Op-Ed

“Sooner or later they end up in a cage, where (they) belong.”

This is hardly a surprise: A recent study by the Missouri attorney general’s office shows that black drivers are at least twice as likely — in some towns, much more than that — to be stopped by police as white drivers.

Mother Jones magazine has updated its database of U.S. mass shootings. I’ve downloaded it and made a few changes, before posting it here.

“He enlisted in the Virginia National Guard in April 1996, according to spokesman A.A. Puryear. He was assigned to the Norfolk-based 1st Battalion, 111th Field Artillery Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team as a 13B cannon crew member. He was discharged in April 2002 and held the rank of specialist at the time, the spokesman said. His records did not indicate overseas deployments.” —CNN on latest mass shooter

We’re supposed to overlook this bit of information. We’re supposed to focus on mental health questions or the inscrutable incomprehensible mystery of the inevitable human tragedy of mass shootings, which bizarrely and unfairly are inflicted by the universe on this particular 4 percent of humanity living in the United States, which quite irrelevantly has been glorifying violence through endless wars for many years.

White men rule!

That’s the uber-message quietly emerging from the new anti-abortion laws recently passed in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio and Missouri, no matter that the public remains predominantly supportive of safe, legal abortions.

That doesn’t matter, see. The fact that the Republican Party controls the legislatures in so many states where it lacks majority status, not to mention is able to put presidents in office who fail to win the popular vote, indicates that we live in a rather limited-definition democracy: rule by the most determined cheaters. Or as some would put it, rule by divine decree.

As Ari Berman pointed out recently in Mother Jones, this divine decree is achieved primarily by voter suppression and gerrymandering, as exemplified last year in Georgia’s gubernatorial race.

Like you, I’ve had countless experiences of pointing out a new fact to someone, and seeing them acknowledge it and incorporate it into their thinking and their talking from that point forward. I’ve even had this experience with public petitions pushed on powerful people. But, I’ve also had a different experience. There are some facts that some people just will not accept, and for some of them I have a very hard time understanding why. Can you help me understand?

Give a judge a couple of years and he’ll eventually blurt out that the sky is blue.

That’s now happened in Charlottesville, where a court has finally concluded that the statues of Lee and Jackson in their war uniforms on their war horses are war monuments.

People outside of Charlottesville will of course be scratching their heads and wondering what that matters. But that’s because nobody has bothered to tell them why Trump’s favorite statues are still standing and what it means.

The state of Virginia forbids taking down war monuments. The Heroes of the Resistance refrain from criticizing such hyper-militaristic laws. This means that we have a war-mad society, and that it goes unchallenged. The wars of recent years blow back into the streets of Charlottesville in the form of racist violence, but Charlottesville has spent the past many months telling itself that war is not the problem.

So the Mueller Report confirms that the Russians intervened to elect their money launderer of choice.

What else is new?

Putin and company will be back in 2020 on behalf of their wholly-owned asset. They’ll be more powerful and sophisticated than ever, marching in lockstep with their fellow mega-corporations and terminal polluters. A victory would let them complete the fascist assault on what’s left of American democracy.

They’ll also be poised to destroy our ability to survive on this planet. It should be clear to all that the human species will not survive another five years of Trump’s fossil/nuke-crazed attack on our ecological support systems.

And they’ll have two other key allies: Jim Crow, and War.

The debate over how much to focus on “Russiagate” is futile … and misses the point. As outlined by Craig Unger and David Cay Johnston, Trump has been owned by Russian oligarchs for decades. He was bankrupt and in debt by up to $6 billion. Then he was doing mega-deals in cash.

https://youtu.be/4F4qzPbcFiA
It's a Trap!

I’m old enough to remember when Nancy Pelosi was telling us that Trump would impeach himself.

Now, Trump’s “not worth it,” as if impeachment is a favor you bestow on those most worthy.

Jerrold Nadler is proposing to fine Trump for refusing to comply with subpoenas.

Bernie Sanders wrapped up a weekend campaign swing through California with a Sunday afternoon speech to 16,000 of us a few miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. News coverage seemed unlikely to convey much about the event. The multiracial crowd reflected the latest polling that shows great diversity of support for Bernie, contrary to corporate media spin. High energy for basic social change was in the air.

Speaking from the podium, Bernie 2020 co-chair Nina Turner asked and answered a question about the campaign: “What’s love got to do with it? Everything.”

Most people realize how Big Pharma's greedy drug pricing raises our health care costs. Fewer are aware of how the greedy drug pricing also raise our taxes.