SHARE        Wednesday, October 17, 2018
IPCC Releases Climate Report -- First Thoughts The next few years are critical for the world to embark on a transformational path to reduce its carbon emissions and increase its forests to bring emissions to net zero by mid century the latest. With countries' current climate targets for 2030, we would have no chance. So they must be improved.

(6 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, July 31, 2018
A Looming War with Iran...What It Will Look Like War against Iran does seem more likely than not -- though clearly not certain -- unless another round of sanctions tips the current government into collapse instead. That regime-change tactic has already failed and will likely fail again.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Anthony Kennedy and Our Delayed Constitutional Crisis If the Supreme Court were part of a coup that makes a losing presidential candidate the winner, and makes that ruling along partisan and preferential lines that can't be judicially defended, how could any decision issued by that court be deemed legitimate afterward?

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Notes on Seymour Hersh's book "Reporter" Seymour Hersh has committed journalism of the most dangerous kind, putting him several steps ahead of what is now delivered to us as reporting. It would be nice to find a few more like him among the current crop.

(14 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Is Anti-War Fever Building in the U.S.? How different the outcomes are when the public indicates policy preferences with their votes versus polling data. DC politicians of both parties ignore polling with impunity. Votes, on the other hand, especially in party primaries, can force change -- witness the Trump nomination and the Sanders (stolen) near-nomination.

(2 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, June 12, 2018
The Importance of Supporting Aggressive Progressives for Very High-Leverage Offices Democrats may win the House in a 2018 wave election. But which Democrats will control the Party if they do? Even if Democrats take the House and Senate in 2019, those who bitterly fought and defeated Bernie Sanders will still run the show, even if the number of actual, Sanders-like progressives continues to increase.

(1 comments) SHARE        Saturday, May 19, 2018
Ecuador Hints It May Hand Over Assange If the American state acquires Assange, it may torture and kill him. It certainly wishes to. Chelsea Manning was tortured for exposing a whole lot less, and Manning's crime included revelations about torture and murder.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Setting a Perjury Trap for Trump It's impossible to imagine an undisciplined Trump not freelancing and not lying. If he lies, he will be charged with perjury and Mueller will have succeeded. Whether that brings him down, however, is anyone's guess. After all, the House would still have to impeach him, and even Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is off the table (again).

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, May 2, 2018
What To Do About Facebook -- First Thoughts The questions surrounding Facebook are many and serious. Facebook is first a monopoly; next, a mass manipulator capable of swinging elections and other social decisions in an order-of-magnitude-greater way than simple common advertising, no matter how targeted; third, a source of enormous wealth to a powerful few.

(6 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, April 24, 2018
How Democrats Can Win with a Mandate in 2020, and Why They Likely Won't How can the Democratic Party claim victory from the jaws of opportunity in 2020? By offering an actual change candidate of their own to run against the Republican fake. By running alongside the crowd that still wants to overturn the Establishment, and not against it. By offering someone real for change voters to vote for. In other words, the 2020 version of Bernie Sanders.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, April 17, 2018
War with Syria -- What Is It Good For? We May Soon Find Out The American people may not favor this war -- though I can't see the unwashed (those of us with non-political lives) being much opposed. Yet should it come home, they'll surely pay most of the price -- and no doubt be thanked for their service after their deaths by those in the safe seats at corporate-owned cable news.

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, March 28, 2018
How Many Democratic Senators Will Approve Gina Haspel For CIA Chief? Most of those we torture are dark-skinned and Muslim -- an identity-politics gotcha for the gotcha-inclined. These are the same people targeted by Trump's widely hated travel ban, which Democrats came out strongly against. Of course, as Yahoo News points out, "If confirmed, 61-year-old Gina Haspel would become the first female head of the CIA."

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, January 31, 2018
2017 Breaks Climate Records Despite No "El Nino Boost" People are much more aware -- today -- of global warming than any in the corporatized media gives them credit for. That awareness, unreported for now, will come bursting through sooner than expected, with undeniable, and non-linear, consequences.

(9 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, December 20, 2017
What Would Happen If Sanders Ran for President in 2020? If nothing else, there's media interest in promoting a Bernie Sanders' contest, and I strongly suspect there's great public interest as well. Don't be surprised if he enters the race. In fact, be surprised if he doesn't, barring an unforeseen derailment.

(5 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Verizon and the Death of the Internet Without net neutrality, some content -- for example, political discussion groups and websites -- may never be accessible, no matter what you may want to pay, turning the U.S. into China in that regard. Will people really stand for that? it's possible the tired and harried masses will. After all, betting on the willingness of most Americans to surrender their liberties was an easy call, ever since 9/11 "changed everything."

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, October 31, 2017
The Resistance, the #Resistance and Harvey Weinstein Is the anti-Trump #Resistance, the professional broadcast version with its behind-the-scenes security state actors, simply setting us up for a Restoration of those -- a Pence, a Biden, or another darling of our dual mainstream parties -- who "weep tears of admiration for their own virtue" as they tank or attempt to co-opt the next Bernie Sanders, or re-destroy the last one?

(2 comments) SHARE        Saturday, October 28, 2017
Defining Neoliberalism If neoliberalism is the belief that the proper role of government is to enrich the rich -- in Democratic circles they call it "wealth creation" to hide the recipients; Republicans are much more blatant -- then the "shock doctrine" is its action plan. That's sounds pretty blunt, but it's a true statement, even among academics.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Shocking the Shock Doctrine: What Recovery in Puerto Rico Could Look Like What we're about to witness in Puerto Rico is an island-wide pitched battle for and against broad-stroke neoliberal solutions to the island's combined and massive debt and hurricane crises. The Puerto Ricans may not go down easily; and they may even win. Good for them if they do; they deserve all of our help for just that effort alone.

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Medicare-For-All: Open Rebellion, Paid Politicians & Net Family Savings Opposition by Democratic office holders to Medicare-for-All can be predicted by financial support taken from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Some of this support works like a bribe, and some works like Thank You money. Either way, there's a real financial benefit to opponents.

(6 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Democrats Complicit in Advancing Christopher Wray Confirmation as FBI Director They never learn. How do they expect us to think they've turned a new leaf if they keep showing us the old one? So we're back to the question we asked earlier -- how much Democratic complicity is too much? It seems that Democratic senators are determined to help us find out.