Bits & Pieces
Articles with unfiltered opinions
Latest Politics
Tax Heaven
An ocean of leaked documents exposes how the rich and powerful hide their money from the taxman. Heard of the Paradise Papers? You haven’t if you still believe in the official American fantasy that honest hard work is the path to prosperity. The Paradise Papers comprise the latest trove of purloined documents from financial institutions,...
Trump Hates Coal Miners
We love our coal miners,” the President said as he signed an executive order to lift coal mining’s safety and environmental regulations. Donald Trump spent much of his Presidential campaign cozying up to coal workers and their families in West Virginia, Kentucky and other rural parts of Appalachia, where the industry has been hollowed out...
Trump’s Brinksmanship
What a pleasure it is to have an oafish President like Donald Trump to kick around. It doesn’t get any better for conventional politicians or the mainstream media that fawns on those bipartisan hacks. Trump, the world’s most powerful leader, is such a worthy target that even his dimmest critics seem profound in comparison. After...
The Cowardly Liar
When Donald Trump revealed his intention to prevent “transgender individuals” from “serv in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” he lied about having consulted with his “generals and military experts.” He hadn’t. Pentagon officials were as stunned as the rest of the nation by the President’s Twitter announcement. But Trump is a wildly successful liar,...
The Blame Game
If you want to know how the country went to the dogs and elected Donald Trump our President, ponder a simple statistic recently issued by the U.S. Census Bureau: Americans’ median household income finally eclipsed 1999’s peak level in real dollars. After 18 years—many in deep recession followed by anemic economic growth—the nearly fatal damage...
Asshole of the Month: Rudy Giuliani
As Trump continues to sink deeper into the shithole that Mueller has been digging for him, he’s called upon an old pal from New York to toss him a rope: Rudy Giuliani, who, since becoming Trump’s No. 1 legal eagle, has made a total ass of himself with a series of jaw-dropping gaffes, blunders and...
Every Voting System Hacked
There’s a reason why I’ve been ranting about the insecurity of computerized voting and tabulation for nearly 15 years: Every single system in all 50 states can be hacked and results manipulated, with little or no possibility of detection. And it doesn’t take a foreign power like Russia to do it. DEF CON, an annual...
Be Kind to Strangers
Tis the season to mark the virgin birth of the baby Jesus—clearly the ultimate example of an undocumented immigrant—and to issue a timely warning to President Donald Trump: Your constant bashing of the strangers among us seriously dims your prospects for eternal life. Happily applying the Christian Right’s damnation dogma to the misbehavior of anyone...
Documenting Disaster
Republicans like John McCain, Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney once offered plans to help curb the effects of man-made greenhouse gases causing global warming. That ended in 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision eliminated restrictions on corporations’ funding of political campaigns. For the GOP, thanks to massive contributions from the fossil fuel...
Give Peace a Chance
The best thing about President Donald Trump, at least up to this point, is that he doesn’t seem willing to go to war with Russia. That’s a good thing because Russia still possesses almost half of the world’s nuclear weapons, and like ours, they’re always on hair-trigger alert. A miscalculation could end all life on...
Watergate Pales in Comparison
I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to call for the impeachment of the President of the United States of America!” Representative Al Green (D-Texas) was a lonely voice on the floor of the U.S. House on May 17 as he demanded accountability for obstruction of justice by Donald Trump. Green accused the President of acting “above...
Arming a Villain
What’s up with Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia? And why has the mainstream media ignored this incredibly cozy connection? Before being elected President, Trump pledged to combat Islamic extremism, and yet he’s now sucking up to the very nation that has been its prime spawning ground. There is still not one substantiated instance of an...
Asshole of the Month: Bill Shine
The Fox News reality TV show that the whole country is living in—The Apprentice President—got a boost this summer when the star of the show, Donald Trump, hired longtime Fox News producer Bill Shine as deputy chief of staff for communications to upgrade the White House’s production values. Trump was getting constipated over the amateurish...
Asshole of the Month: Kirstjen Nielsen
The GOP Blond Brigade—Trump’s bevy of peppy, fair-haired female underlings and media cheerleaders—got a new recruit last year with Kirstjen Nielsen, the Nordic blonde appointed as Secretary of Homeland Security. She quickly adapted to the ethos of the administration, striving to become a superstar asshole in a Cabinet teeming with them. No doubt, it’s a...
Asshole of the Month: Neil Gorsuch
For Americans who believe in the core principles of our democracy—truth, justice and equality for all, regardless of race, gender or creed—these are dark days indeed. Conservative greedheads representing our bloated oligarchy have taken over the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future, thanks to Mitch McConnell and his band of take-no-prisoners assholes in the Senate....
Asshole of the Month: Nikki Haley
Amateur hour is in full swing at the Trump White House. Reflecting his own dearth of experience in politics and government, the Donald loves to appoint complete rookies and incompetents to positions of power. From Sean Spicer and Anthony Scaramucci to Steve Bannon and Rex Tillerson, it’s been an embarrassing parade of fools and freaks...
Scary Apprentice
Honestly, I have tried to cut Donald Trump some slack by refusing to pile on with the Russia-bashing. I strongly believe that it reflects an absurdly out-of-date Red-baiting of Vladimir Putin, a Christian who long ago rejected communism and is no less a crony capitalist than our own leaders, most obviously Trump himself. Anyway, it...
Asshole of the Month: Michael Cohen
If all of Robert Mueller’s digging and indictments haven’t done much to budge our Blowhard in Chief from his prime-time spot in the White House, the raid of Trump’s legal-eagle fixer, Michael Cohen, has to have him sweating bullets. The worst disaster for any don or mogul on the shady side of the law is...
Asshole of the Month: John Bolton
We almost feel sorry for Trump supporters, having to swallow one betrayal and flip-flop after another from their “populist” hero. It’s like they’re in a rancid-hotdog-eating contest, loyally gulping those stinking wieners down. They want to stop, but they just can’t. Admitting you bet the farm on the wrong horse is a painful realization. The...
Reefer Madness?
Where were you when marijuana became legal in this country? Yeah, man, it happened, and you didn’t even notice. But not because you were stoned. Once the stuff is legal for recreational use—as it is in nine states and the District of Columbia for people over 21 years of age—and okay for medical use in...
