Politics

The other day I was poking around in TikTok to see what it is all about. Came across a quote from Karl Marx that struck a chord. “There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery.” Here we --->> read more -->>

I was already 31 years old when the rip-off of America began in 1979. I was busy, and the changes in American life were only occasionally to be noticed.  By the mid-1980s my management life started to feature the early signs of the financialization of the corporation. I knew of --->> read more -->>

My previous post, “$47 Trillion – the ripoff by the rich and corporations – in two charts – maybe a few more…..” raises the question of exactly what 47,000,000,000,000 amounts to. There are so many “0”s! Let’s work with a one-dollar US paper bill. So how many dollar bills do --->> read more -->>

What More Needs To Be Said? 91 Felony Crimes Charged Trump has now been indicted for 91 different felony crimes spanning his four indictments to date. 34 counts for the Stormy Daniels NY state hush-money case, 40 in the Federal classified documents case, 4 in the Federal Jan. 6th case, --->> read more -->>

insurrection ĭn″sə-rĕk′shən noun 1. The act or an instance of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government. 2. A rising up; uprising. 3. The act of rising against civil authority or governmental restraint; specifically, the armed resistance of a number of persons to the power of the state; --->> read more -->>

I ran across this letter to the editor in the July 6th edition of The Columbia Paper concerning the recent Supreme Court ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis (from NYTimes: “Supreme Court Backs Web Designer Opposed to Same-Sex Marriage“) allowing businesses to discriminate against people based on religious views. This --->> read more -->>

Recently I’ve noticed bumper stickers, mostly on pickup trucks, calling out a love for the Constitution. What do I love about the Constitution? Rural states with tiny populations automatically control the Senate. The ten least populous states have a total population of 9.6 million. California, the most populous state, has --->> read more -->>

Trump received 74 million votes in 2020. This amazed and upset me a lot. The ongoing global warming crisis and the exhaustion of earth’s resources continue to arouse my concerns about our future. I wrote a longish essay on the subject in early 2022. Here is the positioning statement from --->> read more -->>

Following comments in the media that the indictment document was “a readable narrative” as opposed to a dull legal document, I downloaded it for a read-through. Here is a link to the indictment “USA vs Trump & Nauta“. The first 27 pages of 49 provide a detailed narrative. In fact --->> read more -->>

This time by the Feds.    

Propublica has a great story, “Supreme Risk: An interactive guide to rights the Supreme Court has established — and could take away“(6.1.2023), enumerating a long list of rights that are the results of Supreme Court actions but not supported by actual laws passed by Congress and signed by a President. --->> read more -->>

The egregious ethics violations and probable law-breaking by our Supreme Court justice are explored in depth in this article from ProPublica: Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski (4.6.2023) It is not terribly long but much worth a read. We normally expect that judges will --->> read more -->>

March 30, 2023 FINALLY!! Trump INDICATED !! I agree that “THE USA IS NOW A THIRD WORLD NATION, A NATION IN SERIOUS DECLINE.” Just not because we’ve finally indicted Trump for a few of his manifold crimes. How’bout the death toll during the pandemic? 17% of the world’s deaths due --->> read more -->>

China spends more on importing computer chips – $260 billion in 2017 – than it does importing oil. President Biden’s recent bans on the export of American-made chips to China as well as a ban on companies throughout the world using American technology to export to China intends to make --->> read more -->>

I can’t seem to forgo comedians. Sometimes a laugh brings brief relief. Stumbled on this typical brief rant (3 minutes) from Lewis Black. A bit of context. This is shortly after the election of Obama. He had run against John McCain in 2008. These are the politicians he is referring --->> read more -->>

Catching up on reading The New Yorker brought me to the January 16th issue and Jill Lepore’s “What the January 6th Report Is Missing”. As noted elsewhere here, I am somewhat possessed by the question of how we can explain that 74 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020 after --->> read more -->>

Individualism and Libertarians Americans are renowned for their sense of individual identity and empowerment. de Tocqueville noted this back in the 1830s in his Democracy in America. Hollywood and mass media have mined it continuously. Politicians appeal to it frequently. In my lifetime the position of the individual has been --->> read more -->>

The recent release of a pile of emails, text messages, and memos from within Fox News has raised the Dominion Voting System‘s defamation lawsuit to large public view. Here is a 52-minute discussion between Stewart and Anderson Jones that explores the facts revealed in the data dump, the boundaries and --->> read more -->>

Yesterday as I was taking a walk up and down Warren St. here in Hudson I realized that I had become actively angry about the state of the US and the world. I walked past hotels where a single room would set you back $400 for a night or you --->> read more -->>

The Russian war against Ukraine has produced a lot of noise about the fate of Russian oligarchs. Seizures of the yachts, bank accounts and more. Perhaps we should spend a bit of energy focusing on our own oligarchs, the rich and corporations. Despite all of the noise of the Republican --->> read more -->>

In the midst of the exploding pandemic here in the US we should not be distracted from understanding why we are in this catastrophic mess. Further we should not be distracted from taking action. Our Situation – the dirty laundry list The overall condition of our country is so dire --->> read more -->>