Advertisement Hidden Distress Among Well-Off Women in America

We’ve written regularly about the how death rates have been rising among some large segments of the US population. One troubling finding was the Case-Deaton study that reported how lifespans have shortened among less educated white Americans aged 45-54. As co-author and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton said earlier this year, “Many areas of Appalachia and Mississippi Delta have lower …

NORMAN POLLACK – Reichstag 1938 / Washington 2017

We are all Muslims. Either that, or we shall be torn apart as a nation, given over to Trump-Republicans’ vomit of hate for all that defines human rights and a free society. It gets worse by the minute, the immigration issue merely code for venting spleen on a whole range of issues intimately connected with America’s loss of undisputed pre-eminence …

Alternative Visions – Trump’s First Week–Government by Executive Order (Is Trump a Fascist?) – 01.27.17

Dr. Rasmus reviews the major events in the first week of the Trump administration, both domestic and global, as Trump ‘governs’ by Executive Order. Rasmus explains government by executive order has no basis in the US constitution, but Trump is using EOs as the Republican Congress takes the next 6 months to formulate and pass big corporation favored legislation on tax cuts, business deregulation, and replacing Obamacare and Dodd-Frank bank regulations. Trump EOs on immigration and the ‘wall’, the collapse of meeting and negotiations with Mexican president, Pena Nieto, are discussed as is whether a ‘trade war’ with Mexico brewing. Teresa May’s visit to Trump as Britain begs the US to help it bail out of the EU and Eurozone; the exodus of career officials at the Dept. of State? Rasmus describes similarities between Trump and Nixon, and discusses the growing discussion whether Trump represents a new fascism? What really are the elements of fascism. The show concludes with a review of some global economic events this past week, including infighting in the Eurozone over QE, Germany’s newest conflict with Greece over debt, electoral events in Germany and French elections, Mexico’s economic crisis, Emerging Markets economies loading up on dollar debt, China’s fight with speculators, and the non-significance of US stock market, the DOW, reaching 20,000.

Lawrence Davidson – Democrats Lost in a Corporate Wilderness

You would think that learning from experience is a common thing to do. But, for the Democratic Party’s leadership, this seems not to be the case. After the landslide victory of Trump’s version of the Republican Party in the 2016 national election, it is fair to say that the Democratic Party is in big trouble. As Sen. Bernie Sanders has …

Leid Stories—Reading the Political Landscape: Are We Clear Yet About Trump?—01.26.17

In office barely a week, President Donald Trump has set about the task of making real his campaign promises. He’s already taken executive actions that: begin the dismantling of Obamacare; withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership; freeze all federal regulations for review, but speed up those for manufacturing applications; fast-track the Keystone and Dakota Access oil pipelines, and further requiring that all pipeline material, including for repair, be U.S.-manufactured; beef up and accelerate the U.S.’s deportation program, including blocking grants to “sanctuary cities” that are seen as unwilling to enforce immigration laws; and building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, adding 5,000 more border patrol agents.

Robert Parry – Obama Bequeaths a More Dangerous World

Any fair judgment about Barack Obama’s presidency must start with the recognition that he inherited a dismal situation from George W. Bush: the U.S. economy was in free-fall and U.S. troops were bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clearly, these intertwined economic and foreign policy crises colored how Obama viewed his options, realizing that one false step could tip the …

Andrea Germanos – Obamacare Repeal = $7 Million Tax Cut for Nation’s Richest 400 People

Repealing Obamacare, which Republicans on Friday appear closer to doing, would deliver a sizeable tax cut for the rich, a new report shows. Released Thursday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the publication shows that the repeal would give to each of the top 400 highest-income taxpayers—who averaged incomes of roughly $318 million in 2014—a tax cut …

TOM PHILPOTT – Trump Eyes Ex-Agrichemical Exec to Fill His Final Cabinet Post

When Indiana’s then-Gov. Mike Pence needed to appoint a new director of his state’s agriculture department back in 2013, he dipped right into the corner offices of the global agrichemical industry. His pick, Ted McKinney, then the director of global corporate affairs for Elanco Animal Health, a division of pharma giant Eli Lilly, had previously been an executive on the government …

Michael Payne – A party of control-obsessed politicians take charge – dark times ahead for America

There have been times in this nation’s history – at the onset of the Civil War, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the aftermath of the 911 tragedy – when Americans were full of apprehension and possessed a great deal of fear about the direction in which this country was heading. In the America …