother of a 12-year-old child who was detained where he worked, according to the Washington Post. The mother filed a complaint with Customs and Border Protection about the alleged incident. The complaint alleges that the agent sent abusive chats and video calls to the undocumented Guatemalan woman…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Media Hits & Misses, War State America July 22, 2019

‘Official Secrets’ — Movie About Courageous UK Intel Whistleblower Who Leaked Damning Memo

  [Editor’s Note: The disastrous Iraq War rolled forward and was enabled by government deceit and malfeasance, bitter failure and active complicity of the British and American corporate media. In the midst of the craven battalions of government and corporate media a few brave souls stood out. Here’s the story of a courageous 27 year-old intelligence worker who stood for truth and principle. — Mark L. Taylor] Democracy Now! (7/19/19) In 2003, Katharine Gun, a young specialist working for Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, exposed a highly confidential memo that revealed the United States’ collaboration with Britain in collecting sensitive information…

ALL ARTICLES July 22, 2019

It’s Time To Redefine Left, Right, And Especially “Center” In US Politics

The chorus of people warning against the dangers of drifting to the left are being duped by a well-funded, Madison Avenue-style campaign that has been decades in the making.   By John Atcheson Common Dreams (7/3/19) One of the most persistent—and destructive—myths in politics is that America is a center right country politically.  It is reinforced by both parties, the press, and pundits and it has become generally accepted by much of the public.  This myth explains why folks warn against going too far to the left; about the dangers of embracing—gasp—”socialism,” and why most attempts to divine the “electability” of…

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, Rethuglicans July 22, 2019

The Numbers Are In, Proving The Shady Trumpublican Tax Cut Was The Scam Critics Had Warned Of

This tax bill was constructed on a foundation of lies. By Marshall Auerback Independent Media Institute (7/16/19) The most commonly heard refrain when Donald Trump and the GOP were seeking to pass some version of corporate tax reform went something like this: There are literally trillions of dollars trapped in offshore dollar deposits which, because of America’s uncompetitive tax rates, cannot be brought back home. Cut the corporate tax rate and get those dollars repatriated, thereby unleashing a flood of new job-creating investment in the process. Or so the pitch went. Since the passage of the tax bill, the data show no…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Rethuglicans, Trumpenstan July 18, 2019

Resolution Condemning Trump’s Racist Attacks ‘Not Enough,’ Say Progressives: ‘We Must Impeach’

Want a response to a lawless & complete failure of a President? He is the crisis. His dangerous ideology is the crisis. He needs to be impeached. — Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Tweet ***** By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (7/17/19) After the House late Tuesday passed a nonbinding resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen, outside progressives and lawmakers argued a “strongly worded” rebuke is not sufficient to hold the president accountable and called for impeachment hearings to begin immediately. In a statement after the resolution passed largely along party lines—with just four House Republicans breaking from their party and…

ALL ARTICLES, History They Don't Want You To Know, Trumpenstan July 18, 2019

Historian Finds Decree Kicking Trump’s Grandfather Out Of Germany

Donald Trump’s brothel-owning grandfather Friedrich Trump emigrated to the US from Germany in 1885. Photograph: Wikipedia By Kate Connolly The Guardian (11/21/16) A historian has discovered a royal decree issued to Donald Trump’s grandfather ordering him to leave Germany and never come back. Friedrich Trump, a German, was issued with the document in February 1905, and ordered to leave the kingdom of Bavaria within eight weeks as punishment for having failed to do mandatory military service and failing to give authorities notice of his departure to the US when he first emigrated in 1885. Roland Paul, a historian from Rhineland-Palatinate who found the…

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ALL ARTICLES, American Socialist Tradition, Democrats, History They Don't Want You To Know, One Percenters, Progressive History, Resist! July 18, 2019

There’s One Bipartisan Heresy That Really Sets Bernie Apart From All Other Dem Contenders To Unseat Trump

By Greg Grandin The Nation (7/16/19) Let’s be clear: Bernie Sanders’s heresy, what sets him apart from every Democrat running to unseat Donald Trump, is not simply that he calls himself a socialist in a country long proudly identified as capitalist. Those two labels, socialist and capitalist, are open to too many interpretations and represent too many historical examples (everything from Norway to the United States, Stalin’s Soviet Union to Hitler’s Nazi Germany) to pin down. Rather, a more precise way to define the historic nature of Sanders’s campaign would be to focus on his promotion of social or economic rights and how…

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ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Police State America, Rethuglicans, Trumpenstan, War State America July 18, 2019

This Is How Genocide Begins: A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It’s Really Like To Jail Migrant Children

“Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal. That includes the people responsible for fixing the problems.” By Ginger Thompson ProPublica (7/16/19) The Border Patrol agent, a veteran with 13 years on the job, had been assigned to the agency’s detention center in McAllen, Texas, for close to a month when the team of court-appointed lawyers and doctors showed up one day at the end of June. Taking in the squalor, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the poor health and vacant eyes of the hundreds of children held there, the group members appeared stunned. Then,…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Rethuglicans, Trumpenstan July 18, 2019

The President vs. The Patriots

Trump’s attack against four progressive Congresswomen was an act of racism, white nationalism — and narcissism. “More to the point, it requires challenge. America doesn’t move forward without being pushed. Speaking as someone with many family members who have served in the armed forces, I would still argue that our greatest patriots are those who fight in good faith in our communities to force this nation to own up to its original guarantees. But the aspiring strongman requires a different pledge of allegiance. This is a president who has done all he can to center the state in himself, masking his authoritarian…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor July 18, 2019

Russia Monitor: The Very Definition Of Who We Are — And Will Be — Hangs In The Balance.

“This is Mr. Trump’s Republican Party” — Lisa Lerer writing for the New York Times (7/15/19) ***** “The days for euphemisms… for lies, racism, illegality, and immorality have long since passed.” — Journalist Dan Rather tweet (7/15/19)  ***** “Trump is a racist president.” –– Lawyer George Conway, spouse of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, headline from Washington Post Opinion column. ***** “No racist. No racist. You’re the racist.” — CNN analyst, former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa tweeting in response to Rep Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) comments. By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (5/18/19) Dear Fellow Readers, Trump is running his reelection…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, Media Hits & Misses, Resist! July 18, 2019

Famed CBS Journalist Edward R. Murrow Reminds Us Of What It Means To Be Americans: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.”

“A Report On Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy” / “See It Now” on CBS – March 9, 1954. “Earlier the Senator asked, “Upon what meat does this, our Caesar, feed?” Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare’s Caesar, he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” “No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior senator from…

ALL ARTICLES, Gun Cult July 18, 2019

Where The 2020 Democratic Candidates Stand On Guns

  By Daniel Nass, Champe Barton & Jennifer Mascia The Trace (7/16/19) Gun reform has received little attention in past presidential races, but it’s a key issue among Democrats vying for the White House in 2020. Several candidates have released briefs detailing how they’d handle gun policy from the Oval Office, and a couple — namely Cory Booker and Eric Swalwell — have made conquering gun violence a centerpiece of their campaigns. To bring some clarity to the discussion, The Trace surveyed the 21 candidates who have qualified for the Democratic debates on a range of gun policies. We picked issues ranging…

ALL ARTICLES July 18, 2019

The Monopolist’s Horrible, Worst Nightmare: The Elizabeth Warren Interview

“We have a government that has kissed up to every giant corporation for decades.” By David Dayen American Prospect (6/18/19) We have the most intense concentration of corporate power in America since the Gilded Age of the late 1800s. And Senator Elizabeth Warren has a plan for that, as you might have heard. The presidential candidate has long been one of the few public officials to address the growing dominance of monopolies, and she’s highlighted the problem—and how to fix it—on the campaign trail. (She’s even placed billboards demanding the breakup of Big Tech in Silicon Valley’s backyard.) I had a chance to…

ALL ARTICLES July 18, 2019

Amazon’s Shakopee Minn. Workers, Unions Stage Demonstration Over Warehouse Conditions

  By Matt Sepic MPR (7/15/19) Several hundred people gathered outside Amazon’s sprawling fulfillment center in Shakopee Monday to protest what they say are difficult working conditions at the online retailer. The demonstration — which organizers called a strike — coincided with the retailer’s Prime Day promotion. Amazon employee Sahro Sharif said many workers have a tough time keeping up with the fast pace of packing and moving shipments. “We are striking to end the retaliation that we are facing as we fight to make these jobs safe, make these jobs permanent, make these jobs one where workers have a…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism July 18, 2019

In Patriarchy No One Can Hear You Scream: Rebecca Solnit On Jeffrey Epstein and the Silencing Machine

“Monsters rule over us, on behalf of monsters.” By Rebecca Solnit Literary Hub (7/10/19) One of my favorite books when I was young was T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, and one of its central themes is the attempt of King Arthur to replace an ethos of “might is right” with something closer to justice. Justice means everyone is equal under the law—and equality means both that everyone has equal value under the law and that everyone is subject to the law. That’s been a foundational concept for the United States, but might is right has never ceased to…

ALL ARTICLES, Quotes July 18, 2019

Notably Quotable: “The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is…”

  “The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.” — Aldous Huxley ***** “Planet Before Profit” — Extinction Rebellion UK protest banner ***** “Liberal democracy organizes society around respect for the dignity, equality and freedom of all human beings. Fascism, by contrast, organizes society around the vilification of outsiders. In this administration’s rhetoric toward undocumented immigrants from Central America and religious minorities, we have been subject to classic fascist tropes for some time. “ — Jason Stanley, author of “How Fascism Works”. ***** “What he did to me is…

ALL ARTICLES July 15, 2019

On Nancy Pelosi, Impeachment, The Breaking Of Norms And Places In History

 The choice is hers. More than her reputation rests on it. [Editor’s Note: This commentary makes an excellent case of the need for impeachment, drawing lessons that should have been learned from the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. As the author explains, what is at stake is far more than political reputation or passing poll numbers. — Mark L. Taylor]  By Sean Wilentz The New Yorker (7/11/19) Crises make and break historical reputations. In our current constitutional emergency, a few unlikely figures, above all the former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have upheld the rule of law, possibly redeeming their places in history….

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Police State America July 15, 2019

‘Visit the Camps Yet?’ Campaign Urges Pelosi To See For Herself The Horrific Conditions At Trump’s Concentration Camps

Poster by street artist Absurdly Well. By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (7/12/19) Instead of attacking members of Congress who are fighting to end the appalling conditions inside President Donald Trump’s immigrant detention facilities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should visit the camps to see firsthand the abuse taking place at the southern border. That’s the message of a new pressure campaign by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which slammed Pelosi for agreeing last month to pass a $4.6 billion border funding bill with no safeguards for immigrant children. PCCC said in a petition circulated Thursday that Pelosi and other supporters of the legislation—including members of the conservative Blue…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE July 15, 2019

Dem Rep. Adam Schiff Accused Of ‘Criminalizing Routine Reporting,’ Groups Call For Stripping CIA-Backed Provision From Intelligence Legislation

“Schiff is clearly the resistance to the resistance, and he should drop this provision from his bill.” By Eoin Higgins Common Dreams (7/11/190 A CIA-backed provision for a bill that could have dire effects on the freedom of the press is quietly making its way through Congress, despite the protestations of civil rights groups to Rep. Adam Schiff, the powerful California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, to strip the rule. “Adam Schiff is once again putting the interests of the intelligence agencies in concealing their misdeeds ahead of protecting the rights of ordinary Americans,” said Daniel Schuman, policy director…

ALL ARTICLES July 15, 2019

Trump’s Gift For Storytelling Is Why He May Well Win Again

“Loyalty and obedience to Trump provides life and salvation to his followers.” By Chauncey Devega Salon (7/13/19) Donald Trump is one of the best storytellers in recent political memory because of his skill in manipulating the emotions of the audience. Trump enraptures and titillates his fans, true believers, and other followers. Trump terrifies, upsets and enrages his detractors, critics and people of conscience. Trump’s Fourth of July event was a great example of these gifts. “As Trump’s polling numbers continue to improve and the likelihood of his winning in 2020 increases daily, the Democrats must empower a master storyteller of their…

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, One Percenters July 15, 2019

The Creepy Epstein Scandal Reveals The Deep Bipartisan Rot Of The Nation’s Supposed ‘Elites’

  By Frank Rich New York Magazine (7/12/19) In the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s indictment in New York, a number of powerful people formerly in Epstein’s orbit — Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and Donald Trump — have been scrambling in the face of renewed scrutiny. What will Acosta’s exit and the new Epstein prosecution shake up, and what might they not be able to change? Perhaps at long last a serial rapist and pedophile may be brought to justice, more than a dozen years after he was first charged with crimes that have brutalized countless girls and women. But…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor July 15, 2019

Russia Monitor: America In The Barrel

  “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” — Trump tweet aimed at Progressive Democrat Freshman Congresswomen (7/14/19) By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (7/15/19) Dear Fellow Readers, What happened to Republicans? You can say Trump happened to Republicans, but Trump is the culmination of a steep downhill descent marked by nonsensical Republican expressions starting from “the shining city upon a hill”, through, “ten thousand points of life”, the empty manipulation of “compassionate conservative” ending, at least at this point, Trump’s 2015 pronouncement that Mexican immigrants were “rapists”…

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ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Police State America July 15, 2019

Border Patrol Agents Are Passing Around A Commemorative Coin Mocking Compassion For Migrant Kids

The coin declares “KEEP THE CARAVANS COMING” under an image of a parade of migrants crossing the border. By Dara Lind ProPublica (7/12/19) An unofficial commemorative coin has been circulating among Border Patrol agents at the U.S./Mexico border, mocking the task of caring for migrant children and other duties that have fallen to agents as families cross into the U.S. On the front, the coin declares “KEEP THE CARAVANS COMING” under an image of a massive parade of people carrying a Honduran flag — a caricature of the “caravan” from last fall, which started in Honduras and attracted thousands of people…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change, M. Taylor Columns, Media Hits & Misses July 15, 2019

Refusing To Report On Church Rock: “The worst incident of radiation contamination in the history of the United States”

Now 40 years on, I know that the corporate media is still not to be trusted when it comes to covering the nuclear, or any other area of the energy industry.   Editor’s note: In New Mexico, the Church Rock Spill of July 16, 1979 has been called “the worst incident of radiation contamination in the history of the United States.” Catherine Caufield in “Multiple Exposures,” and Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon in “Killing Our Own,” reported that when the earthen dam holding radioactive uranium mine tailings burst, it released 93 million gallons of liquid wastes and more than 1,100…

ALL ARTICLES, CAFOS July 15, 2019

African Swine Fever Leaping Past Borders & Devastating Herds

BBC (7/12/19) A deadly and highly contagious disease is spreading across Europe’s pig farms. African Swine Fever Virus doesn’t harm humans, but once it infects domestic and wild pigs almost all of them die through internal bleeding within days. More than a million pigs are thought to have died as a result of the latest outbreak, devastating hundreds of farms and damaging exports. It’s the first time the virus has ever hit Europe’s pig farming heartland. With a vaccine still years off, and amid fears the disease could reach as far as China, we ask if the virus can be…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, History They Don't Want You To Know, One Percenters July 15, 2019

Why Would They Hate Little Old Innocent Us? Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man

The Young Turks (6/14/19) What is an American economic hitman? Cenk Uygur and John Perkins, hosts of The Conversation, break it down. Link to 16-Minute Video ***** And Here Is How It Works…Ousted Honduran President Zelay Explains How The 2009 U.S.-Backed Coup Indebted His Nation & Fuels Today’s Migrant Crisis Democracy How! (7/12/19) Since the 2009 U.S.-backed military coup in Honduras, extreme poverty and violence has skyrocketed in the country, forcing tens of thousands of Hondurans to flee to the U.S. with the hope of receiving political asylum. We speak with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in the capital of…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Economic Injustice, One Percenters, Rethuglicans July 11, 2019

I Hope Jeffrey Epstein Sings Like A Bird, Even If Some Democrats Go Down

  Wherever these questions lead prosecutors and reporters must follow. And the public must demand real accountability, no matter the answers. By Jill Filipovic The Guardian (7/10/19) I hope Jeffrey Epstein sings like a bird. The wealthy and well-connected financier and registered sex offender was arrested this week in New York on accusations of child sex trafficking. He just may bring a lot of bad men – and a few bad women – down with him. Epstein allegedly groomed and recruited dozens of underage girls, many of them vulnerable runaways, for sex with him and his friends. Despite being caught by…

ALL ARTICLES, Rethuglicans, Right Wing Religion July 11, 2019

Right Wing’s Religious Ways: OMG! A Biblical Book Of Trump? Really?

Miriam Adelson Longs For A ‘Book Of Trump’ In The Bible By Josefin Dolsten Jerusalem Post (6/29/19) It isn’t news that Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are big fans of President Donald Trump. The Republican mega-donors gave millions to Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. But Miriam Adelson took it one step further on Thursday. The Israeli-American physician compared the president to biblical prophets in an article in which she asked why he has not enjoyed higher support among American Jews. “That this has not been the case (so far, the 2020 election still beckons) is an oddity that will long be pondered…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, M. Taylor Columns, One Percenters July 11, 2019

Bill Clinton Is Lying About Scandal … Again. But This Time Things Could Be Far More Serious

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” — President Bill Clinton (1/26/98) By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (7/11/19) While George W. Bush got tangled in its subtle logical intricacies, there is a folksy bit of advice citizens need to keep handy when dealing with politicians of all skunky stripes and varieties: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.” Present White House occupier aside, there is no politician where this is more true than Bill Clinton. Anyone conscious at the time can recall Clinton’s brash, self-righteous presentation when he sternly declared to…

ALL ARTICLES July 11, 2019

Enabler: Nancy Pelosi Has Chosen Her War, And It’s With Her Party’s Future

By Mehdi Hasan The Intercept (7/7/19) THEY CALL THEMSELVES the “Squad.” From climate changeto student debt to migrants in detention, progressive House Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley have been energetic and outspoken since getting elected last November — and, as a result, have become inured to constant attacks from congressional Republicans and, of course, Fox News. But how about from their own boss? In an interview with the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the Squad as “four people” who have their “public whatever and their Twitter world” but don’t “have any following.” It is time for liberals and leftists who lambast Senate…

ALL ARTICLES, American Socialist Tradition, Democrats, FEATURE, Rethuglicans July 11, 2019

Eugene Debs: “I am suspicious of leaders…”

“I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the week. “If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses — you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. “I am very glad I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be…

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ALL ARTICLES July 11, 2019

USA’s Women’s Soccer Team Is No Accident. It’s A Product Of Public Policy

The success story of women’s sports shows how marginalized groups can be given opportunities through policy interventions. By Moira Donegan The Guardian (7/7/19) On Sunday, USA will play the final of the Women’s World Cup against the Netherlands, and there’s a good chance the Americans will win. Victory would bring a fourth world title for the US women’s team – there have only been eight World Cup competitions in history. The talent pool for female soccer players in America appears bottomless. The American women are so talented that players who would be starters for other countries, such as the forward Christen Press,…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor July 11, 2019

Russia Monitor: Collaborators, Hustlers & Fabricators Spin The Nation Far, Far Beyond The Law

  By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (7/11/19) Dear Fellow Readers, It is easy to get overwhelmed in the daily rain of Trump shit-show news. To demonstrate, the bill for the D.C. government to ‘host’ Trump’s 4th of July celebration of self is $1.7 million. The money needed to pay for this comes from a now bankrupted fund “used to protect the nation’s capital from terrorist threats and provide security at events such as rallies and state funerals”. In fact the fund is running a projected “$6 million deficit” while the mayor “also noted that the account was never reimbursed…