OPINION

Help Defeat Big Oil’s Wish List

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Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – I’m not going to lie, this week’s election was a blow. That’s exactly why we’re doubling down now, and I need to know you are too. Friends of Big Oil have taken control of the Senate, and they have a 100-day action plan that reads like Big Oil’s…

The Jefferson Memorial and Legacy at Monticello in Autumn

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Thomas Jefferson As A Tactful Tactician – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MONTICELLO, Va. – In the introduction to one of the versions of The Writings of Thomas Jefferson available online at Project Gutenberg, former West Virginia Governor George W. Atkinson describes Jefferson as the quintessential tactful political tactician and statesman. “Thomas…

Breaking Big Oil’s Grip

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Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – Oil prices have dipped lately. In the short term, that’s probably good news (unless you’re an oil company or a petrostate). If we look at the big picture, though, it’s a lot less relevant. That’s because oil prices don’t reflect the true costs of extracting and burning oil…

Suicide in Alaska and the Republican Empathy Deficit Disorder

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By Robert Reich – Commenting on a recent student suicide at an Alaska high school, Alaska’s Republican Congressman Don Young said suicide didn’t exist in Alaska before “government largesse” gave residents an entitlement mentality. “When people had to work and had to provide and had to keep warm by putting participation in cutting wood and…

I Know What Boys Like

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Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – We are this close to the midterm elections and the goddamn GOP is about to close it hard on irrational fear. Isis and Ebola. Fear porn. How did we get here? Completely random elaborately imagined clusterfucks that would not survive the advent of oxygen or sunlight if applied.…

Exxon’s First Prick of Conscience?

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Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – The fossil-fuel divestment movement has been on a roll lately to the tune of $50 billion, but one of its biggest successes happened last month: The world’s most profitable oil company squirmed. Exxon Mobil’s vice president of public and government affairs published a critique of divestment that concluded…

Government Spends More Per Pupil at Private Universities than Public Schools?

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By Robert Reich – Imagine a system of college education supported by high and growing government spending on elite private universities that mainly educate children of the wealthy and upper-middle class, and low and declining government spending on public universities that educate large numbers of children from the working class and the poor. You can…

The Space Between

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Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – I still remember vinyl. The whole audio visual experience of riding my bike to the record store, buying a vinyl album, bringing it home, removing the shrink wrap, putting it on the turntable. I remember setting the needle down, reading the liner notes, the smell of polyvinyl chloride…

The San Gabriels: Obama’s Lucky Thirteenth

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Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – California may be famous for its beaches, but what really defines the state’s geography are its many mountain ranges (and I’m not just saying that because the Sierra Club took its name from one of them). Last Friday, President Obama permanently protected one of those mountain ranges —…

The Lugubrious Liberal Skirt

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Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – Guess what pisses me off? It’s a rhetorical question. Precious liberals who quake at the very notion of Obama being anything less than the liberal messiah. I am sick of this shit. I criticize our savior and panty waste liberals piss themselves over my abhorrent blasphemy. I’m an…

Why We Allow Big Pharma to Rip Us Off

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By Robert Reich – According to a new federal database put online last week, pharmaceutical companies and device makers paid doctors some $380 million in speaking and consulting fees over a five-month period in 2013. Some doctors received over half a million dollars each, and others got millions of dollars in royalties from products they…

Most People Are Not Predisposed to Kill, Even in War

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Note: When the U.S. went to war in Iraq under the Bush administration, I noticed an immediate shift in the media. Suddenly, the major media used the work “kill” this and that. There was also the “de-humanizing” of Saddam Hussein and demonizing of Iraqis who surrounded and supported Hussein. I knew this was the major…

Autumn Foliage Color Season in Maryland

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Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – It’s that time of year again, time for the leaves on the trees to start changing colors in one of the most beautiful annual displays in nature. Get outside and enjoy. You might be amazed to find few other people taking advantage of some of these places. It’s…

Views of Grand Tetons National Park

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By Bob Wells – I always try to break up my posts and have some variety so today I’m going to post photos from last July when I was in the Grand Tetons National Park. For a long time the Grand Tetons have been on my Bucket List of places to intensively photograph but the…

Why the Economy is Still Failing Most Americans

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By Robert Reich – I was in Seattle, Washington, recently, to congratulate union and community organizers who helped Seattle enact the first $15 per hour minimum wage in the country. Other cities and states should follow Seattle’s example. Contrary to the dire predictions of opponents, the hike won’t cost Seattle jobs. In fact, it will…

Africatown Leaders Travel the World for Conservation, Environmental Justice

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Africatown News – By Joe Womack – A Renaissance is unfolding surrounding the Africatown Community here in Mobile County Alabama. The Africatown Community received a visit from a member of the Council for The Preservation of National Historical Treasures located in Washington,D.C. to determine dangers posed to Africatown by decisions made by businessmen and politicians.…

Raising Most People’s Wages

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By Robert Reich – I was in Seattle, Washington, recently, to congratulate union and community organizers who helped Seattle enact the first $15 per hour minimum wage in the country. Other cities and states should follow Seattle’s example. Contrary to the dire predictions of opponents, the hike won’t cost Seattle jobs. In fact, it will…

A Shout Heard Round the World

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Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – If anyone doubted the existence of a mighty climate movement in this country, then the sight of more than 400,000 determined, joyful, vociferous people marching through midtown Manhattan in the People’s Climate March in New York City last Sunday has set them straight. Even for those of us…

Camper Van Living Week Two: Wildlife in Greenbelt Park

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Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Shhh. Don’t tell anybody. Just between you and I we wouldn’t want to spoil the secret of this place. But it is a fact that in the distance of a short train ride from the nation’s capital, you can be camping in a federal campground…