Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News skewered President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal “to drain the swamp in Washington” in a cartoon illustrating Trump’s racist, anti-abortion. anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agendas. The cartoon decries the damnable truth: Trump bodes ill for America. Proposed members of Trump Cabinet: (All need approval of the Senate.) Rex … [Read more...]
U.S. Complicit in Yemeni War Crimes
President Obama in his last month in office can ease his reputation as a warmonger by ending complicity in airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition against Yemen. The airstrikes recently devastated a funeral gathering in Yemen, causing a humanitarian catastrophe in one of the world’s poorest countries. The New York Times editorialized: “Obama has the power to stop the … [Read more...]
Holy Muslim Book Tough Read for Non-Muslims
“The Koran” Translated with footnotes by N.J. Dawood, a British scholar Penguin Books / paperback / 5 by 7 and 3 x 4 inches / 455 pages / 2003 With highlights of the life of Muhmmad (570-632) Epigraph “The Exordium.” In it Muslims are to ask Allah (God) for help to “Guide them to the straight path.” (The Arabic name for Qur’an [Koran] means “The … [Read more...]
Obama Legacy: Wasting Billions for Military Hegemony
Farewell and good riddance, President Obama. You will not be missed. If this seems like too harsh a judgment about a nice guy, remember that sometimes nice guys are elected president but are ineffective. Example: Herbert Hoover. Sometimes, too, flawed people are elected president. For instance, president-elect Donald Trump and former President Richard Nixon. In any … [Read more...]
‘Reign of Terror’ Undermined Glorious French Revolution
With the Trump Revolution impending, it’s worthwhile looking back briefly at the history of the French Revolution. This is hardly to compare the two revolutions. But one factor is common to both: fear and loathing. The French Revolution was complicated with a welter of names, characters and personalities. Perhaps Baron d’Holbach summed it up best when asked what he did … [Read more...]
Echoes of Truman Upset in Trump Election
Donald Trump’s triumph in the presidential race this year was as astonishing as Democrat Harry Truman’s defeat of Republican Thomas Dewey in 1948. Both Trump and Truman were called losers by nearly every pundit and commentator. Cartoonists enjoyed ridiculing them both. One newspaper, the Chicago Daily Tribune, even continued the insults on its front page the day after the … [Read more...]
Election Day: ‘A plague on both your houses’
I wrote a long cover story for the Reno News & Review four months ago declaring it better to vote for the blustery Donald Trump than the same old-same old Hillary Clinton. I laid out the many reasons why people should oppose Clinton for president. She is a Democrat, yes, and the Democratic Party is the only one I ever support. But Clinton’s record is hawkish, her emails … [Read more...]
Graduate Students Gain the Right to Organize
Some workers are without unions, to their misfortune. So when graduate students are suddenly granted the right to unionize it’s a cause for rejoicing. The National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that graduate students who work as teaching and research assistants at private colleges have a right to form unions. (The NLRB is a five-member body that adjudicates labor … [Read more...]