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  No phone. No pool. No pets. No cigarettes. Ultimate freedom… No longer to be poisoned by civilization, he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become Lost in the Wild.                                                             –Christopher McCandless Libertarian ideologues and Tea-party types all proclaim their deep patriotism for “America”. But of course the America of their shared imagination consists exclusively of its land, its resources, and its like-minded people. That’s pretty much it. Government is not a part of their America so much as it is some amorphous, interloping entity that metastasized from post-Colonial social contracts conceived and midwifed by a slew of mythical Founding Fathers whomRead More →

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  “There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely.” -donald trump, on how he plans on handling diplomatic relations with North Korea.   Just 10 days ago, I quoted the North Korean UN deputy representative who warned that nuclear war with the United States was imminent. I went on to portray trump as the naive high-school kid from the 1983 movie War Games, in which a dumb kid nearly starts a global nuclear war because he’s not sophisticated enough to realize the simulation he’s running is tied directly into our nation’s early warning defense system.Read More →

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  “We learned nothing.” -Senator Jeff Merkley, Oregon A few days ago, media started reporting on a large meeting coming up at the White House in which donald trump summoned every member of the U.S. Senate to attend a classified briefing for reasons no one could—and the White House refused to—explain. Media types reported that this was an unusual move, considering that the briefing room was not designed to host classified briefings, and that, historically, whatever it was trump planned to tell the Senate would typically be done in the Senate, itself. While senators expressed bewilderment at the venue, the White House tried to pretendRead More →

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  “Boo! Hiss!” -Berlin crowd, upon hearing Ivanka trump tell them that her daddy has always been a “tremendous champion for supporting families and enabling them to thrive.” Ivanka was in Germany at the invite of Angela Merkel to join in a panel discussion on women’s issues. During her speech, she began to tell the audience how awesome her daddy is when it comes to empowering women, and the audience wasn’t buying it, choosing to boo, groan, and hiss, instead of applaud. But that’s not what I want to focus on with this. Instead, I want to focus on a piece that appeared on CNNRead More →

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  Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment. https://t.co/DOct3xcLoY — Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) April 21, 2017 “Yes, it is!” responded Bill Maher on his April 21 show, before correcting Howard Dean’s comment. “Threats are not protected. This is why the Supreme Court said Nazis could march in Skokie — they’re a hateful bunch. But that’s what the First Amendment means. It doesn’t mean ‘shut up and agree with me.’” Now let’s read this from Karl Popper: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend aRead More →

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  Bill O’Reilly got fired from Fox News today. Even as he headed out the door, he couldn’t help drop lie after lie. Here is his statement. “Over the past 20 years at Fox News, I have been extremely proud to launch and lead one of the most successful news programs in history, which has consistently informed and entertained millions of Americans and significantly contributed to building Fox into the dominant news network in television. It is tremendously disheartening that we part ways due to completely unfounded claims. But that is the unfortunate reality many of us in the public eye must live with today.Read More →

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  “[m]r. [t]rump is immune from suit because he is President of the United States.” This is the argument made by trump’s attorney’s in a court filing hoping to get a lawsuit against the president dismissed. The lawsuit was brought by three trump protesters who were assaulted at a trump campaign rally after the then-candidate urged his supporters to “get them out of here.” The victims of the assault allege that trump’s comments amount to incitement, and that he is thus responsible for the actions of trump supporters who assaulted them. Those charged with the assault have claimed that they would not have assaulted theRead More →

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  “…thermonuclear war may break out at any moment…” -Kim In Ryong, North Korean UN deputy representative Back in 1983, before he became a cultural icon as Ferris Bueller, Matthew Broderick starred in War Games, a movie in which an adolescent unknowingly and nearly sparks a global nuclear war because he thinks he’s playing a game. In one scene, when it becomes clear that American nuclear missiles have been programmed to launch in any event that the computers suspect their programmers have been compromised, an Air Force general exasperatedly orders American bombers to head back to Soviet air space, because he’s decided that it’s better toRead More →

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  Here’s what’s happening: trump is prepping us for the ditching of Steve Bannon by telling the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin that Bannon was a late comer to his team. This comes on the heels of a now-well-publicized rift between the white nationalists on trump’s team led by Bannon and trump’s co-husband Jared Kushner. trump’s distancing of himself from Bannon isn’t because trump is appalled by Bannon’s white nationalism, but because he can’t get along with Kushner. Sean Spicer might also be on his way out. Bill O’Reilly suddenly decided to take a vacation last night, and prolonged his very awkward moment by trying toRead More →

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  The following came to us from Luskus_Delph as a post in an open thread. It deserves its own space. A chance to purge something that has bugged me for months; i.e., the utter predictability of everything that is unfolding since the coup d’etat by plebiscite last November. I can’t claim greater prescient imagination than so many other rational followers of progressive politics that I have observed in various internet forums; but I did venture to write about this back in the weeks leading up to the 2012 election and shared with my brother, with whom I frequently exchange political email rants. With profound sadness I am pulling itRead More →