By Robert Reich – With congressional Republicans in the majority in Congress and unwilling to cross Donald Trump, the job of containing Trump’s incipient tyranny falls to three centers of independent power: the nation’s courts, its press and a few state governments. Which is why Trump is escalating attacks on all three. The Judiciary After…
Guest Columns
Trump and Bannon’s ‘America First’ is Dangerous
By Robert Reich – Donald Trump has reorganized the National Security Council – elevating his chief political strategist Steve Bannon, and demoting the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bannon will join the NSC’s principals committee, the top inter-agency group advising the President on national security. Meanwhile, the…
Garrison Keillor: Trump is What he is, and God Help Us Now
Bernie Sanders: The Corporate Media Threatens Our Democracy
By Bernie Sanders – MEDIA SHAPES OUR VERY LIVES. It tells us what products we need to buy and, by the quantity and nature of coverage, what is âimportantâ and what is âunimportant.â Media informs us as to the scope of what is ârealisticâ and âpossible.â When we see constant coverage of murders and brutality…
Trump’s Two-Step Strategy To Take Over the Truth
By Robert Reich – Donald Trump is such a consummate liar that in coming days and years our democracy will depend more than ever on the independent press – finding the truth, reporting it, and holding Trump accountable for his lies. But Trump’s strategy is to denigrate and disparage the press in the public’s mind…
Trump’s Plan to Neuter the White House Press Corps, and Neuter Our Democracy
By Robert Reich – Tyrants donât allow open questioning, and they hate the free press. They want total control. Thatâs why, according to three senior officials on the transition team, the incoming Trump administration is considering evicting the White House press corps from the press room inside the White House and moving them â and…
The Second Coming of The Donald: Trump’s Return to Mobile and Ascent to DC
By David Underhill — Associate Editor – MOBILE, Ala. – The fervent thousands who streamed in Mobile’s football stadium for a campaign appearance by quirky celebrity candidate Donald Trump in August 2015 surprised even his vain self. That was his first mega rally, and it showed he might actually be running for president rather than…
The Trump Story the Media Dare Not Utter
The mainstream, corporate news media sacrificed democracy for ratings. By Thom Hartmann – AlterNet – The media are engaged in an orgy of navel-gazing about the Trump presidency, but they’re totally, utterly, absolutely, no-way-in-hell willing to gaze at their own navel. Did Russian hackers revealing that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile had put their…
The ‘Hidden Figures’ Jeff Sessions Wants to Keep in the Shadows
Why Jeff Sessions Would Be Unjust at the Justice Department
U.S. No Stranger to Interfering in Elections of Other Countries
Editor’s Note: While the United States is calling for sanctions against Russia for accusations of interference in the 2016 US elections, it is being exceptionally hypocritical. The US has a sad and long history of interfering in the elections of many other countries in the world. As noted in the LA Times article below “One…
Trump’s Attack on the Freedom of the Press
By Robert Reich – Historically, tyrants have tried to control the press using 4 techniques that, worryingly, Donald Trump is already using. 1. Berate the media and turn the public against it. Trump refers to journalists as “dishonest,” “disgusting” and “scum.” When Trump lies – claiming, for example, “massive voter fraud” in the election, and…
Trumpeting Triumph Over Castro: New President Yearns to Turn Back Time
By David Underhill â MOBILE, Ala. â Most American cities have official sister cities sprinkled around the globe. Mobile’s include Havana, Cuba. This happened three decades ago through the unorthodox efforts of a few Mobilians. They decided to ignore the chronic Cold War anti-commie fevers of the time and focus instead on the three centuries…
Trump’s Seven Techniques to Control the Media
By Robert Reich – Democracy depends on a free and independent press, which is why all tyrants try to squelch it. They use seven techniques that, worryingly, President-elect Donald Trump already employs. 1. Berate the media. Last week, Trump summoned two-dozen TV news anchors and executives to the twenty-fifth floor of Trump Tower to berate…
Neil Young to President Obama: ‘You Must End the Violence Against the Peaceful Water Protectors at Standing Rock’
Drum and song from the Yakama Nation’s arrival at Standing Rock By Neil Young – Tales of a feast on Plymouth plantation in the Autumn of 1621, where of pilgrims from the Mayflower, celebrated the harvest, shared and broke bread with the first Americans are false. They are still used as inspiration and shared with…
And So it Begins: Watch the Mainstream Media Normalize Trump’s Election
The media must not excuse the racism, misogyny, nativism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia because we think Trump voters have legitimate gripes. By Neal Gabler – It didn’t take a clairvoyant to predict that President-elect Donald Trump would be almost instantly normalized by the press since he had already been normalized by them when he was a…
Four Years of Donald Trump Could Cook the Planet
By Juan Cole – Informed Comment – I argued that President Obama’s carbon-reduction plan wasn’t anything to write home about. He want to reduce our annual emissions from 5.4 billion metric tons of CO2 annually from the US to 4.7 billion metric tons by 2030. It isn’t an insignificant reduction, but it doesn’t at all…
We Need a New Democratic Party
By Robert Reich – As a first step, I believe it necessary for the members and leadership of the Democratic National Committee to step down and be replaced by people who are determined to create a party that represents America â including all those who feel powerless and disenfranchised, and who have been left out…
Compared to Clinton, Trump Seems Lost at Sea
By John L. Micek – So who’s winning the Commander-in-Chief Election? In their first proximate — but not joint –appearance of the fall campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump each made the case for their foreign policy chops this week. Their backdrop: The retired aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Intrepid, in New York City.…
One Big Unfinished Bill Clinton Promise Hillary Should Embrace
Bar corporations from deducting all executive pay in excess of $1 million – By Robert Reich – What can be done to deter pharmaceutical companies from jacking up prices of critical drugs? To prevent Wall Street banks from excessive gambling? To nudge CEOs into taking a longer-term view? To restrain runaway CEO pay? Answer to…