OPINION

In A Post-Literate Society, Trump Might As Well Be President

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – The first night of the Republican convention in Cleveland was hard to watch. I flipped around some on broadcast TeeVee to see what was going on, and the poor news casters were having a hard time keeping a straight face and reporting the news with fairness and…

So Newhouse Gave Us Trump: Now They Will Profit by Taking Him Down?

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Media Incest On Display: Will Anyone Notice? The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – On the eve of the Republican convention in Cleveland Ohio, a remarkable thing happened. No, not another police shooting. Not just a tell all article about Donald Trump. It is an event that should send shock waves through the capitalist…

Black in America: I Am Afraid, but I Summon My Courage

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By Hank Sanders – SELMA, Ala. – Every time I am stopped by law enforcement, I’m afraid. I recently shared this fear with a friend who is White. He said he understood, but it is very hard for most Whites to understand what it is like to be stopped by law enforcement when you are…

Robert Reich: The Five Principles of Patriotism

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By Robert Reich – We talk a lot about Patriotism, especially around July 4th, but we need also to take to heart its five basic principles. First: True patriotism isn’t simply about waving the American flag. And it’s not mostly about securing our borders, putting up walls and keeping others out. It’s about coming together…

Is Brexit a Harbinger of Trumpism?

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By Dick Polman – With apologies to the climactic song in “Les Miserables,” here are the self-destructive Brits who voted yesterday to exit the European Union. Cue the music! Do you hear the people sing Singing the song of angry men We will crash the British pound Against the dollar and the yen, When the…

Bernie Sanders Answers the Question: Here’s What We Want

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My Supporters and I Want Real Change – By Bernie Sanders – As we head toward the Democratic National Convention, I often hear the question, “What does Bernie want?” Wrong question. The right question is what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want. And the answer is: They want real change…

A Killing by Police Leaves Mobile on the Brink

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By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Mobile may soon appear on the list that already includes Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and less famous places lately in the news, because their people were slain in the streets by police sworn to serve and protect the community. Or Mobile may miss the list.…

Don’t Miss the Bus

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By David Underhill – The American South is conservative. This is repeated so often that it resembles church liturgy uttered without thought to display adherence to a creed. But it won’t bear examination. The civil rights movement sprang from the South and convulsed the whole country, which quivers still from the effects in this presidential…

Why Alabama Governor Robert Bentley Should Be Impeached

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Did your momma ever get on to you for some mischief and say something like this? “Wipe that smile off your face … I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap.” Well, I’m sorry to play your momma today. But if you are a Democrat or…

Is the U.S. Republican Party a Threat to Human Survival?

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Nuclear weapons, climate change, and the prospects for survival. – By Noam Chomsky – In January 2015, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced its famous Doomsday Clock to three minutes before midnight, a threat level that had not been reached for 30 years. The Bulletin’s statement explaining this advance toward catastrophe invoked the two…

More Science Plus Less Religion Equals Less War

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – I had to turn off NPR news again this morning. I can’t listen to the same old, same old pretense of two-sidedness that helped get us into this mess in the first place. I had to turn off the TV news on Sunday. Same thing. Less facts.…

Winning by Destroying: Trump and Gingrich

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By Robert Reich – When I was a boy and lost just about every sporting event I tried, my father told me, “What counts isn’t whether you win or lose but how you play the game.” Most parents told their kids this. It was part of the American creed. But I doubt Fred Trump passed…

Hard to Believe: It’s Come Down to Hillary or Trump

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Raging Moderate – By Will Durst – Every four years our nation’s electoral eccentricities escalate exponentially and people throw up their hands and shout, “you know, every election cycle is wacky, but especially this one.” But especially this one! With this one, the narrative changes faster than the score of a Wiffle Ball game played…

Robert Reich: It’s Not Over Until It’s Over

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By Robert Reich – This morning I heard from an old friend here in California who said “I’m for Bernie, but he doesn’t really have a chance anymore. So isn’t my vote for him in the California primary just prolonging the agony, and indirectly helping Trump?” I told him: 1. True, the electoral numbers are…

Donald Trump May Be More Like King Henry VIII Than Hitler

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Get ready to bow and kiss his ring. He may very well be the next president of the United States. – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Let’s say for the sake of fun and argument that Donald Trump is more like King Henry VIII than Adolph Hitler. Google Trump and Hitler, Nazi,…

Trump Hits on the Media

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Making Sense – By Michael Reagan – Donald Trump is still no conservative and never will be. He still hasn’t figured out that the mix of insults, bluster and off-the-cuff political statements that won him the Republican Party primary won’t work in the general election. But a lot of us conservatives enjoyed watching him attack…