Mass media tries to portray Iraq war contractors as unsung heroes, not as beneficiaries of crony capitalism

We really don’t know what Matt Sherman exactly did as a federal government contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite a long article about him in the Washington Post and a long interview on National Public Radio (NPR). The Post tells us he advised four Iraqi interior ministers and later was part of a brigade that […]

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Sarandon has been great progressive for years, so it surprises she hesitates to support best hope progressives have

Susan Sarandon bases her well-publicized reluctance to support Hillary Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee on the fact that Hillary has taken so much money from corporate interests. Of course, that didn’t stop her from supporting Barack Obama twice. Sarandon’s thought process exemplifies one of the many excuses that progressives and liberals have given […]

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No pecking order problem in Xarelto commercial: the aging white male is on top

The Republicans keep sexualizing the fight for pecking order dominance in tasteless yet traditional ways. First came the vulgar insinuations regarding genital size, with its unspoken subtext that you had to have something to measure to qualify for president, or at least for the Republican nomination to America’s highest office. More recently we have witnessed […]

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One word to describe voters: not liberal, not conservative, not angry, but “apathetic”

The real question about this year’s electorate is how large a part of it truly seeks a confrontational authoritarian as our next president?  How many people practice racism, condone violence and approve of torture? How large is the population with fascist tendencies? In other words, what part of the American public has voted for Donald […]

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Two roads for Bernie: 1) Fight to convention; 2) Use funds to support statewide progressives

It’s pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. Bernie Sanders has fought a good, clean fight and in the process has moved the entire Democratic Party leftward. He has also made Hillary a better candidate, forcing her to sharpen her ideas. But Sanders is […]

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NRA and elected officials it buys or intimidates work for gun manufacturers, not gun owners

The other day I saw in person what we all know. Our elected representatives, especially Republicans, often only represent large corporate interests, even if those interests hurt most of the voters and their families. The issue in question was gun control. I was at a family event in Portland, Oregon for a cousin’s son who […]

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Word to GOP candidates: you don’t need a penis to be President

At a certain point in last night’s debate between the remaining four Republican candidates I thought Donald Trump was going to whip out a ruler and then whip out something else and start measuring. I imagine that Republican demi-god Ronald Reagan, stealing from an old Russian proverb, would respond to Trump’s claim that “I guarantee […]

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Take time out from presidential politics to urge elected officials to vote for Genocide & Atrocities Prevention Act

Strange as it might seem, we can predict genocides and other atrocities committed against groups of our fellow humans with a certain degree of accuracy. Those who pursue genocides—be it a totalitarian ruler, army, political party, tribe or nation—give off a lot of signs ahead of time. Harbingers include past ethnic tensions, persistent conflict, lawlessness, […]

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Rightwing columnist Douthat blaming Obama for the rise of Trump is like blaming Pres for Iraq War.

A premise is something we take for granted. Premises are usually at the basis of arguments or theories, and sometimes of substantial bodies of knowledge, such as the premise that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, which serves as the foundation of linear geometry. An inaccurate premise will get a writer […]

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Scalia’s “originalism”: a sham theory used to take rights from people & give them to corporations

It doesn’t surprise me that in the weeks after his death, the mainstream and rightwing news media have treated Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as if he were Robert E. Lee, who is traditionally presented as an admirable hero who served his country well. Both were brilliant and prominent men whose distorted visions of what […]

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