In today’s show, Jack puts Trump strategy and policies in historical perspective, showing how his proposed programs are rooted in policies initially proposed by Nixon and Reagan. Trump represents the latest in a series of corporate-radical right initiatives to restructure economic and political relationships periodically with US foreign competitors and to contain domestic challenges. Nixon’s NEP program of 1971, and …
Erika Guevara-Rosas – Trump’s Global Gag a Devastating Blow for Women’s Rights
MEXICO CITY, Jan 25 2017 (IPS) – The image of a group of men in suits making decisions about the rights of women is becoming an emblematic sign of the backlash against our human rights, particularly those related to women´s bodily integrity and reproductive and sexual freedoms. Just two days after the massive demonstrations for equality and against discrimination that …
Andrea Germanos – Mikhail Gorbachev: Appears ‘The World Is Preparing for War’
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that it appears “as if the world is preparing for war.” Writing in an op-ed published Thursday at TIME magazine, Gorbachev, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his role in ending the Cold War, writes that the most pressing problem facing the world is “the militarization of politics and the …
Trump’s Lies vs. Your Brain
All presidents lie. Richard Nixon said he was not a crook, yet he orchestrated the most shamelessly crooked act in the modern presidency. Ronald Reagan said he wasn’t aware of the Iran-Contra deal; there’s evidence he was. Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman; he did, or close enough. Lying in politics transcends political party and …
Here’s How the Trump Presidency Will Play Out
The Trump era starts now – with geopolitics and geoeconomics set for a series of imminent, unpredictable cliffhangers. I have argued that Trump’s foreign policy guru Henry Kissinger’s strategy to deal with the formidable Eurasia integration trio – Russia, China and Iran — is a remixed Divide and Rule; seduce Russia away from its strategic partnership with China, while keep harassing the weakest link, Iran. …
Steven Jonas – The Repubs.’ New – Old – ‘New-Trumpian’ Base: The Religious Right, Part 1
Special to The Greanville Post |Commentary No. 72: “The Repubs.’ New – Old – ‘New-Trumpian’ Base: The Religious Right, Part 1” Dateline: January 5, 2017 In the 1980 Repub. primaries, Ronald Reagan won a convincing victory over George H.W. Bush. Reagan was considered a “new” Republican, in the Barry Goldwater mold, while George Herbert Walker Bush was considered an …
GARY LEUPP – The Utter Stupidity of the New Cold War
It seems so strange, twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be living through a new Cold War with (as it happens, capitalist) Russia. The Russian president is attacked by the U.S. political class and media as they never attacked Soviet leaders; he is personally vilified as a corrupt, venal dictator, who arrests or assassinates political opponents …
Jon Queally – Majority of Americans Unconvinced Trump Can Handle Nation’s Top Job
With his inauguration now less than three weeks away, a new survey shows a majority of the American people are far from confident that Donald Trump, a former reality television star who won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, is up to the major tasks entrusted to the President of the United States. …
Juan Cole – Top 5 Reasons Senate Dems Should Block All Trump Supreme Court Nominees, Forever
We don’t need a Trump-nominated Supreme Court justice. We desperately don’t need such a person. And there is no reason to have one. The Democrats in the Senate should just filibuster any nomination for the next four years. Now, you may say that a president deserves to have the nominee of his choice voted on. But those were the old …
William Astore – Tomgram: William Astore, All the President’s Generals
In a sense, human history could be seen as an endless tale of the rise and fall of empires. In the last century alone, from the Hapsburgs and Imperial Japan to Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the stage was crowded with such entities heading for the nearest exit. By 1991, with the implosion of the USSR, it seemed as …