The Commoner Call – Page 74 – Standing Resolute, Together.

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Gun Cult, War State America February 26, 2018

Democrats Call For Gun Control At Home, While They Join GOP Pushing Bloody Arms Deals Abroad

By Adam Johnson In These Times (2/22/18) In the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead, many Democrats in Congress are once again calling for gun control, as they have for decades. But all too often, this concern for the unchecked spread of weapons ends at America’s shores. Last week, top Democratic senators, such as Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), expressed outrage over the lack of action by Congress to stop gun violence in America. However these same senators voted against an effort in 2017 to end the U.S. arming of the Saudi Arabian government—a flagrant human rights…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Rethuglicans February 26, 2018

Charlie Sykes: How The Right Lost Its Mind & Fell Into Mindless Tribalism

“What does it mean to be a conservative? I have no idea anymore.” Commonwealth Club (10/18/17) Once at the center of the American conservative movement, best-selling author and radio host Charles Sykes is a fierce opponent of Donald Trump and the right-wing media that has enabled his rise. Sykes will present an impassioned, regretful and deeply thoughtful account of how the American conservative movement came to lose its values, asking: How did a movement that was defined by its belief in limited government, individual liberty, free markets, traditional values and civility find itself embracing bigotry, political intransigence, demagoguery and…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, Health Care February 26, 2018

Why Are Democratic Party Thinktanks Still All Squishy On Universal Healthcare For All?

By Adam Gaffney The Guardian (2/25/18) On Thursday, the Center for American Progress (CAP), a Democratic party-affiliated think tank, launched a proposal confusingly called “Medicare Extra for All”. For proponents of a Bernie Sanders-style single-payer “Medicare for All”, this might seem like a positive development. Well, yes and no. On the one hand, “Medicare Extra” is a step to the left for CAP, suggesting that the Democratic establishment is following the lead of its galvanized base. On the other hand, this new proposal would exact sacrifices from patients to placate the insurance industry, and could serve to divert…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor February 26, 2018

Russia Monitor: Democratic House Intel Memo Slam Dunks GOP’s Sketchy Nunes Memo

By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (2/26/18) Dear Fellow Readers, We’ll start by nominating four candidates for top story since the last edition of the Russia Monitor… Sen. Diane Feinstein loses the endorsement of the California state Democratic party to Kevin de Leon, a more liberal candidate. Leadership by Parkland shooting survivors knocks back the NRA and drive down Trump’s approval rating matching his lowest level (35%; CNN). Former Trump campaign deputy chair Rick Gates enters guilty plea and agrees to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee see their memo on government surveillance during…

ALL ARTICLES, Media Hits & Misses February 26, 2018

VIDEO: Glenn Greenwald & James Risen Debate The Trump-Russia Investigations

Intercepted (2/21/18) JAMES RISEN AND GLENN GREENWALD have both won Pulitzer Prizes. They both have found themselves in the crosshairs of the U.S. government for their journalism. And they both write for The Intercept. But Jim and Glenn have taken very different approaches to covering the Trump/Russia story. In this one-hour special video edition of Intercepted, they go head-to-head in a debate. Glenn is one of the most high-profile critics of the official story bolstered by the U.S. intelligence community, the Democrats, and many media outlets, including some of this country’s most powerful papers and news channels. Jim battled both the Bush and…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism February 26, 2018

Inside ‘Atomwaffen’ As It Celebrates A Member For Allegedly Killing A Gay Jewish College Student

By A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, Ali Winston, special to ProPublica, and Jake Hanrahan, special to ProPublica ProPublica (2/23/18) Late last month, ProPublica reported that the California man accused of killing a gay and Jewish University of Pennsylvania student was an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of Atomwaffen Division, one of the country’s most notorious extremist groups. The news about the murder suspect, Samuel Woodward, spread quickly throughout the U.S., and abroad. Woodward was accused of fatally stabbing 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein and burying his body in an Orange County park. The report, it turns out, was also taken up in the secretive online chats…

ALL ARTICLES February 26, 2018

Democratic Party’s Corporate DC Establishment Targets Progressive Texas Candidate For US House

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams (2/23/18) A progressive Democrat who is running to represent Houston, Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives is being negatively targeted by the House campaign arm of her own party, and EMILY’s List, a powerhouse group that works to elect pro-choice women, has opted to support an opponent with corporate ties, according to a series of reports this week. Laura Moser, a journalist and creator of the text messaging app Daily Action—which lets subscribers know about a simple civic action they can take to fight President Donald Trump’s agenda—is one of seven Democrats battling for the opportunity this November to unseat incumbent…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan February 26, 2018

‘I hear you’ – Trump Depends Upon Cue Card To Remind Him To Listen To Shooting Survivors

Presidential agenda … By Martin Belam The Guardian (2/22/18) Briefing notes captured by photographers at US president Donald Trump’s White House listening session with survivors of gun violence show that he needed to be reminded to say “I hear you”. Close-up pictures of the note revealed that it had five points, of which the first was a reminder to ask the question: “What would you most want me to know about your experience”. The second question listed is “What can we do to make you feel safe?” The president’s note also prompted Trump to ask survivors for their ideas,…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan, Your Brain On Politics February 26, 2018

Understanding The Values That Keep Trumputin Supporters Loyal

They’re standing by their man, even as he fails to live up to his promises. By Paul Buchheit AlterNet (2/18/18) It’s incomprehensible to many of us that people could support a president who, in Bernie Sanders’ words, “is compulsively dishonest, who is a bully, who actively represents the interests of the billionaire class, who is anti-science, and who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our nation of origin, our religion, our gender, or our sexual orientation.” Based on various trusted sources and a dab of cognitive science, it’s fair to conclude that there are three main…

ALL ARTICLES, History They Don't Want You To Know, Resist! February 22, 2018

Up In Smoke: The Myth Of A Normal America

There are no good old days to return to in U.S. politics. The truth about a post-Trump era. (Editor’s Note: Is the Democratic Party up to the new world we are facing in American politics? Do party leaders really grasp that the old rules of American politics are up in smoke? So far there is scant evidence that the DNC has any grasp how the game board has been redefined. That is bad news for all of us. — Mark L. Taylor) By Kevin Baker The New Republic (2/15/18) The remaining hope for all Americans of good sense, more…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Resist!, Your Brain On Politics February 22, 2018

Robert Reich: Morality & The Common Good Must Be At Center Of Fighting Trump’s Economic Agenda

Democracy Now! (2/20/18) As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump made a promise to the American people: There would be no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Well, the promise has not been kept. Under his new budget, President Trump proposes a massive increase in Pentagon spending while cutting funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Trump’s budget would also slash or completely eliminate core anti-poverty programs that form the heart of the U.S. social safety net, from childhood nutrition to care for the elderly and job training. This comes after President Trump and Republican lawmakers pushed through a…

ALL ARTICLES, Gun Cult, History They Don't Want You To Know February 22, 2018

Freedom Had Nothing To Do With Writing The Second Amendment. It Was All About Preserving Slavery

By Thom Hartman TruthOut (1/15/13) The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says “State” instead of “Country” (the framers knew the difference — see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason and James Madison were totally clear on that… and we all should be too. In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the “slave patrols,” and they were regulated by the states. In Georgia, for example, a generation before…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Gun Cult, Paul Ryan, Ron "RoJo" Johnson, Ron "Wall Street" Kind February 22, 2018

Scarlet Letter: What The NRA ‘A’ Rating Is Really All About

“Lives Over Bribes” — Gun control rally sign. By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (2/22/18) The recent mass shooting — the latest bauble on the bloody necklace of American exceptionalism — has ignited the recent episode of national gun cult debate we have all grown numbingly use to. There are the predictable laments of “never thought it could happen here”, the candle-lit vigils, prayer services, grieving families, parades of ambulances and the empty thoughts and cynical prayers of the nation’s supposed ruling class. A ruling class that just can’t bring itself to even consider a tiny less wealth…

ALL ARTICLES, Resist! February 22, 2018

Florida High School Students Acting In The Courageous Tradition Of Their School’s Namesake

By Peter Dreier The American Prospect (2/20/18) There’s nothing on the Parkland, Florida, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School website about the woman whose name adorns the school, so its students may not realize that in rising from last week’s tragedy to speak truth to power, they are following in Douglas’s activist footsteps. Douglas would certainly see a bit of herself in Emma Gonzalez, the poised and eloquent young woman whose speech electrified her classmates, teachers, parents, and the whole country at a Fort Lauderdale rally on Saturday, only days after a gunman entered her school and killed 17 people. “If the president wants to come…

ALL ARTICLES, Gun Cult February 22, 2018

Craven Rightwing Media Attacking Florida Teens Speaking Out On Government-Sanctioned Gun Violence

By Jason Wilson The Guardian (2/20/18) After Parkland’s mass shooting, the wind seems to have changed. Students are speaking out, demanding that politicians act. And they’re getting some traction. Many found their voice on Twitter and directly attacked Donald Trump’s strange and distracted online response to the massacre. David Hogg, a student journalist who interviewed his classmates as the massacre was happening, has been one of the leaders of a chorus of students calling for tough action on gun control. Emma González made a widely shared, impassioned speech which attacked the president directly, calling out the funding he has received from the National Rifle Association. Today,…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor February 22, 2018

Russia Monitor: There’s A Reason The Word Treason Makes More & More Sense For Trumptin

By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (2/22/18) Dear Fellow Readers, Russia attacks the U.S., interfering in U.S. elections for the benefit of Trump, and this president offers no condemnation, no warnings against future attacks and offers absolutely no steps to protect us. It’s as if Trump is in bed with the Russians. This can’t be said with enough emphasis: Trump Is Ignoring The Worst Attack On America Since 9/11. This from Max Boot writing for The Washington Post: “Imagine if, after 9/11, the president had said that the World Trade Center and Pentagon could have been attacked by “China” or “lots of…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan February 22, 2018

The Best At Being The Worst: Trumputin Breaks All Records For Failure, Bigly!

Trumputin — So Proud. By Brad Reed The Raw Story (2/19/18) President Donald Trump’s first year in office — which was marked by a nonstop stream of scandals, as well as record-low approval ratings — was so bad that a survey of scholars has already ranked Trump as the worst president ever. Writing in the New York Times, political scientists Brandon Rottinghaus and Justin S. Vaughn reveal that their most recent survey of scholars shows that Trump’s first year was seen as a catastrophe by both Democrats and Republicans in the field of political science. According to the survey, Democratic…

ALL ARTICLES February 22, 2018

John Oliver Returns: Trump vs The World

Comedian and social critic John Oliver returned to the air Sunday night with a pointed and powerful take down of Donald Trump’s disastrous impact on the image and effectiveness of the United States overseas. Ambassador posts remain unfilled in critical capitols around the globe. Trump proposes a 29% cut in the State Department budget, leaving the nation with less and less soft power to represent national needs and interests and leaving us with a higher likelihood of armed conflicts. In just over a year Trump and his bumbling band of misfits has turned the nation into a laughingstock from corner…

ALL ARTICLES, History They Don't Want You To Know February 22, 2018

Noam Chomsky: What Role Are You Really Expected To Play In Our ‘Democracy’

“Now there are two “functions” in a democracy: The specialized class, the responsible men, carry out the executive function, which means they do the thinking and planning and understand the common interests. Then, there is the bewildered herd, and they have a function in democracy too. Their function in a democracy, [Lippmann] said, is to be “spectators,” not participants in action. But they have more of a function than that, because it’s a democracy. Occasionally they are allowed to lend their weight to one or another member of the specialized class. In other words, they’re allowed to say, “We…

ALL ARTICLES, Gun Cult, Rethuglicans February 19, 2018

Guns Make Republicans Feel Safe Which Means Our Children Must Die

The center-left’s sins on this front are rooted in cowardice; the right’s, in quasi-religious conviction. By Eric Levitz New York Magazine (2/15/18) On Thursday morning, the president delivered a speech about gun violence without ever uttering the word gun. By the time Donald Trump began his remarks, America had suffered 18 school shootings in 44 days, and more than 300 mass shootings since the start of his presidency. But this broader context also went unmentioned. Instead, Trump focused his address narrowly on Wednesday’s massacre at a high-school in Parkland, Florida, and the need for “healing” in its wake. The president spoke of God…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Gun Cult, M. Taylor Columns February 19, 2018

Our Escalating War Against Our Children

By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (2/19/18) Since its founding the citizens of the United States have been quite comfortable with the killing and mass slaughter of other peoples’ children. From the ongoing genocide of the Native American population through violence, disease and introduced addictions on to the wars of empire waged in Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Central America, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. We continue to kill other peoples’ children with the casual selective blindness of industrialized for-profit warfare in Iraq (where our mercenaries continue to operate) and Yemin (where we supply the Saudi military with cluster…

ALL ARTICLES, Gun Cult, Rethuglicans February 19, 2018

Want To Hear Real Truth On School Shootings? Forget The Traitorous Politicians & Listen To This Parkland Teen Tear Into Trump, Republicans & NRA

“We call BS!” By Andrea Germanos Common Dreams (2/17/18) Thousands gathered Saturday for a rally outside the federal courthouse, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.—about 25 miles away from the mass shooting Wednesday—where speakers including survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre gave powerful speeches for gun control. Among them was Stoneman Douglas student Emma Gonzalez, who slammed President Donald Trump, denounced the many politicians who receive donations from the powerful National Rifle Association of America (NRA), and called BS on those who “say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence.” She began by saying that the “school bard, faculty…

ALL ARTICLES, Gun Cult, Paul Ryan, Ron "RoJo" Johnson, Ron "Wall Street" Kind February 19, 2018

School Shooters Love Wisconsin’s Bipartisan Congressional Accomplices

By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (2/19/18) School and other mass shooters do not act alone. They are assisted by politicians on the take to the National Rifle Association. Through their indifference and coldly calculating, never satiated hunger for campaign cash and other benefits, these pols ignore the wishes of the majority of Americans to bring some legislative sanity to our gun cult. When the shooters begin their rampages they have been legislatively protected, coddled and assisted by those who are supposed to represent us. The National Rifle Association loves to splurge their cash — including donations from…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Good News February 19, 2018

After Last Week’s Insanity We Need The Dalai Lama’s Guide To Happiness

amillionsmilesmovie (10/8/13) This video looks at ‘Buddhism and Happiness’, as we ask are they a match made in heaven or something else? This eight minute epic reveals some incredible insights into human behaviour and values that impact our happiness, particularly in this materialistic Western life so many are living, or reaching for. The Dalai Lama’s talk is from his ‘the quest for happiness’ public talk in Adelaide during his ‘Beyond Religion’ tour in Australia. While we would have ideally used footage of Tibetan monks in this video, we were unable to and instead used footage from our recent trip…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor February 19, 2018

Russia Monitor: A Growing Collusion Collision And The Question Of Treason

By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (2/19/18) Dear Fellow Readers, Some Americans need Trumputin and Russpublican corruption to be as black & white as Saturday’s Russia 4-0 shutout of the U.S. hockey team at the Olympics. Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has published the 2015/2016 year book for the Russian troll farm, at the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, we now have it in black & white. To be clear on just what happened we’ll put the events in context of Trump and associate denials to date. On Friday afternoon Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced the indictment of 13…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan February 19, 2018

America Is Under Attack & Trump Doesn’t Give A Damn

By David Frum The Atlantic (2/18/18) As the rest of America mourns the victims of the Parkland, Florida, massacre, President Trump took to Twitter. Not for him the rituals of grief. He is too consumed by rage and resentment. He interrupted his holidaying schedule at Mar-a-Lago only briefly, for a visit to a hospital where some of the shooting victims were treated. He posed afterward for a grinning thumbs-up photo op. Pain at another’s heartbreak—that emotion is for losers, apparently. Having failed at one presidential duty, to speak for the nation at times of national tragedy, Trump resumed shirking an…

ALL ARTICLES February 19, 2018

The Ticking Money Time Bomb: Not A Matter Of If, But When

By Shawn Hattingh PortSide (2/17/18) n early January 2018, capitalists across the globe were celebrating the fact that the Dow Jones had rallied by 45% since the election of Donald Trump. Likewise, brokers were beaming in Sandton when the Johannesburg Stock Exchange hit a high of 61,475 points (up a staggering 300% compared to early 2009 when at one point it sat at 18,465 points). Yet beneath all the exuberance, danger signs abound—including signs that stock, bond and debt markets are experiencing bubbles, which will burst at some point. The danger derives from the reactions of the ruling classes and…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Police State America, Your Brain On Politics February 19, 2018

How Undiluted Dishonest I.C.E. Propaganda Makes Its Way Onto Your Local News

On the Media (2/16/18) This week, the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would have put up funding for President Trump’s wall and extended protections for the so-called ‘Dreamers,’ beneficiaries of an Obama-era program offering temporary residency to undocumented immigrants brought to the US as kids. Meanwhile, the threat of deportation remains a fact of daily life for undocumented Americans, especially since the Trump administration beefed up Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations last year. But the public has been left largely in the dark about who is being rounded up, because much of the press has…

ALL ARTICLES February 19, 2018

The Hate Report: Was The Florida School Shooting Suspect Alt-Right?

By Aaron Sankin & Will Carless RevealNews.org (2/16/18) In this week’s roundup: lots of confusion over whether the Florida school shooter was a white supremacist, the argument for being friends with racists and more. This issue of The Hate Report begins with a deep, world-weary sigh. On Thursday, news broke that Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old suspect in the Florida school shooting, had trained with a white supremacist militia called the Republic of Florida. By the end of the day, the story began to fall apart. Here’s what we know: An anonymous user on the anarchic far-right message board 4chan posted a message…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE February 15, 2018

CARTOON: Whitewashing US Imperialism: How Textbooks Get History Wrong & Dupe Students

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca Zinn Education Project (2/10/18) Recently, with the possibility of Special Counsel Robert Mueller III subpoenaing President Trump in the headlines, I found myself discussing the Russian hacking allegations with my U.S. History class. Having just finished our Cold War unit, my students were much less concerned about Russia tampering with U.S. elections than they were about the historical amnesia regarding the past meddling of the U.S. government. Max said: “Why is the media making such a big deal about this? What the Russians are accused of is nothing compared to what the U.S. did in Cuba.” Sarah…

ALL ARTICLES February 15, 2018

America Defeated By Russia In 2016 Cyberwar And We’re Going To Hold A Parade?

Defeat is hard to face; but every delay in facing the hard facts makes matters worse. By Timothy Snyder The Guardian (2/12/18) Trump’s fantasy of a military parade and Trump’s choice to release or block congressional memos about the Russia investigation were the two big stories of last week. At first glance, they have nothing to do with one another. In fact, they are part of the same story: a grand cover-up of American defeat. In the past, the United States has organized grand military parades: but always after a victory in war, and always as a way of welcoming…

ALL ARTICLES, Russia Monitor February 15, 2018

Russia Monitor: Russpublican Party Complicit In Trump-Russia Betrayal

By Dan Peak The Commoner Call (2/15/18) Dear Fellow Readers, There is maturity to reporting on Trump-Russia corruption. With maturity comes breadth – it’s not just Trump-Russia corruption, the entire Republican party and leadership is now clearly and heavily implicated: Republican Party Leaders Conceal Russian Efforts to Undermine Government. Elliott Cohen, writing for Buzzflash at Truthout, offers that Russia is doing to the U.S. what it has done to Ukraine and other former Soviet states. “In fact, there are signs that Russia has implemented the strategy of “financing people in our governments to undo our governments,” not merely in Ukraine…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America February 15, 2018

Urging Peace Talks, Open Letter From Taliban Asks American People To Recognize Total Failure Of 16-Year War

By Andrea Germanos Common Dreams (2/14/18) Two and half weeks after President Donald Trump rejected the idea of peace talks with Taliban, the militant group published an open letter to the American people urging them to pressure their government to end the occupation of Afghanistan, now in its 17th year, and engage in peace talks. The letter, published on the group’s website, denounces the Bush administration’s justification for launching the invasion, as well as the Trump administration, which “again ordered the perpetuation of the same illegitimate occupation and war against the Afghan people.” “No matter what title or justification is presented by…

ALL ARTICLES, War State America February 15, 2018

What A War With North Korea Would Look like

Crazy American warmonger. Vox (2/8/18) Five experts discuss what a war on the Korean peninsula would look like, how close we are to conflict, and the terrifying consequences. Read about the implications of war with North Korea on Vox.com: http://bit.ly/2nNK2ei With tensions between the US and North Korea escalating, we asked a group of experts including Senator Tammy Duckworth, about the likelihood and consequences of reigniting war on the Korean Peninsula. International sanctions have put pressure on the North Korean regime, but they have yet to capitulate to US demands to unilaterally disarm their nuclear armaments program. The Trump administration…

ALL ARTICLES February 15, 2018

‘Some May Freeze To Death’: Sanders Confronts Mulvaney Over Trump Budget That Would Kill ‘Tens Of Thousands’

By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (2/13/18) Just 24 hours after denouncing President Donald Trump’s newly-unveiled budget as “morally bankrupt,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took full advantage of his chance to grill Trump budget chief Mick Mulvaney directly during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, calling the White House’s 2019 blueprint “the budget of the Koch brothers” and arguing thousands would die if the plan became law. Highlighting the Trump budget’s call for repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Act), Sanders askedMulvaney to explain “the morality of a budget which supports tax breaks for billionaires, throws 32 million people off of the…

ALL ARTICLES, Trumpenstan February 15, 2018

Introducing ‘Trump, Inc.,’ A New Weekly Podcast On The Many Mysteries Of Our President’s Businesses

There is a mystery here. By Eric Umansky & Andrea Bernstein ProPublica (2/7/18) A couple of months ago, a few of us from ProPublica and WNYC sat together in a conference room and started scribbling on a whiteboard. We were brainstorming all the possible paths to investigate around President Donald Trump and his family businesses. It looked like Carrie Mathison’s wall. There’s so much that’s still unknown. We don’t know if the president is taking money from his businesses, or what deals are happening, or who his partners are, who’s providing the financing. It goes on and on. There’s no way to determine…

ALL ARTICLES, Good News February 15, 2018

Farm To Neighbors: When Denouncing White Supremacy Is Deemed Brave, The Bar Is Too Low

By Abby Zimet Common Grounds (2/12/18) Talk about a sorry sign of the times. A family farm in Centreville, Virginia has caused an incongruous uproar after proclaiming on their roadside sign not the arrival of sweet corn, baby goats, hanging baskets or their renowned Fall Festival but the evidently inflammatory sentiment, “Resist White Supremacy.” The community-minded denizens of Cox Farms have been here before: They have flown rainbow flags, declared Black Lives Matter, and posted “We love our Muslim neighbors,” “You belong. Stay strong” and “Fight ignorance not immigrants” on their signs. Reportedly facing some confusion in response to their most recent, “Rise and…

ALL ARTICLES, Gun Cult February 15, 2018

Valentine’s Day In The United States: At Least 17 Reported Dead In Florida School Shooting

(Editor’s Note: The above Commoner Call cartoon runs after the well publicized mass shootings. We could actually run the cartoon pretty much every day, gven there is a mass shooting somewhere in the United States nearly every day. If you hear any RepublicaNRA or pro-NRA Dem politicians talking about “thoughts and prayers” today, call ’em up and tell the hypocrite to go to hell. They are completely responsible for yesterday’s shooting. — Mark L. Taylor) By Nina Golgowski, Sebastian Murdock & Carla Herreria The HuffPost (2/14/18) At least 17 people are reportedly dead and 15 injured after a shooter opened fire…

ALL ARTICLES February 15, 2018

State Dem Lawmakers Chummy With Lobbyists At Secretive Democrats’ Closed-Door Policy Retreat

By Itai Vardi The HuffPost (2/12/18) When Democratic legislators gathered in a hotel in Portland, Maine, for a two-day policy conference last August, they were joined by a host of corporate interests who have good reason to want in on those conversations. The meeting of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the party arm responsible for supporting state legislative candidates, was closed to the press and billed as an off-the-record event, but HuffPost has exclusively obtained a copy of the agenda, which shows the members of the DLCC’s finance council. The finance council includes companies, trade groups, labor unions and public interest organizations, who…

ALL ARTICLES February 12, 2018

The President As Demagogue — Speech, Action And The Big Parade Build-up To ‘The Moment’

“The “moment” Trump seems to be striving for cannot arrive and serve his purposes unless he builds toward it with his speech. He is creating conditions now to support further action later…” By Bob Bauer Lawfare (2/9/18) We are constantly confronted with the question of how seriously to take the president’s words. By one interpretation, not so much: His verbal excesses and outrages should not be confused with action. This is the variant of the old counsel “watch what we do, not what we say.” President Trump said he would revisit the libel laws but didn’t; he did not file…