Category Archives: Commentary

The traditional Christmas story is about an unmarried, pregnant, Jewish teen named Mary who, on a freezing night in Bethlehem, seeks a warm place to rest and give birth. Nobody would allow the girl a bed. Today, it is unlikely that such a person would not be shunned as much as the Biblical Mary, as we allow people to die in the Land of the Free when they fall to the bottom of the capitalist ranks where there is a dearth of mercy. Continue reading →

“Today,” US Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Masquerading-as-I-VT) said in a December 13 statement, “I withdrew from consideration by the U.S. Senate my War Powers Resolution after the Biden administration agreed to continue working with my office on ending the war in Yemen. Let me be clear. If we do not reach agreement, I will, along with my colleagues, bring this resolution back for a vote in the near future and do everything possible to end this horrific conflict.” Continue reading →

It should come as no surprise that Florida’s neo-fascist mobbed-up governor and 2024 presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis now has the dead body of a close friend to deal with. In a scene reminiscent of the television series “The Sopranos,” the body of 50-year old Kent Stermon, a prominent Jacksonville, Florida political donor to DeSantis, was found in his vehicle on December 8. The vehicle was parked at the Mayport Post Office on Mayport Road in Atlantic Beach. A post office employee leaving work discovered Stermon’s body around 8 pm. The Mayport Naval Station is where DeSantis performs much of his Naval Reserve active duty as an officer in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps. Continue reading →

People commit suicide when they want to stop the pain more than exist another minute in their world of shit. It is, therefore, a very sensible thing to do. After all, when our pets are in pain, we sometimes “put them to sleep” to save them from a long suffering. Humans are often not granted the same right for ourselves. Continue reading →

WNBA player Brittney Griner was arrested in Moscow on February 17, 2022, exactly one week before the Russian government began what it called its Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Griner was returning home from playing in Russia during the off-season and was carrying CBD oil in her luggage. While legal in much of the United States, any marijuana formulation is illegal in the Russian Federation. She was finally released on December 8, 2022 in a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Continue reading →

If you sometimes wonder whether Congress is obtuse, narcissistic, or just stupid, a trantrum by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin provided evidence that the answer is yes. Continue reading →

Two of the world’s wealthiest men—Peter Thiel and his friend and business colleague Elon Musk—became U.S. citizens through the naturalization process. Both are aiding and abetting neo-Nazi and other far-right causes in the United States and fit the bill of “undesirable aliens.” Thiel, through bankrolling the political campaigns of dangerous Nazi sympathizers like Blake Masters in Arizona, and Musk, in re-platforming hundreds of neo-Nazis on Twitter, pose a threat to the constitutional governance of the United States. Thiel and Musk are as deportable from the United States as were dozens of Nazis who were discovered to have carried out war crimes during World War II. In any event, Thiel does not seem to care very much about his acquired U.S. citizenship since he also carries a New Zealand passport and is attempting to obtain one from Malta. Continue reading →

It’s never really news that the annual “National Defense Authorization Act” is bloated. The 2023 version comes to $858 billion which, probably ten times what’s required to fund an actual “national defense” (as opposed to trying to maintain a sprawling global empire in terminal decline). Continue reading →

Avid supporters of coal, oil, and gas (and opponents of wind and solar energy, but I repeat myself) seem convinced that they’ve got the ultimate gotcha arguments in “intermittency” and “energy density.” They’re right, but not in quite the way they seem to think. Continue reading →

The artist formerly known as Kanye West has told Tucker Carlson he sees “good things” in Adolph Hitler. Continue reading →

‘Tis the time to do our gift-buying for the holidays—and fill every recipient’s shelves and closets with more stuff. I wrote some of this last year at around this time, but so many of you suggested I do so again that I saw the wisdom of a bit of recycling today. Continue reading →

The world should gird itself for what can be expected to be the most vitriolic show trial seen since Nazi “People’s Court” Judge Roland Freisler’s theatrics in humiliating from the bench the White Rose underground leaders in Germany and the Operation Valkyrie plotters who tried to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944. Freisler is best known for flying into fits of rage in order to psychologically disarm defendants brought before his court. Continue reading →

As the House Select Committee on the January 6th insurrection by Donald Trump and his allies wraps up, there is hope that some details of the planned coup d’état will be found either in the main report or its appendices. As just one example, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have not advanced their investigations of who planted pipe bombs at Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters. Continue reading →

You break it, you own it. That’s what I was told as a child. But for today’s billionaires, it seems like the opposite is true. Continue reading →

As the war in Ukraine has dragged on for nine months and a cold winter is setting in, people all over the world are calling for a Christmas truce, harkening back to the inspirational Christmas Truce of 1914. In the midst of World War I, warring soldiers put down their guns and celebrated the holiday together in the no-man’s land between their trenches. This spontaneous reconciliation and fraternization has been, over the years, a symbol of hope and courage. Continue reading →

Breaking news: After years of failed Republican efforts to uncover any proof of widespread voter fraud by Democrats, Republican Governor Ron “Tough Guy” DeSantis of Florida found not one, but 20 ineligible people casting ballots. Continue reading →

Whether they believe their God sent them or that their DNA is superior to the rest of us, the new supremacists who own the GOP represent a threat to American democracy. They’ve tried to conquer America three times in the past: will they do it this time? Continue reading →

The 2022 midterm election results “stand as an expression of overwhelming lack of confidence in the major parties,” J.D. Tuccille writes at Reason magazine, “with a resulting breather for the country resulting from the split decision’s ensuing, and quite welcome, gridlock.” Continue reading →

U.S. judge Mark Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida has struck down Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s Individual Freedom Act and the Stop-Woke (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, Walker cited the censorship provisions of DeSantis’s law as a violation of the First Amendment right of free speech and the ban on colleges, universities, public schools, and businesses having more than 15 employees instructing students or employees about cultural and racial awareness as a violation of the 14th Amendment on due process. Continue reading →

At least five dead. More than two dozen others injured. The LGBTQ community again shattered. Continue reading →

Queer people in America are not feeling “freedom,” particularly after the most recent deadly attack on Club Q in Colorado Springs. As if to amplify the GOP’s message of hate and fear against this vulnerable group of our fellow Americans, it happened on Trans Remembrance Day, when we honor the memory of trans people who’ve been the victims of hate and violence. Continue reading →

The largest religion on earth is not Christianity or Islam: it’s the widespread, faith-based belief system which holds that humans are separate from each other and from the world. Continue reading →

When Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter was first announced this past April I said that the purchase likely wouldn’t go through if the empire thought it posed a threat to its information interests. I said that any reduction of censorship protocols which Musk implements on the platform would probably not be of the sort that make any difference to the powerful, but would instead just amplify vapid partisan culture war nonsense. Continue reading →

Evoking memories of the days when Republicans in control of the House used non-stop investigations and the Tea Party to almost bring down then-President Barack Obama’s historic agenda, the leaders of the GOP in the House made it clear Thursday that they intend to do the same thing to President Joe Biden. Continue reading →

This was the most important election in American history, as was the previous one, the one before that, and all previous exercises of marketing that pose as democratic rule in our great example of how to fool most of the people most of the time. Of course this election, as all others, cost more money than the previous marketing fiasco, when more than 14 billion dollars were spent on the 2020 purchase of the White House and Congress which rose to more than 16 billion for this cycle of shopping center lesser evilism that cost even more just to purchase Congress. Clearly, democracy survived its most serious assault in the history of marketing, at least according to our mind managers and consciousness controllers who make pimps and sex workers seem like poets of love. The only thing that is consistent in our one corrupt system with two corrupt parties is the rising profit margin as all manner of advertising, insurance, polling and other marketplace hustlers feast on the profits available in marketing capitalist democracy while claiming to stand for truth, beauty and other forms of mass hallucinations. Continue reading →

On November 16, the Respect for Marriage Act achieved 62 votes for “cloture” in the US Senate, meaning that it will proceed to floor debate and likely—after reconciliation with the House version, which passed in July—become law. Continue reading →

Soon after arriving in Oslo, my taxi zigzagged through the city’s well-organized streets and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Large billboards advertised the world’s leading brands in fashion, cars, and perfumes. Amid all the expressions of wealth and plenty, an electronic sign by a bus stop flashed the images of poor looking African children needing help. Continue reading →

At a recent Istanbul conference that brought many Palestinian scholars and activists together to discuss the search for a common narrative on Palestine, a Palestinian member of the audience declared at the end of a brief, but fiery intervention, ‘we are not red Indians’. Continue reading →

WASHINGTON—Former Oval Office Republican occupant Donald Trump has announced yet another run for the White House, even as many Republicans expressed unhappiness with their master, not because they reject his politics, but because they think it is his style that caused mass rejection of his endorsed midterm candidates by the voters. Continue reading →

In the face of midterm election results that confounded predictions and crushed Republican hopes for a landslide victory, some in the media are suggesting that the party may finally turn away from Trump. Continue reading →

After 36 years of incarceration, political prisoner Mutulu Shakur was granted parole after having been denied on nine occasions. Invariably media accounts mention that he is the step-father of the late rapper and actor Tupac Shakur while saying little about his own history. Any of the elder Shakur’s accomplishments are given short shrift in favor of an emphasis on pop culture celebrity. Continue reading →