Category Archives: Elections & Voting

Since entering the presidential race last June, Trump shook things up like no other US aspirant in memory—turning an otherwise dull political season into a memorable one, for better or worse. Continue reading →

America’s dysfunctional political system is too corrupted to fix. Ordinary Americans understand. Continue reading →

What are the messages Iranians signaled by their robust election campaign and high turn out? Western naysayers say it shows discontent. But perhaps with a touch of envy, at a time when Western politics is rife with discontent and yet elicits at best a yawn, or at worse, looks more like a circus. The Islamic revolution has had bad press in the West from the start, but the results show a level of freedom that contrasts favorably with the West, and puts paid to the mantra that the 2009 elections were stolen by the bad guys. Continue reading →

The broad appeal of Bernie Sanders’ message of wealth inequality and corresponding corruption of the US political system can be seen in the fact that Hillary Clinton plagiarizes him so regularly. At this point, it would hardly be surprising if her next announcement is that she’s converting to Judaism. But Hillary, unlike Bernie, is no revolutionary. And that’s a problem for everyone. Continue reading →

“We came, we saw, he died,” the infamous words of Secretary of State Killery Clinton, referring to the assassination of Libya’s president, Muammar Gaddafi on October 20, 2011. Continue reading →

The bully of the playground continued to be in the media spotlight and charging ahead to the Republican nomination for president. Continue reading →

For a politician or a journalist, there was a time when citing the classics—as long as it wasn’t done in a pedantic or pompous manner—was a mark of wisdom and experience. If a candidate or reporter does it today, there’s a good chance they’ll be trolled and ridiculed for high-handed pretension. Cue Donald Trump shouting, “Loser!” Continue reading →

I’ve told you my mother was chair of the local Republican Party for years. My father shared her interest in (or addiction to) politics. Political aspirants called, stopped by the house, seeking their advice. Continue reading →

After the symbolic early-bird primaries/caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, where approximately 5 percent of either party’s nominating delegates were offered to the presidential candidates, the winds of March came early on this 2016 Super Tuesday directly propelled by that extra leap day, February 29. Approximately a quarter of the delegate count were at stake for each party this March 1, and the results have provided some political enlightenment, as well as minutiae, to keep the politicians concerned, the TV pundits employed and the politicophile public entertained. Continue reading →

Results were known before polls opened Tuesday morning. The same holds throughout the farcical political season—a meaningless pre-scripted exercise in theater, substance entirely excluded. Continue reading →

Politics today is not about Republicans and Democrats. Continue reading →

An almost perfect measure of the decay of democratic values in American politics is found in a letter from Hillary Clinton to Haim Saban, a wealthy American-Israeli and a major contributor to the Democrats. Continue reading →

It’s largely a choice of style, not substance, dirty business as usual continuing no matter who succeeds Obama. Still, Snowden has a point. Continue reading →

Throughout the 2016 presidential race, Bernie Sanders has displayed a cunning ability to shape the narrative—whether on the issues, where Hillary Clinton has tried to become his X-chromosome clone; or in some of the “artful smears” that have come from Hillary and her surrogates—which he has been able to neutralize or, in some cases, use to his advantage. He can do this because he is, in his very nature, a realist. Continue reading →

When the presidential primaries began more than a year ago, the two leading candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democrats and Jeb Bush for the Republicans. It seemed at that time that there would be another Clinton–Bush race in the general election. Continue reading →

Her presidency would be nightmarish for world peace, popular interests and what remains of fundamental freedoms, a disaster risking full-blown tyranny and global war—vital to go all-out to oppose. Continue reading →

Bernie Sanders’ common sense proposals for dealing with universal health care, college tuition, restoring the infrastructure, confronting poverty and more have encountered predictable scorn from “fiscally responsible” corporatists. Continue reading →

I find it hard to believe that Bernie Sanders has a chance at becoming president. His views have excited a number of potential voters both in the Democratic Party and outside of it, particularly among the young. But he’s immersed in the kind of politics which sometimes gets people killed in the Land of the Free. Continue reading →

As Americans are once again suffering through a barrage of nonstop negative political advertising during yet another “hold your nose and vote” election cycle, they yearn, desperately, for things to be different. Featuring a host of lackluster candidates pushing misleading issues, the 2016 presidential election is up for grabs. Continue reading →

Like millions of Americans in the middle of February I have the flu. Continue reading →

Maybe it’s that 50,000-year-old, Neanderthal DNA scientists say a lot of us possess, but this feels like the most brutal, vicious and mendacious political year since the days when politicians traded jugs of corn whiskey for votes, fought duels, and flagellated opponents to near death with canes. Continue reading →

I take the pulse of my fellow exceptional Americans by accessing Google News and just now, on Tuesday, Taylor Swift is in top position on the site, having come “full circle” at the Grammy’s. Whew. This is a relief. I’ve been worried. Continue reading →

Jesus once remarked to a wealthy man that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to go to heaven.” Continue reading →

There was something disturbing about Donald Trump’s “yuuge” rally at the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome in Tampa on the evening of February 12. It was not Trump’s familiar “red meat” talking points, in which he railed against illegal immigrants, Jeb Bush, free trade agreements, and Obamacare. Although Trump fancies himself as the anti-neocon, lambasting George W. Bush for lying about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and allowing 9/11 to happen on his watch, Trump’s cadre of state-level campaign officials suggest that neocons are gravitating toward his campaign. What is even more troubling is that Trump, if elected president, will likely mete out important government jobs to these neocon campaign workers. Continue reading →

Bernie has now won the New Hampshire primary! Watching Bernie Sanders debate Hilary Clinton on MSNBC just a few days before the New Hampshire primary, I couldn’t have felt prouder of Bernie. He is our best available option, even though his foreign policy, especially toward Palestine, leaves much to be desired. Some have rightly argued that it is a contradiction to be antiwar and also supportive of Bernie. But if Bernie gets elected, there is a greater chance that in the future a true antiwar socialist can get elected. Continue reading →

As the incumbent occupier of subsidized housing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue works on his legacy by fending off mad dogs of the neo-zio-con right and still bringing us closer to provoking war with Russia, a seemingly eternal presidential race for the next tenant continues while the nation passes through a critical period of confusion, disinformation and social-economic disorder. All this is part of the divide and rule politics to reinforce the weakening foundation of a political economic structure that threatens a global as well as national population if it ever collapses. Continue reading →