Month: June 2017

None of the failings of our healthcare system outrages the vicious Republicans. They hate poor and middle class people, the hate black and brown people, the hate government, the love to make the rich richer. That is the essence of the Republican Party. —>> read more –>>

Trump is a side show here. The problem is the Republican Party bought and sold by the wealthy and corporations. The Republicans are busy destroying families through their attacks on healthcare, education, family income, and government protections. The Republicans are busy mouthing talk about job creation while doing nothing to create jobs, just more rhetoric about job creators and government regulations. The Republicans are busy doing nothing to assure that a person working a full-time job can achieve a liveable standard of living. —>> read more –>>

from the New York Times an article that covers some earlier history of the US healthcare industry. How Did Health Care Get to Be Such a Mess? By CHRISTY FORD CHAPIN “The problem with American health care is not the care. It’s the insurance. Both parties have stumbled to enact comprehensive health —>> read more –>>

It is clear that though slavery in the North was not the dominant economic engine that was true of the South, slavery was present and visible on a day-to-day basis. —>> read more –>>

Companies must externalize as many costs as possible in free-market capitalism. Without adequate government protections you will end up with this kind of environment. from the New York Times: Nearly 14,000 Companies in China Violate Pollution Rules By EDWARD WONG “Environmental inspectors in northern China have found that nearly 14,000 companies, or —>> read more –>>

Notices of runaways slaves from the Hudson River Valley. Many were notices from slave owners in Hudson and Columbia County dating roughly from 1795 to 1840. Northerners may think that slavery was a Southern institution, but this history casts a decidedly different picture. —>> read more –>>

Trump surprises us with another innovation in governing. He has turned his latest Cabinet meeting into a round of campaign rhetoric and sycophantic adulation and lies. —>> read more –>>

Giving tax breaks to the rich and corporations has been basic to every Republican since Hoover. President Reagan piled on with trickle-down economics. I wrote about it here: Trickle-Down Returns to Enrich the Rich. Now the great state of Kansas proves again the tax breaks do not generate more jobs or —>> read more –>>

The now publicly visible campaign by the Koch brothers and many others to make their decade’s long campaign to deny climate change bear new fruit in public policy. More evidence that the plutocrats are now so secure in their control over our politics and the government that they can come out of the shadows and rule directly through Trump. —>> read more –>>

If we want to offer an alternative analysis we need direct language that does not refer to thinking and issues from 150 years ago that invites immediate suspicions that those speaking are academics and intellectuals who by definition are not connected to the day-to-day realities of American life. —>> read more –>>