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November 20, 2017

The one-year anniversary of Trump's election has passed. It's been exhausting keeping up with the insanity surrounding this presidency. Nevertheless, Mother Jones has compiled a list of 10 great things that Trump has given us in the past year.

John Oliver says we can also be thankful for the little victories over the past few months (Obamacare not yet destroyed, injunctions and limits placed on the various Muslim travel bans, etc.). He note that Trump has been successful at one thing in particular: attacking the norms of democracy, specifically: delegitimizing the media, practicing “whataboutism” (example: his reaction to Charlottesville), and trolling. “While there is nothing new about any of these techniques, they are now coming out of the Oval Office,” Oliver said. “Which not only legitimatizes them, it risks them spreading. That sadly is happening.”

Which brings us to the still-evolving Republican tax plan. This plan, based on bogus "trickle-down" economics, would eventually result in reduced services to the poor and middle class and reduced public investment (e.g., infrastructure) while providing huge tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy; it would punish Democratic-leaning constituencies, and would make it impossible to reduce the national debt without drastic cuts to the social safety net. (The budget could also be balanced and the national debt lowered by reducing our obscenely bloated military appropriations, but we know that will never happen.)

Some interesting analysis comes from Slate, Rolling Stone, and Forbes.

"The latest version of the Senate tax plan can more or less be summed up in 10 words: temporary tax cuts for families. Permanent tax cuts for corporations." (Slate, Nov 15)

Rolling Stone (Nov 9) , working from an analysis by the Tax Policy Center notes that by 2027 "at least 25 percent of taxpayers would pay more to the IRS. Their average tax increase: $2,080" and breaks down "the proposal's biggest losers – and its least deserving winners."

And from a Forbes contributor a Nov 19 op-ed titled "GOP Tax Bill Is The End Of All Economic Sanity In Washington"

October 27, 2017

Trump's attempted sabotage of ObamaCare by cutting off cost-sharing reductions to insurers may backfire. As the article from The Hill explains, this is "due to a quirk in the way ObamaCare’s subsidies to help people afford insurance are calculated and in the ways regulators and health plans prepared" for the cuts. The move by Trump will add tens of billions of dollars to the annual budget.

Three Republican Senators have announced they will not run for re-election. Unfortunately, these three are among the less extreme Republicans: Collins (Maine) who has been crucial to stopping the total destruction of ObamaCare, Flake (Arizona) who left with a broadside against Trump ("It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end."), and Corker (Tennessee) who has had an ongoing battle with Trump especially but not limited to the decertification of the Iran nuclear agreement. The Dems may have a chance to pick up Collins seat - lets hope so - she has consistently been a force for good on that side of the aisle. Flake and Corker are from deep red states and they will likely be replaced by Tea Party types.

As for Democrat chances for taking back Congressin 2018: I put the Senate at less than 10%; the House at nil. Dems are defending 23 Senate seats in 2018, a potential disaster in the making. Even if they hold on to all their seats, including those in deep red states, they still need to take 3 of the 8 Republican Senate seats that are in play to regain a majority. The House will be determined by the gerrymandered districts set up by Republicans since the 2010 census. All races, in both the Senate and House, will be affected by the voter suppression laws in state governments controlled by Republicans. Even when the courts strike down these undemocratic measures, they still have a chilling effect on voters.

Progressive action will be at the state level for the foreseeable future. Virginia and New Jersey both have off-year elections which will determine the control of state governments. New Jersey's governor's race is tilted strongly towards the Democrats with Phil Murphy continuing to hold a two-digit lead over his Republican rival. Most polls show the Virginia governor's race leaning towards the Democrat Northram, though one recent poll has Republican Gillespie in the lead.

Abroad:

The Syrian Civil War may be coming to an end, but the month of September saw the greatest monthly death toll of the year Many of the deaths were civilians due to the ongoing aerial bombardment by both sides.

In a move that reverses previous US policy and that would exacerbate tensions in the now-somewhat-settled Ukraine conflict, the Trump Administration is mulling over supply of "lethal aid" to Ukraine.

Gaza continues to decline into un-inhabitablity. Abby Smardon, the Executive Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) USA National Committee, writes of a recent visit, "I've never seen Gaza so devastated...Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip deserve humanitarian support, but no amount of assistance will ever substitute for the necessary political action, including that of the US, to stop the violation of human rights that Palestinians face on a daily basis. Lifting the blockade on Gaza would be a start."

Myanmar authorities have agreed to allow the United Nations to resume distribution of food in northern Rakhine state which was suspended for two months, the World Food Programme. More than 800,000 mostly Muslim refugees have fled to Bangladesh.

In Yemen, where Houthi rebels are fighting a Saudi-led coalition, the UN's emergency relief coordinator has arrived in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, to see the deteriorating humanitarian crisis for himself. The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war and naval blockade in Yemen has sparked a cholera epidemic that has become the largest and fastest-spreading outbreak of the disease in modern world history. There are expected to be a million cases of cholera in Yemen by the end of the year, with at least 600,000 children likely to be affected. US lawmakers have introduced a constitutional resolution to withdraw all U.S. support for the war.

October 6, 2017

In the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, House Republicans have put off the vote on allowing the purchase of gun silencers (whew!). Whether this Congress will now actually do anything to reduce gun violence remains to be seen. If the killing of 20 kindergarteners in Connecticut could not break the grip of the NRA and its campaign money, this probably won't either. Anyway, here is one of the best articles I've found:

Gun violence in America, explained in 17 maps and charts: In the developed world, these levels of gun violence are a uniquely American problem. Here’s why.

Other news:

Today, the House GOP Passed a Budget That 'Should Not Be Allowed in a Humane Society' - a good analysis. I'm happy to say that my Republican Congressman was one of 18 Republicans to vote against the budget. The GOP-controlled Senate will now take up the budget and try to push it through using the "reconciliation" process - similar to what they tried with their Obamacare destruction efforts - which would avoid a filibuster by Democrats.

Republicans failed to get the votes to destroy Obamacare but Trump and his Administration are doing their damnedest to make it fail. This Washington Post article details some of their actions, some already taken and some continuing to be threatened: As ACA enrollment nears, administration keeps cutting support of the law.

As for foreign relations, the most ominous thing near-term is Trump's upcoming decertification of the Iran Nuclear Agreement. "Although his administration has presented no evidence that Iran is violating the terms of the deal, it seems he intends to decertify the agreement in a speech next week." NY Magazine describes the dire effects should the Trumpster ignore the near-unanimous advice of his cabinet.

And then there's Trump's "calm before the storm" comment that he threw out at a meeting of military leaders and refused to explain.

It makes you wonder how much more damage can this guy can do before he's voted out of office in 2020.

Rex Tillerson may not be long for his position as Secretary of State. He was one of the better choices in Trump's cabinet and has tried to do his job as a diplomat. Tillerson says he and Trump act as 'one team' — Here are 8 big issues on which they totally disagree Any time you hear something like Tillerson said, you wonder what's next. I got a kick out of the picture from the Business Insider story.

September 21, 2017

And the beat goes on...

Trump's appalling performance at the UN earlier this week was made to order for his xenophobic, anti-globalist base - in the end, his first speech to the UN was a disastrous, nationalistic flop. (Washington Post op-ed, Sep 19). His threat to "totally destroy" the country of North Korea is obvious hyperbole. More worrisome is his rhetoric on the Iran Nuclear Agreement - an agreement which, by all accounts including our own, is working exactly as intended. Attacking the most prominent recent effort to de-nuclearize a country by diplomatic means seems to make a peaceful solution to the North Korean crisis less rather than more likely.

Like much of his 41-minute speech, Trump’s reference to the Iran deal was met by stony silence. The deal is overwhelmingly supported by UN member states, including most of Washington’s closest allies. (The Guardian, Sep 19) Removing the US from the agreement will isolate the US, not Iran, and will put at risk all trust in future US diplomatic efforts - in the words of international law expert Reza Nasri, the US will be seen as a country unable to abide by the simple principle of “state continuity” in modern international relations.

Ignoring facts such as Iran's compliance with the Nuclear Agreement is nothing new for this Administration. Trump administration officials, under pressure from the White House to provide a rationale for reducing the number of refugees allowed into the United States next year, rejected a study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost. (New York Times, Sep 18)

Former UN Ambassador Susan Rice analyzes and rebuts Trump's speech in this MSNBC interview.

A couple of overseas items not getting attention from the US press:

- Almost 370,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees are now known to have fled to Bangladesh from the ongoing violence in Myanmar since August.

- An Israeli right-wing faction, part of Netanyahu's current ruling coalition, have proposed a plan for ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In domestic politics, Senate Republicans are making a final effort to destroy the ACA and deny millions of Americans health care coverage. The GOP have until the end of the month to pass the bill using a legislative tactic ("reconciliation") that bypasses the Senate's filibuster requirement. The CBO assessment will be out early next week. Republican efforts are focusing on flipping McCain's and Murkowski's votes. Let's hope these Senators have enough moral courage to stand up to the pressure. The Graham-Cassidy bill is among the worst offered by Republicans this year. Jimmy Kimmel's takedown of the bill says it all.

The Justice Department said it would appeal a court order blocking President Donald Trump's executive order that sought to restrict federal funds for so-called sanctuary cities.

On September 5, Attorney General Sessions announced that the Trump Administration has decided to rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a program established under President Barack Obama that protects some undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. Nearly 800,000 have been protected by Obama's executive order. Democrats have been in discussion with Trump on a possible compromise but no deal has been reached.

Interesting New York Times article on the vice-chairman of Trump's Advisory Commission on "Election Integrity" ...The Man Behind Trump’s Voter-Fraud Obsession: How Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, plans to remake America through restrictive voting and immigration laws.

August 29, 2017

Mexico ignored Donald Trump's Sunday tweet that Mexico will pay for a border wall and, instead, offered assistance to hurricane-ravaged Texas, similar to what they provided in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Trump's "border wall shakedown" came 2 days after he pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio - due to be sentenced in October for criminal contempt for his racial profiling tactics against Latinos. Arpaio could have received up to 6 months in jail. The ACLU reviews Arpaio's career and gives five reasons why he should not have been granted a pardon. His actions and policies as sheriff went well beyond racial profiling.

The United Nations body monitoring implementation of the global convention on prohibiting racial discrimination has called on high-level politicians and public officials of the United States to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech and crimes in Charlottesville and throughout the country.

Just days before Hurricane Harvey hit, Trump scrapped Barack Obama's flood protection standards. The Washington Post has a listing of all that Trump has undone since taking office. He is rapidly shaping up as one of the worst presidents in American history.

Naomi Klein notes that Harvey didn’t come out of the blue and now is the time to talk about climate change and all the other "systemic injustices — from racial profiling to economic austerity — that turn disasters like Harvey into human catastrophes."

Score one for voting rights: a Federal judge tossed out a Texas voter ID law supported by Trump administration.

In the final analysis, racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide.

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1967

August 12, 2017

Is there anything this guy we call President can do right? A few of the recent mess up's:

Charlottesville

"If you haven’t seen the sickening news, here’s a brief recap: Hundreds of neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia yesterday and today, using the removal of a Confederate statue as an excuse to exhibit their violence. The people of Charlottesville, led by young people, students, and people of color, turned out to stand peacefully against this display of hate. A person, now in custody, plowed a car directly into the crowd of peaceful counter-protestors, killing at least one and injuring at least 19 others." - MoveOn.org on Saturday's violence in Charlottesville

Trump remarkably (and insanely) blamed "many sides" for the violence in Virginia - a comment that has drawn criticism even from his own party, who call it what it was - an act of domestic terrorism. Evidently the Donald's trying to spread the blame around wasn't enough for former KKK leader David Duke: "I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency."

Trump - Kim Jong-un pissing contest

North Korea Responds to Trump in Bluster War Escalation That Could Get Us All Into a Real War

Sabre-rattling in Latin America

Latin America slams Trump's Venezuela 'military options' threat

Police/Community Relations

Police leaders across the country moved quickly to distance themselves from — or to outright condemn — President Trump’s statements about “roughing up” people who’ve been arrested.

Health Care Premiums

Study: Trump actions trigger health premium hikes for 2018

Freedom of the Press

Trump's AG Jeff Sessions gets slammed over Justice Department plan to cramp down on leaks

July 28, 2017

The 2017 edition of "Repeal Obamacare" is over thanks to Sen. John McCain joining two other Republican senators, Collins and Murkowski, to defeat the last gasp "skinny repeal" proposal. "The 'skinny repeal' bill, as it became known at the Capitol this week, would still have had broad effects on health care. The bill would have increased the number of people who are uninsured by 15 million next year compared with current law, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Premiums for people buying insurance on their own would have increased roughly 20 percent, the budget office said." (NYTimes)

A 2009 study by Harvard researchers found a 40 percent increase in mortality for uninsured Americans – equivalent to about 10,000 avoidable deaths per year per 10,000,000 uninsured. So the various plans put forth this year by Republicans ranging from15 to 35 million more uninsured would result in 15,000 to 35,000 avoidable deaths per year. (Public Citizen)

The scary part about the vote is that 49 Republican senators did vote for this still-deadly version of Republican "health care". Republicans need to pick up just one Senate seat in 2018 to try again, and that is not so difficult to do. The GOP is defending just 8 Senate seats in the 2018 election; the Democrats, 23.

Remaining options for the 2017-2018 session of Congress, in decreasing order of likelihood, are (1) do nothing, (2) try to repeal again if Collins', Murkowski's or McCain's seat becomes vacant, (3) work with Democrats to stabilize the health care market and fix Obamacare, (4) pass single-payer healthcare.

A single-payer healthcare system is the one system that will actually control health care costs. It is in place in every other Western industrialized nation and support is growing here in the US. Former President Carter called for single payer, citing his recent experience in the Canada while on a Habitat for Humanity project but support among Democrats is fractured and Republican opposition is nearly total.

July 12, 2017

While US media focus on the Trump-Russia-Election merry-go-round and the Republicans continue their abominable attempt to strip health care insurance from poor and working class Americans, here are a few stories you may have missed:

The situation in Yemen continues to worsen. There is a rampant cholera epidemic , and famine threatens the country. The Arab region's poorest country, Yemen has become a violent playground for regional and international powers. The link to an Al Jazeera webpage has an excellent short video explaining how the situation developed. In June, Trump's proposal to sell more arms to the Saudis squeaked through the Senate. U.N. officials said Tuesday that plans to ship as many as 1 million doses of cholera vaccine to Yemen are likely to be shelved over security, access and logistical challenges.

On a better note: The United States, Russia and Jordan reached a ceasefire and "de-escalation agreement" for southwestern Syria last week. One of the very few positives I saw for a Trump administration was an improved relationship with Russia. Lets' hope Trump's first attempt at peacemaking in Syria lasts longer than previous ceasefires.

With 44 states refusing to hand over sensitive voter data, with hundreds of voters de-registering to protect their personal information, and with lawsuits attacking the actions on privacy grounds piling up, the Trump "voter fraud" (aka "Election Integrity") panel has temporarily suspended operations. What an ironic name for the panel ! Republicans have systematically suppressed the vote in states under their control for years. As John Light at Moyers & Co. points out, this panel is just the latest Republican attempt and Democrats will need to fight these suppression efforts for years to come.

In one of the few Supreme Court victories for sensible gun laws in recent years, SCOTUS left California's concealed guns law intact.

California took a first step towards single payer health care when the state Senate passed a single-payer health care proposal.

Closing on a hilarious note: NPR tweeted the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. It did not go over well. Many Trump supporters were outraged, thinking that NPR was tweeting some insidious revolutionary tweets to undermine the President.

June 22, 2017

Senate Republican leadership will try to force a vote as early as next week on their slightly-less-abominable-than-the-House-version of the AHCA into law. Developed secretly, it will be sent to the floor without committee hearings, with no filibuster possible. The Senate bill will cut Medicaid (the health care program for the poor), end penalties for those not buying insurance, and eliminate taxes on the wealthy that helped pay for "Obamacare". If passed, all of Trump's populist campaign promises of the non-xenophobic variety would now be totally defunct. In case you forgot, he promised not to touch Medicaid (his budget plan proposed a cut of ~ one trillion dollars over the next decade), to provide health care for all (up to 23 million* to lose health care insurance), and to invest in a massive infrastructure program (the proposed $200 billion in Trump's budget is more than offset by cuts to the infrastructure budget).

*CBO estimate of the House version. CBO estimate of the impact of the Senate version will be made after the plan is released.

Trump is continuing to reverse Obama (and even earlier) era policies.

- Besides the proposed 25% cutback in SNAP ("food stamps") and the $193 billion cut in international food aid, he is "waging a full-scale campaign to roll back decades of progress toward making America’s food safer, healthier and more clearly labeled."

- The president announced changes meant to make it harder to travel and do business with Cuba.

- He continues to exacerbate relations with Iran. He hasn't yet gone so far as to cancel the nuclear agreement but his arm sales to Saudi Arabia, his failure to rein in the Saudis in Yemen, and the recent US military actions against Iranian-backed forces in Syria have caused mounting tensions that observers and former officials worry could easily turn into an unplanned, spiralling conflict.

Voting Rights

Some good news: Supreme Court Strikes Down Yet Another Racial Gerrymander in North Carolina

Some (maybe) good news: Supreme Court to hear potentially landmark case on partisan gerrymandering. I say "maybe" on this one because the Wisconsin case SCOTUS is reviewing is a lower court ruling against partisan gerrymandering.

US & Other Elections:

- Centrist Democrat Jon Ossoff lost the special congressional election in Georgia. Democrats thus went 0 for 4 in special congressional elections to replace Republicans.

- Although they lost 13 seats in parliament in an election they were expected to win in a landslide, the Tories remained in power in Great Britain. Labour gained 30 seats and deprived Conservatives of an outright majority.

- Italy's populist 5 Star Movement suffered an unexpected setback in the nation-wide local elections. The local elections are a measure of popular sentiment prior to the upcoming national parliamentary elections.

Keep you chins up...here are some quotes from former Czech president and playwright Vaclav Havel:

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence.

June 5, 2017

Terror and Violence, Abroad and at Home

Great Britain is reeling from two recent terror attacks as it prepares for a general election this coming Thursday. Leave it to Donald Trump to fire off tweets critical of London's mayor in the immediate aftermath of this weekend's London Bridge tragedy. A spokesman for London's mayor Sadiq Khan said the mayor had “more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks."

Of course, Trump wants to use the incident for his own political purposes - his executive order banning travel from six Muslim countries. The courts have so far rejected the proposed bans - the latest ruling (May 25) stating that the president's order "drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination." The issue is going to the Supreme Court now that conservatives have the majority again. The decision to reinstate the ban will depend on the vote of the least conservative of the five conservative justices, Anthony Kennedy. Meanwhile, Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama's national security adviser, on Sunday said there is no evidence that President Trump's travel ban would make the U.S. safer. She also warned against isolating and alienating Muslims.

You Only Have to Go Back One Week to Find a U.S. Mass Shooting Deadlier Than the London Terror Attack Trump had the gall to crow in one of his tweets that no one was "talking about guns" in the London attack since knives and a vehicle were used. What hypocrisy, insensitivity, and outright stupidity! Fact is that if the London terrorists had guns, the death and injury toll would have been much higher. Time that Republicans in Congress and the Donald showed some guts and did something to prevent gun violence and stand up to the NRA.

Here at home, four people were killed today by a gunman who then turned the gun on himself in Florida after being fired from his job. In the US, approximately 400,000 people have been killed by guns - orders of magnitude more than the 91 killed by jihadists and 56 killed by domestic non-Muslim terrorists - since 2001.

Also here at home, on Friday May 26, two men were stabbed to death after they tried to calm down a Portland light train passenger who had been yelling anti-Muslim slurs at two teenage girls on an otherwise typical afternoon commute. The attacker was categorized as a known white supremacist. The family of one of the victims wrote to Trump asking him to "Please condemn any acts of violence, which result directly from hate speech & hate groups." Three days after the attack, Trump tweeted that the attacks "were unacceptable."

Paris Climate Agreement

Sorry, Donald, Pittsburgh thinks you are wrong about climate change. After his decision to join Nicaragua and Syria as the only non-signatories to the Paris climate agreement, Trump noted he was "elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." Pittsburgh Mayor Peduto tweeted:

"Fact: Hillary Clinton received 80% of the vote in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh stands with the world & will follow Paris Agreement" and "As the Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy & future."

2017 Congressional Special Elections

It is not looking good for the Democrats. In recent special elections in Montana and Kansas, Democrats failed to counter an onslaught of funding against their House candidates, who ended up losing deep-red districts by single digits.

After body-slamming a reporter from the UK Guardian who asked a question about the AHCA (the Republican health care plan that would strip health insurance from 23 million people), Republican candidate Greg Gianforte went on to win the Montana special congressional election held to fill a vacant congressional seat. Democrats also lost the special election in Kansas in April.

Georgia's 6th District is the next chance for the Democrats to pick up a "Republican" seat and it is currently a toss-up. Democrat Jon Ossoff, whose $8.3 million campaign fund has made him a contender for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, is now under siege from Republican attack ads. Republican PAC money - including $7 million from the Congressional Leadership Fund -has begun pouring into the state ahead of the June 20th runoff. The CLF has already started "swift-boating" Ossoff - airing spots trying to link him with Kathy Griffin.

May 24, 2017

Trump released his budget proposal this week. It is as bad as one might have expected. Embracing hard-line "trickle down" economic policies that have been an utter failure since the Reagan era, the budget proposal would make severe cuts to social safety net programs while allocating $1.6bn to a border wall and would shift $54 billion from nondefense to defense spending .

"Millions of people would lose access to Medicaid, the government insurance programme for the poorest and many disabled Americans. Food stamps for people on low incomes would be cut over the next 10 years under the White House plan and the families of undocumented workers would be frozen out of key tax breaks." (UK Guardian, May 22)

The Washington Post analyzes how Trump’s budget helps the rich at the expense of the poor, widening the wealth gap that was briefly slowed during the Obama Administration.

Congress is expected to draft its own budget, and lawmakers routinely set aside the president's proposal.

Before moving on to some good news, here are a few stories from "Trump's America":

Trump signed into law a measure that will make it harder for workers without 401(k) plans to save for retirement.

Trump's EPA Greenlights a Nasty Chemical. A Month Later, It Poisons a Bunch of Farmworkers.

“The Only Good Muslim Is a Dead Muslim”: A meatpacking town in Kansas opened its doors to Somali refugees. Then a group of Trump supporters plotted to kill them after Election Day.

Queens school boots federal immigration agents seeking fourth grader from premises for not having warrant.

Now, the good news:

Chelsea Manning, the Wikileaks source, has been freed from military prison. President Obama had commuted most of her 35-year sentence in January. Journalist Glenn Greenwald: "...the reality is that if you look back at what it is that she achieved, she revealed unquestionable war crimes, her disclosures led to reforms around the world."

In the latest decision on Republican gerrymandering of Congressional districts, a Supreme Court ruling wipes out Republican-drawn House districts in North Carolina. The 5-3 ruling, written by Justice Elena Kagan, was the latest in a series of decisions by the justices against the excessive use of race in redistricting.

The Iranians easily re-elected moderate Hassan Rouhani as President. Great letters to the editor in the LA Times: Iran just held an election. So why is the theocratic monarchy Saudi Arabia our friend?

May 15, 2017

The French presidential election dealt a blow to the anti-immigrant, anti-EU far-right. A political newcomer, Emmanuel Macron, became France's youngest president, with 64% of the vote. The far-right candidate Marie Le Pen received 36% of the vote. Following its defeats in the Netherlands and Austria, the far-right has been slowed in Europe. Next up are the Italian local elections. Italians go to the polls on June 11 to elect their mayors and city councils, which may foreshadow the general election later this year.

On May 19, Iran elects its President. Moderate reformer Hassan Rouhani faces a challenge from hard-liners who don't agree with the nuclear deal agreed in 2015. Let's hope Trump's blathering and antagonistic behavior and his apparent swing to widen the role of the US against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels don't sway the vote in favor of the hard-liners.

Yemen, in the throes of a civil war, continues to deteriorate. Besides the imminent threat of starvation, there is now a cholera epidemic ravaging the country. Meanwhile, the world's largest arms dealer continues to sell arms to the Saudis and their allies. US Defense Secretary Mattis was reported to have proposed U.S. military support for a Saudi-led assault on the Yemeni port of Hodeida, through which the vast majority of food shipments must pass before reaching millions of Yemenis on the brink of famine. Bipartisan pressure is building in Congress to pressure the Saudis and their allies not to close the port with military action.

On domestic matters, it's been quite a couple of weeks for Team Trump and the Republicans.

The AHCA (Trump/Ryancare) squeaked through the House by 2 votes. Evidently the tea-party-ists (a big part of the reason Ryan didn't put the bill to a vote several weeks ago) were convinced by Trump and/or Ryan that the measure was the "best" (i.e., the most devastating to Obamacare) they were going to get. The bill, if unchanged in the Senate, will kick 24 million Americans off health insurance by 2026 and Republicans are vainly trying to explain their repugnant bill on talk shows. Democrats are already predicting victory in many House races in 2018 - a clear case, in my mind at least, of irrational optimism. Congressional districts have been so gerrymandered by Republican-held state governments that massive re-districting will be needed before the 2018 elections to allow Dems to retake control of the House. They need to win 24 seats now held by Republicans to do so. Democrats have controlled the House just twice since 1995.

With the removal of alt-right, white nationalist Steve Bannon from Trump's innermost circle (unfortunately he still is around - just not as influential), Jeff Sessions the Attorney General has my vote as the worst and most dangerous-to-American-democracy adviser. Earlier this year, he threatened "sanctuary cities" with the loss of Federal monies. Now he is up to more no-good:

• After removing himself from Russiagate investigations, Sessions advised Trump to fire FBI director Comey. The calls for an impeachment investigation into President Trump have continued to mount in the wake of Trump's dismissal of Comey.
• He is now in charge of investigating "voter fraud" - almost non-existent in the US according to every study ever done. But, as a former Senator opposed to the Voting Rights Act, Sessions has a history dating back decades. In 1985, when Sessions was the United States attorney in West Alabama, he prosecuted three African-American civil rights activists, accusing them of voter fraud. He lost the case. This is the man charged with protecting the rights of all Americans - what a cruel joke.
• His recent "sentencing guidelines" to prosecutors will end the reform of the criminal justice system begun under Obama with bipartisan support. Harsh guidelines (for example, for simple possession) have destroyed African-American communities and have been remarkably effective in denying people their right to vote.

April 22, 2017

Besides Earth Day, this weekend also offers the first round of the French national elections. The elections on Sunday may give some indication of whether the nationalist/"populist" movement exhibited by the Brexit vote and Trump's election has peaked. I.e. were the March elections in the Netherlands just a bump in the road in the nationalist march to electoral victories? Or were they the beginning of the end for the so-called "populist" wave? There are other elections in the upcoming months in Europe (Italy, Germany, UK) which will also determine whether Western liberal democracy is up for grabs.

French Presidential Election 2017: When is it, how does it work and who are the candidates?

French elections will have spillover effect on Italian politics.

Timeline: three small German states have elections prior to the nation-wide elections in September. In the first of these elections, in Saarland on the French border, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats held onto power, with the right-wing gaining only a small fraction of the vote.

In June, the UK general election will be held. This will be preceded by local elections for the English, Scottish and Welsh councils in May. In the national elections, things are not looking good for Labour. The latest polling shows the Tories likely to greatly increase their majority in Parliament.

Now getting back to Earth Day. There is a strong correlation between nationalist movement supporters and climate change deniers. Why? Because a national government cannot solve the problem of climate change on its own - a global approach and international cooperation are needed. So, deny that the problem even exists. I first heard this theory in a podcast interview of Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

On another note, the term "populist" is being co-opted by the far-right - just as in not-so-distant past the "religious right" arose as a political force. Historically, populism (the idea that common people are exploited by a privileged elite) could be either right, center, or left. In an obit appreciation of one of my heroes, Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern, The Nation called him the prairie populist, noting he embraced and inspired the struggle for peace and economic and social justice. That's a populism I can subscribe to.

April 13, 2017

Among the Obama initiatives that Trump is trying to reverse, reversing those on climate change will reach far beyond our borders. Here, just as in international aid, America is abandoning its leadership. Fortunately the rest of the world is not (as yet) following the Trumpster. With Earth Day around the corner (April 22), here are some interesting climate change articles:

The effects of climate change are summarized on this NASA web page. (You may want to read it now...Trump is cutting funding for climate work in the NASA budget as well as politicizing release of EPA studies.)

Can our misguided president actually do much damage? John Cushman explains How Trump Can Affect Climate Change (Inside Climate News, Feb 3)

The US is the largest per capita greenhouse gas emitter and second only to China in total greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump Administration is mulling over abandoning the Paris Climate Accord. Earlier this week in Rome, the administration pushed other G-7 countries to embrace larger roles for nuclear power and fossil fuels. They refused. (Politico, April 11) So far none of the other 143 signatories are threatening to pull out of the agreement. That's the good news. The bad news is that without US participation, there is little chance of meeting the Paris Accords' "aspirational" goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degree C above 1990 levels.

Here at home, resistance to the Trump climate agenda is growing.

The People's Climate Movement's March on Washington for climate, jobs and justice is on April 29.

California passed a massive infrastructure bill paid for by an increase in the tax on gasoline.

And the Paris agreement on climate change has some surprising new supporters.

April 2, 2017

As the 24/7 coverage of the Trump Circus continues, here a few stories not getting enough media coverage...

GUNS AND THE MENTALLY ILL

Earlier this year, the House of Representatives voted to scrap the rule meant to keep guns from the severely mentally ill. On March 16, this august legislative body, controlled by Republicans and apparently the NRA, passed legislation that would help mentally ill veterans buy guns. Objections that 20 veterans a day kill themselves, mostly with guns, did not stop the measure.

FAMINE AND THE TRUMP BUDGET

"We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations... Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death." (Stephen O'Brien, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, March 10)

Trump's budget slashes "humanitarian aid, increasing the risk that people starve in the four countries — Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria. The result is a perfect storm: Millions of children tumbling toward famine just as America abdicates leadership and cuts assistance...The essence of the Trump budget...is to cut aid to the needy, whether at home or abroad, and use the savings to build up the military and construct a wall on the border with Mexico." (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times)

YEMEN CIVIL WAR

The Yemen Civil War continues and famine threatens 7 million people there. As with much that happens in the Middle East, this is a conflict between Shia (the Houthi rebels) and Sunni (the Yemeni government deposed by the rebels in early 2015). A Saudi-led coalition, supported by the US, has been trying to re-take control of Yemen. The conflict has taken more than 10,000 lives.

Trump significantly increased direct US military involvement in this two-year-old civil war. Just days after he was inaugurated, Trump ordered a botched raid in a small Yemeni village in which 25 civilians, including nine children, were killed. He followed this with 40 airstrikes in a five day period in early March. Presently the administration appears to be weighing assistance for a potential Saudi attack on the rebel-held port of Hodeidah - an attack that would escalate the already grave humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Aid groups, the United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen, and congressional critics of US military support of the Saudis have warned of the consequences of an attack on the blockaded port where 75 percent of the food aid once came into the country.

MoveOn and Just Foreign Policy have a petition supporting the Pocan-Amash letter now circulating in Congress which demands that Trump seek congressional approval via the War Powers Act for direct US attacks against the Houthis.

MoveOn has a petition urging Congress to use its leverage force the Saudis to open the port of Hodeidah to humanitarian aid by opposing a new Saudi arms deal.

Return to the Trumpocalypse (3/18/17, New Left Bank Cafe)

Guernica (3/20/17, New Left Bank Cafe)

February 13, 2017

Some things to do as we move deeper into the Trumpocalypse...

Regain control of the truth:

The Madness of King Donald (Andrew Sullivan, New York magazine, Feb 10)

Resist:

Swarming crowds and hostile questions are the new normal at GOP Townhalls (Washington Post. Feb 10)

Combat the Alt-Right's Nonsense:

All Hell Breaks Loose at Campus Event for Alt-Right Leader Milo Yiannopoulos (Mother Jones, Feb 1)

Remain (wildly, improbably) optimistic:

Trump's Two-Year Presidency (Kathleen Parker, Washington Post, Feb 11)

Keep the pressure on. Defend America's true values:

This guy continues to try to please his base and won't stop. The courts and the checks and balances of the Constitution may be our only hope.

Donald Trump considering new order to put ‘Muslim ban’ back in place and side-step another court battle (The Sun (UK), Feb 10)

Listen to some good (defiant) rock:

American Idiot, Green Day

Trumpocalypse Week One: Alternate Reality (1/27/17, New Left Bank Cafe)

Trump's Foreign Policy: Aggressive and Dumb (2/2/17, New Left Bank Cafe)

January 22, 2017

Trumpocalypse Survival Guide (12/12/16, New Left Bank Café)

Syria, Russian Hackers, and Trump's Tweets (12/17/16, New Left Bank Café)

Peace (and Justice) On Earth (12/28/16, New Left Bank Café)

Cashing In on the New "Red Scare", Nukes, and the Defense Pork Barrel (1/3/17, New Left Bank Café)

Trump's Attorney General and the Future of American Justice (1/11/17, New Left Bank Café)

The Health Care Battle (1/16/17, New Left Bank Café)

And so the resistance begins (1/22/17, New Left Bank Café)

November 29, 2016

Trump's stunning upset over Clinton has given us all a lot to think about. With Republicans in solid control of all three branches of the Federal government, Obama's most prominent achievements are in jeopardy.

Alt-Right's America: Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You (11/20/16, New Left Bank Cafe)

No, Mr. Trump, You Do Not Have a Mandate (11/22/16, New Left Bank Cafe)

Trump continues to make false claims about the popular vote. The latest is his totally-without-evidence tweet that millions voted illegally. The national media, for the most part, continue to give Trump a pass on his tweets no matter how outrageous or false, reporting them without comment as if they were really news. With an attorney general nominee that once prosecuted a false voter fraud case against African-American voters, voting rights - the most distinguishing feature of a democracy - appear to be in for another trouncing.

Besides the gerrymandering and voter suppression laws passed in Republican-controlled states and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the conservatives on the Supreme Court, another tactic to ensure Republican election victories has been to purge voter rolls. A 2014 article in the Daily Kos estimated the number of voters targeted for potential purging numbered 7 million - and you can guess which voters they were targeting. Disenfranchising "inconvenient" voters seems to be the name of the game. This, rather than Jill Stein's request for a recount in 3 states to detect electronic hacking of the vote, is the real issue.

I keep looking for something to be optimistic about in Trump's incoming Administration. So far, no luck. Besides his outrageous choices for attorney general and chief White House strategist,

- His nominee for the Secretary of Health and Human Services is a strong opponent of the Affordable Care Act and "may well be open to ending Medicare as we know it."

- The attorney general nominee has ridiculed green house gas regulations.

- Sarah "Drill, Baby, Drill" Palin is on the short list for interior secretary, and the transitional head for the EPA has expressed doubts over the reality of what he calls “global warming alarmism." (The Guardian, Nov 13)

- His candidate for Defense Secretary, a retired general, would break a 65 year old tradition that the department should be headed by a civilian.

- Mike Huckabee is reported to be in the running for Ambassador to Israel. Americans for Peace Now had this to say:

"Governor Mike Huckabee, a diehard supporter of illegal West Bank settlements and opponent of a two-state solution – who said last year that President Obama was marching Israelis to “the door of the oven” – may be appointed as U.S. Ambassador to Israel. It should be a stark warning to all of us who hope and strive for Israeli-Palestinian peace that an extremist like this would even be considered to oversee the U.S.-Israel relationship."

In "non-Trumpocalypse" news:

Brexit, UK's decision to leave the European Union, is still a total mess. (Slate, Nov 17)

Fidel Castro has died at the age of 90. Most of corporate media's coverage has been of the jubilation in Miami's Cuban expat community. Here is one exception: NBC News on what Cubans are saying about his legacy, "recalling that his government wiped out illiteracy, boosted social equality and helped turn Cuba into a powerhouse in health, education and sports." The US embargo on Cuba and the fall of the Soviet Union left Cuba in tatters. Here are some Castro quotes from his more than 50 years as Cuban head of state.

October 20, 2016

It's less than 3 weeks until the 2016 election. The third and final debate in this terrible election is over, thank goodness. As Eugene Robinson writes inThe Washington Post: Can we please just skip to election day?

Clinton continues to hold a lead over Trump but here's a cautionary tale about what low turnout can do. With a turnout of just 38 percent, Colombian voters rejected by a slim majority (50.21%) a peace deal that would have ended their 52-year civil war. We who are less than enthused that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee still need to get to the polls...just in case.

Winning control of the Senate will be key - especially in light of John McCain's outrageous threat of Republicans blocking any Supreme Court nominee that Clinton makes, should she be elected. Unfortunately, the only way Democrats will take control of the Senate is for massive numbers of Republican voters in red and purple states to stay home and massive numbers of Democrats to turn out and vote.

The hope that low Republican turnout will happen as a result of Trump's "locker room banter" is ill-founded. After establishment Republicans stayed quiet during all his xenophobic rantings, this is what complain about? "The true horror is everything the GOP could tolerate about Trump, and why." (Slate, October 8)

Republicans gave "voter fraud" as their excuse for passing voter suppression laws, and Trump has taken up that charge. Christopher Ingram in The Washington Post reveals the truth behind Trump's rigged election fears: "...there is no 'large scale voter fraud' happening. One of the most comprehensive investigations into voter impersonation found only 31 possibly fraudulent ballots out of over 1 billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014."

Nobel Peace Prize fail: The two-state solution is dead. A recently concluded 10 year, $38 billion arms deal with Israel signals the end of Washington's "long, tortured efforts" to establish peace between Israelis and Palestinians. "For two decades, Israeli leaders and their neoconservative backers in this country, hell-bent on building and expanding settlements on Palestinian land, have worked to undermine America’s stated efforts -- and paid no price. Now, with the record weapons package, the U.S. has made it all too clear that they won’t have to. Ever." [TomDispatch, October 18]

The blockade of Gaza continues. "As winter comes, 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza are still homeless" from the brutal 2014 Israeli airstrikes, which "resulted in the killings of 1,462 Palestinian civilians, a third of whom were children." [Informed Comment, Oct 17]

Some good news:

Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

"A fragile ceasefire is reported to be holding in Yemen amid the latest effort to end more than 18 months of fighting in the war-ravaged country." (BBC, Oct 20)

October 5, 2016

Election Day is a month away. Clinton has made some progress in the polls after Debate #1. She regained a modest lead in most national polls after blowing a double-digit lead in September. Polls are notoriously volatile, and the threat of what Slate calls the "Trumpocalypse" remains. The most unqualified Presidential candidate in decades may yet become what we used to call the leader of the free world. From his propagation of the racist "birther" lie to his election-year xenophobic rantings, his election would be, to use Colin Powell's leaked-email phrase, a national disgrace. Perhaps one of the most worrisome results of a Trump presidency would be the appointment of another conservative to the Supreme Court, currently deadlocked at 4 to 4. Let's not forget SCOTUS' track record over the past years: Citizens United and its cousins, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, misinterpretation of the Second Amendment, and, of course, the court's "appointment" of George W. Bush as President in 2000.

A wild card in the election is the third party candidates. In 2000, voters who spurned Democrat Al Gore to vote for Nader ended up swinging both Florida (97000 votes vs. the official 537 vote margin) and New Hampshire (22000 votes vs. a 7200 vote margin) to Bush in 2000. Wins in either state would have given Gore the Presidency. (Huffington Post, November 2013) Surprised at libertarian Gary Johnson's support in some progressive quarters, Kevin Drum in a Mother Jones post asks "Why Are There Any Liberals Supporting Gary Johnson?" Other than Johnson's positions on civil liberties and military force, "he makes Hillary Clinton look like the second coming of FDR."

Not only American progressives are appalled at the thought of a Trump presidency. International governments have made a power play against Donald Trump by ratifying an international climate deal earlier than expected, effectively preventing him from "canceling" the deal as he has promised to do. (The Hill, Oct 5)

Some bad news on the world peace front:

The Syrian cease-fire has collapsed. On Monday, the US announced it is "suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia" that had come about as part of the short-lived cessation of hostilities in Syria. (CNN, Oct 3)

Never underestimate the power and appeal of hardliners. In the category of "what-the-fuck-were-they-thinking", Colombian voters narrowly rejected the peace deal that would have ended its 52-year civil war. "Former president Álvaro Uribe led a successful campaign for voters to reject a peace deal more than four years in the making with Farc guerrillas." (The Guardian, Oct 5)

September 10, 2016

I know: we've been here before. After 5 tragic years, will the Syrian Civil War actually end soon? "The United States and Russia said in Geneva they had reached a landmark agreement that would lead to a cease-fire in the five-year-old Syrian civil war." [USA Today, Sep 9]

The Guardian fact checks the past week's Trumpisms: "The lies Trump told this week- from military spending to his tax returns" [The Guardian, Sep 9]

Confused by and/or tired of the unending partisan attacks arising from Hillary's emails? Mother Jones' Kevin Drum analyzes the FBI's report on the emails. His conclusion: "This report is pretty much an almost complete exoneration of Hillary Clinton. She wasn't prohibited from using a personal device or a personal email account, and others at state did it routinely. She's told the truth all along about why she did it."

This may be some wishful thinking on the part of the European Union: "Britain is completely lost after Brexit and will beg for a deal, Brussels believes" [The Telegraph, Sep 9]

CDC Zika Maps:

(1) So far, in the US, only Florida has reported Zika cases unrelated to travel.

(2) World wide, the virus is widespread in the Americas and the Pacific Islands.

A Clinton Superpac recently released a commercial reminiscent of the controversial "daisy" ad of the 1964 elections. The commercial opens with Trump saying, "I'm really good at war, I love war," and transitions into footage of nuclear explosions as Trump talks about his willingness to use nuclear weapons. Ok, Trump is a blowhard who sometimes doesn't think before he speaks. But what kind of sick society are we when a candidate thinks he can win votes by favoring war? (Visit the Win Without War website for a refreshing antidote to militarism.)

August 14, 2016

First, at least one good news item: The Washington Post assessed the Iran nuclear deal one year after the agreement was signed [July 13]: "The legacy-making deal, completed a year ago Thursday, is still a work in progress. And by virtually all accounts, Iran has done everything it is required to do under the agreement."

The Syrian Civil War, whose death toll surpassed 400,000 earlier this year and which has caused 11 million Syrians to flee their homes, continues. "A fast-moving cataclysm underway in and around Aleppo has brought together all the major actors in Syria’s civil war for what may be the most crucial battle of the five-year conflict, and it is testing whether U.S.-Russian cooperation to end it is a pipe dream." [Washington Post, Aug 10]

Russia and Ukraine step up security amid tension over Crimea. Putin boosts ‘anti-terror’ measures at Ukraine frontier with annexed Crimea as Poroshenko puts troops on combat alert. [The Guardian, Aug 11]

Following on the heels of the striking down of Texas' voter-suppression law, there was more good news for voting rights as courts "dealt setbacks to Republican efforts in three states to restrict voting, blocking a North Carolina law requiring photo identification, loosening a similar measure in Wisconsin and halting strict citizenship requirements in Kansas." [Associated Press, July 30]

"North Carolina Republicans are on a losing streak. In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit invalidated the GOP-dominated Legislature’s brazen efforts to restrict black voting, holding that lawmakers’ intentional racial discrimination violated the Equal Protection Clause. Now a three-judge federal district court has struck down Republicans’ outrageous race-based gerrymander as yet another violation of voters’ equal-protection rights." [Slate, Aug 11] The gerrymandering, unfortunately, cannot be remedied in time for the November elections.

Speaking of a losing streak, Donald Trump has managed to put together a couple of disastrous weeks of campaigning. Anything can happen between now and November but Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas and Listen, Liberal writes of one unfortunate consequence: "With Trump certain to lose, you can forget about a progressive Clinton." [The Guardian, Aug 13]

The United States, with its cherished misunderstanding of the Second Amendment and a strong gun lobby, is in a different world when it comes to gun homicide rates. Calling the United States "an extreme outlier when measured against the experience of other advanced countries," the New York Times compares the gun homicide death rate in other countries to other ways of dying. For example, "Gun homicides in Japan are about as common as deaths from being struck by lightning in the United States." [New York Times, June 14]

July 26, 2016

The Democratic convention is underway. The first day saw plenty of drama but the Democrats managed to pull the "convention back from the brink." [Politico, 7/25] The day ended on a high note with Bernie Sanders' call for unity and support of Hillary Clinton.

If you didn't get a chance to watch last week's Republican convention, good for you. Here are a couple of articles that should tell you all you need to know:

John Oliver fact checks the RNC, calls Donald Trump’s acceptance speech ‘a symphony of bile and race-baiting’ [NationalPost website]

David Corn considers the GOP convention "the most dangerous one ever." [Mother Jones] The calls for the imprisonment and, from a few right-wing loonies, the execution of Hillary Clinton were part of the bizarre week. Look for "Hillary demonization" to continue as an alternate theme to the race-baiting xenophobia.

Some rare good news for voting rights advocates: a Federal Appeals Court struck down Texas' restrictive voting ID law saying it disproportionately hurt minority voters and ordered interim relief in time for the November elections. [Mother Jones, July 22] Texas remains firmly in the Republican column and the impact of the Appeals Court ruling will not be enough for Democrats to win there in 2016. The outcome of the presidential race, as has been the case in recent elections, will depend on the 10 or so "swing states". [RealClearPolitics] Hillary Clinton's VP nominee, Tim Kaine of Virginia, should help her in that swing state: "Behind the Virginia senator's moderate reputation is a history of quiet progressive activism." [Mother Jones, July 7]

On July 6, the Chilcot Report on the Iraq War was issued in the UK. The report "delivered a damning verdict on the decision by former prime minister Tony Blair to commit British troops to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003." [The Guardian, July 6]

Too bad a similar hard-hitting accounting will never see the light of day here in the US. The Iraq War and its aftermath are responsible for much of the ongoing instability in the Middle East - from the creation of a near-failed state rife with sectarian violence to the rise of ISIS. The so-called "war on terror" as pursued in Afghanistan helped turn that country into the world's premiere narco state. [Rolling Stone] It will take decades to undo the damage caused by the neocons' wars.

The Sixth World Congress Against the Death Penalty was held in Oslo in June. Philip Ruddock, the Special Envoy for Human Rights, led Australia's delegation and said Australia had tried to use its influence over both China and the US to encourage them to stop executing people - adding "if the United States abolished the death penalty, that would have a very significant impact upon developments in the few countries that do execute considerable numbers". [Australian Broadcast Company] Pope Francis sent a video message to the Congress, stating "the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person...an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person...[and not] consonant with any just purpose of punishment. It does not render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance." [Vatican News Agency]

June 16, 2016

After a 15 hour Democratic filibuster led by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy in the wake of the Orlando massacre, Senate Republicans agreed to allow a vote on two gun control measures: one that would keep weapons out of the hands of people on the terrorist watch list and one that would expand background checks to the internet and gun shows.

It's a start but we'll have to wait to see the final legislation (assuming it is ever passed). Mother Jones updated its mass shootings data base, and the message is clear: the proposed measures don't go far enough. If we want to prevent mass shootings in the future, the assault weapon ban that expired in 2004 must be reinstated and legislation forbidding the sale of high capacity magazines must be passed.

Then, of course, we could pass the ultimate measure to control the insane epidemic of gun violence in this country. Let's repeal the Second Amendment.

Muhammad Ali was one of my "coming of age" heroes. His opposition as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War had him forfeit his heavyweight crown. He missed several of his peak boxing years until the charges following his refusal to be conscripted were overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971. Ali returned to win back his title. The Guardian had a great tribute piece by Bill Siegel: What we can all learn from Muhammad Ali's years in the wilderness "The boxer’s resistance to the Vietnam War, at great personal cost, stands as a symbol of the capacity we all have to live moral, principled and humane lives."

Although he is best known for his "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" quote, he was much more than an entertaining showman. His retirement years were spent working for social justice as well as religious and charitable causes. Here are the Top 10 Muhammad Ali Quotes (from Brainy Quote website)

And with Father's Day upon us, Esquire presents "Everything You Need To Know About Parenting In 14 Muhammad Ali Quotes"

May 4, 2016

This morning, after the Indiana primary, both Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out of the presidential race, leaving Donald Trump as the presumptive favorite to win the Republican nomination. The massive mainstream Republican effort to stop him has failed. Interestingly (and appallingly), what engendered the mainstream right-wing opposition was not so much Trump's bizarre positions on immigration and his Islamophobic comments but the Manhattan real estate mogul's policy pledges as a liberal threat to their low-tax, low-spending principles. [Reuters, May 4]

Bernie Sanders hopes for the Democratic nomination are dwindling. Even with his victory in Indiana, Sanders trails Clinton by a substantial margin. The latest delegate count from RealClearPolitics shows Clinton just 180 votes shy of the nomination. To stop her nomination, Bernie will have to win 84% of the remaining delegates and superdelegates.

I'm pretty sure this was not covered much in the mainstream corporate media. Here's an article by Juan Cole reporting on what he calls "The Bernie Sanders Miracle: American Crowd in Brooklyn Cheers Palestinian Dignity". [InformedComment, April 15]

April 4, 2016

Rebel opposition allied with al-Qaeda broke the fragile ceasefire in Syria, taking several villages and towns in the southern hinterlands of Aleppo. [Informed Comment, April 3]

The same neoconservatives who view the Iraq War as the right decision are now gravitating towards Hillary Clinton. H. A. Goodman presents the case for writing-in Bernie Sanders if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. [Huffington Post, Mar 21]

An update on two important Supreme Court cases...both are wins for progressives and for democracy:

Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association: Conservatives bent on crippling the power of public employee unions lost their best opportunity in years when the Supreme Court deadlocked over a challenge to the fees those unions collect from non-members. [USA Today, March 30]

Evenwel vs. Abbott: In an 8-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld “one person, one vote,” ruling that state legislative districts should continue to be drawn by total population, not total number of voters. [Brennan Center for Justice, Apr 4]

The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald was instrumental in the release of documents received from Edward Snowden. A recent court decision in the UK confirmed that "Journalism is not terrorism. Criticism of the government is not violence. In a huge win for press freedom, a UK court of appeal ruled that the detention of journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, under the Terrorism Act violated his human rights as a journalist." [The Guardian, Jan 19]

Foreign Policy [March 31] warns that the current rift in relations between the US and Russia, reflected in Russia's boycott of the Nuclear Security Summit, is undermining the U.S.-led effort to lock down radiological material. Meanwhile, Dilip Hiro in a post at TomDispatch.com[April 3] explains why, nuclear-war-wise, South Asia is the most dangerous place on Earth.

The Rolling Stones unleashed two hours of shrieking, thundering rock and roll on an ecstatic crowd of hundreds of thousands of Cubans and foreign visitors, capping one of the most momentous weeks in modern Cuban history with a massive celebration of music that was once forbidden here. [Associated Press, March 26]

March 16, 2016

February smashed a century of global temperature records by a “stunning” margin, according to data released by NASA. [The Guardian, March 14]

The Varkey Foundation has awarded its 2016 Global Teacher's Prize to Hanan al-Hroub, from the Duheisha refugee camp in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem. And the Best Teacher in the World is . . . a Palestinian tells why she was awarded the prize and how she accomplishes the impossible. [Informed Comment, March 14]

After his victories last night (March 15), Trump's delegate count stands at 621. He's now halfway to the 1237 necessary to win the nomination. BUT if the Donald doesn't reach this majority of delegates by the time of the convention, he is unlikely to get the nomination. As I overheard recently on a Florida beach: "He is nobody's second choice." Foreseeing losses across the board with Trump heading the national ticket, the Republican establishment is desperate to stop him:

- The Mashable website has an explanation of what may happen at a "brokered" convention: "How does a contested convention work? The last hope for Republicans to stop Trump."

- Republican Super Pac spending against him is rising exponentially. [Slate, March 15]

As a reminder of how screwed over the country gets when we have a Republican President, here is an older article on one of the Great Communicator's more forgotten "achievements": "Ronald Reagan’s shameful legacy: Violence, the homeless, mental illness. As president and governor of California, the GOP icon led the worst policies on mental illness in generations." [Salon, September 2013]

Bad as things can be domestically for the average citizen under Republicans, the potential for foreign misadventure is even greater. Juan Cole summarizes the candidates' ignorant foreign policy bellowing from last Friday's Florida debate. [Informed Comment, March 11]

"Almost 15 years after America’s global war on terror was launched, we face a deeply embedded (and remarkably unsuccessful) American version of militarism and, as Gregory Foster writes, a massive crisis in civil-military relations." [TomDispatch, March 15]

February 12, 2016

World leaders took a tentative step towards restoring peace and providing humanitarian aid to war-torn Syria, agreeing to a “cessation of hostilities” to be achieved by implementation of a “gradual truce.” (Al Jazeera, Feb 12)

Several important Supreme Court cases will be decided this year. Among them:

Evenwel vs. Abbott could overturn the long-standing principle of “one man, one vote.” The decision could have a dramatic impact on minority representation where those populations contain large numbers of non-citizens, people under 18, and citizens simply not registered to vote. In light of the Republican voter suppression laws enacted since 2010, this latter exclusion would have serious consequences. (Brennan Center for Justice, Dec 8, 2015)

Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association continues the assault on the labor movement begun during the Reagan years. Briefly, the lawsuit wants to take away public unions' right to collect dues automatically from their members. While it purports to be about free speech rights, Friedrichs is actually a deceptive attack on unions. (Huffington Post, Jan 4) Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have filed amicus briefs in support of the California Teachers Union. The Atlantic explains “why some states want strong public sector unions.” (The Atlantic, Jan 17)

At a time when the combined federal funding for the departments of education, interior, and transportation maxed out at $95 billion, “the Pentagon and its national security state pals are vrooming along at more than $750 billion dollars annually, or two-thirds of the government’s discretionary spending.” An article at the TomDispatch website notes that “The U.S. Military Suffers from Affluenza” and explains why this a very bad thing. (TomDispatch, Feb. 11)

The Palestinian Territory continues under military occupation as it has for the past 48 years. Juan Cole in his Informed Comment blog analyzes Tom Friedman's NYTimes op-ed, in which Friedman, a long-time supporter of the two-state solution, completely gives up hope. “What is remarkable is that Friedman puts Israeli and/or pro-Israeli actors first in his rogues gallery. The villains of this piece include... fanatical Jewish settlers on Palestinian land, right-wing Jewish billionaires, such as Sheldon Adelson, who shielded expansionist Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from criticism by influencing the US Congress,” and, of course, Netanyahu himself.

Finally, here is a history lesson on just how sickening foreign policy can be under a right-wing president. “The Diplomat and the Killer” describes the incoming Reagan administration's reaction to the murder of four American churchwomen by a Salvadoran death squad in December, 1980. (Pro Publica/The Atlantic, Feb 11)

January 3, 2016

Temperatures at the North Pole were 50 degrees above normal - "scaring scientists around the world" [Upworthy.com, Dec 30]

President Obama said that gun control is his first priority in 2016. He is taking steps towards executive action starting next week. [Townhall.com, Jan 1] Meanwhile, The New York Daily News continued its campaign against the NRA and the gutless Congressional opponents of gun control. [The Nation, Dec 6]

The Middle East will continue as the "hot buttton" topic in foreign policy in 2016. Here are Middle East expert Juan Cole's top seven challenges facing us this year. [Informed Comment, Jan 1]

As Republicans tried to find new ways to hamper implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement, Iran sent a major shipment of low-enriched uranium materials to Russia, a key step in Tehran's implementation of this year's historic nuclear accord with world powers. [Al Jazeera, Dec 28]

Muhammed Ali has long been one of my favorite people. As Islamophobia takes hold among the more ignorant of our populace, Ali issued a statement saying, "True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion." He was joined by several other Muslim athletes in criticizing calls to ban Muslims from immigrating to the US. [Associated Press, Dec 10]

The United Nations said that it intended to move ahead with peace talks between the Syrian government and rebel forces in late January, a signal to all parties that a tenuous political process aimed at ending the war would not be quashed by gains and loss The “target date” to start talks is Jan. 25 in Geneva. [New York Times, Dec 26]