By Glynn Wilson – In a historic announcement guaranteed to draw howls from conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama announced an agreement on Wednesday to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and called for an end to the Cold War economic embargo that has been in place since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961.…
Planning Commission Denies Rezoning By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — More than 140 residents of Africatown turned out at a town hall public meeting Tuesday night to oppose an industrial rezoning that would open the way for a steel storage warehouse right across the street from a proposed tar sands crude oil tank city…
EDITOR’S NOTE: On Monday, Dec. 15 at 6 p.m. we will be talking with former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern about the US Senate’s report on torture. In 2006, McGovern returned his CIA medal to former House Intelligence Committee chair Pete Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan – see the letter below explaining his reasons for doing…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — Where oh where is Jeb Bush and what is his position on the torture ordered by his brother? As the media across the world continues to cover the story about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report just out on the Bush administration’s CIA torture program,…
By Glynn Wilson – While a slim majority of Americans, 51 percent, say they disapprove of President Barack Obama’s executive action to deal with undocumented immigrants living in the United States, Hispanics, African-Americans and other recent immigrants by a wide margin approve of the policy plan to grant legal status to those who have been…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – OAK MOUNTAIN, Ala. – My home town. That line from an old Andy Griffith episode keeps going through my mind this morning sitting in the campsite listening to the woodpeckers work. Passing through my hometown of Birmingham on the way to Mobile this week, I heard a…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Based on extensive recent scientific evidence about the harmful effects of ground-level ozone, also known as smog, the Obama administration is proposing to strengthen air quality standards to better protect Americans’ health and the environment. The Clean Air Act requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the standards every five years…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MARION, Va. – We made the drive down U.S. Highway 81 out of Maryland and into Virginia on Monday on our first migration south for the winter in the camper van, making it to a familiar spot along Hungry Mother Creek, one of those many babbling brooks…
By Justin McCarthy – WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period begins, 37 percent of Americans say they approve of the law, one percentage point below the previous low in January. On the other hand, 56 percent of Americans sampled say they disapprove of the law. Americans were slightly more…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – The world is populated by many very good people. Then there are the assholes, who simply do not get it. When I set out on this adventure back in September to live with a very low carbon footprint in a camper van in the…
In an address to the nation, President Obama lays out the executive action he’s taking to fix our nation’s broken immigration system. Who will get the Hispanic vote in the presidential election of 2016 now? The Democrats? Or Jeb Bush? What do you think?
Could a Massive Climate Shift Really Happen? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – LURAY, Va. — It’s been so cold the past couple of days that I’ve felt like a character in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.” I woke up just before dawn this morning and the iPhone weather said it…
Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – LEWIS MOUNTAIN, Va. – When the National Park Service was established in 1935 and the U.S. Department of the Interior along with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps began building roads, retaining walls, campgrounds and trails to get ready for visitors, there was an interest on the…
Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. — The Shenandoah salamander is no endangered polar bear, cuddly panda cub or playful dolphin the American public may warm up to in the cause of fighting global warming from the burning of fossil fuels. Yet it is the latest poster child from…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – THURMONT, Md. – The weather forecast is calling for a dusting of snow here in the woods north of Washington, D.C. Thursday night, which we might as well call the first act of winter after one of the most lovely falls in memory for the people of…
By Robert Reich – The President blames himself for the Democrat’s big losses Election Day. “We have not been successful in going out there and letting people know what it is that we’re trying to do and why this is the right direction,” he said Sunday. In other words, he didn’t sufficiently tout the Administration’s…
By Glynn Wilson – Texting, using a cellphone and sending and reading email messages are the most frequently used forms of nonpersonal communication for adult Americans topping home phones and Twitter by far, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject. Between 37 percent and 39 percent of all Americans said they used each…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – If you are an educated liberal, an urban progressive Democrat or just an independent American voter looking for candidates to make government work better in the U.S., you are probably severely disappointed at the outcome of the election on November 4, 2014, concerned about the next two years…
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…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – BALDFACE ROCK OVERLOOK, Va. – It is election day all across America and the big question is whether the Republicans will take over control of the U.S. Senate. But since I am not now living and working in Louisiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas or one of the…
