'…a major destabilizing influence'
Two hugely important people were taken down by COVID-19 this past week. Both have left a legacy, the importance of which cannot be ignored. John Prine The first struck down last week is one of the greatest modern songwriters of my lifetime, John Prine. One of my favorite musicians, Prine was a humble, funny …
Continue reading “Honoring Two Men Just Brought Down by the Coronavirus Pandemic”
Neshamah Maillard understands the necessity for ‘social distancing’ to combat the deadly health crisis from the Coronavirus Pandemic. However, Maillard never thought in her wildest imagination that the ‘social distancing’ required for Coronavirus meant her staying over 3,500-miles from her daughter. But Coronavirus chaos resulted in Maillard, a Philadelphia-area resident, being thousands of miles from …
Continue reading “Americans Stranded Abroad — Another Coronavirus Crisis Scandal”
On Thursday, April 2, the bottom fell out of the US economy, as the US Department of Labor reported that an unprecedented 6.6 million more workers in the US had been laid off and had filed claims for unemployment compensation payments with their state Unemployment Offices last week. That stunning news followed the already …
Continue reading “Neither Pandemic Nor Economic Collapse is Going to Be a Short-Lived Crisis”
I’m sitting here self-quarantined with my family in our 1738 stone farmhouse just north of Philadelphia. It’s an ancient building that I’m sure has known its share of epidemics over the centuries, including typhus and the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu. Right now I’m thinking about hospital triage. According to the New York Times, hospitals …
Continue reading “A Triage Crisis is Coming, and It’s Personal”
I will bet, Elizabeth Warren, that it has been a long time since you had insecurity about the basic needs in life. You are supremely set up for life. I know your type; I used to float in your circles. Wearing a fancy Patagonia jacket to your press conference to talk to all the …
Social Security is back in the news, as both Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg, two emblematic one-percenter oligarchs, raise the issue of its future as part of their campaign strategy. Trump (a faux wannabe billionaire) has put Americans on notice that while he may have promised during his 2016 campaign “not to touch” the New …
Continue reading “Truly Remaking Social Security is the Key to Having a Livable Society in the US”
By Laurie Dobson Too bad Kamala Harris couldn’t make a go of her Presidential campaign, or the NYT would have gone triple threat, and made it a three-women gang-up against Bernie in their endorsement. Maybe it’s not too late? In fact, as it is thanks to the NYT, it is now a three-legged race. …
President Trump’s actions in the Middle East are becoming increasingly unhinged. A week ago, he nearly triggered a catastrophic war between Iran and the US when, acting seemingly on a whim or in response to the advice of two of his nuttier advisors, fundamentalist Christian “Rapture” believers Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, he ordered …
For as long as I’ve been alive, my country has been a rogue state. Actually, the US became a rogue state four years before my birth in 1949 when, in 1945, Washington decided to bomb two militarily insignificant cities in Japan with its new super weapon, the atomic bomb, instantly incinerating several hundred thousand …
Continue reading “Our Country, the United States, is a Rogue Nation and Our Leaders are Criminals”
The latest Trump administration news is a Washington Post article reporting that Trump’s “personal lawyer” Rudy Giuliani, was working a private “back channel” negotiation this past year with embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a failed effort to persuade Maduro to quit his office and leave the country. The Post, and some of the …