North Korea now has the ability to strike the western United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile. It’s hard to know with the leader of the hermit kingdom is thinking, but the odds are, it’s probably not that important which West Coast city the United States loses to a North Korean missile attack. So if we can have a little input, it would be really awesome if we could offer some suggestions.
When Republicans passed a tax cut plan for the super rich and huge corporations, they claimed that deficits weren’t really important anymore, that the economic stimulus would be more than enough to make up for the over $1 trillion cost. But then when the price tag just wouldn’t go away, they change their story and said that — after they passed the tax cut plan — it would be time to cut spending. Naturally, the spending that they wanted to cut were from Democratic Party programs, not things that they care about like the bloated defense budget.
President Donald J Trump is like the weird new boyfriend or husband in your life who can’t let go of his insane jealousy of your ex-husband or ex-boyfriend. From executive orders to the environment itself, he is determined to get rid of everything that Barack Obama ever did. But it’s like, this guy is president! Why doesn’t he just move on?
The Republican tradition of trying to undermine a cabinet department by putting a secretary in charge who opposes its central mission goes back to the Reagan administration. But Donald Trump has greatly accelerated that. These days Rex Tillerson is getting a lot of attention as Secretary of State for getting the department of state at a time when diplomacy has never been more critical. He is refusing to replace important officials within the state department bureaucracy and he is encouraging people to quit without replacing them. It’s a strange strategy, and not one that is likely to work if history is a guide, but here it is nevertheless.
It is tempting, if you are a member of the upper class, to look down on people who lineup for Black Friday in order to try to score discounted electronic appliances and what not. But, judge not lest you be judged.
The United States tried to overthrow or directly interfere in the elections of at least 80 countries throughout the Cold War alone. How exactly is it in a position to complain if it turns out to be true that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election?
When a CIA supported military junta attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela, the New York Times was among the first publications to editorialize approvingly. They did the same thing when the Obama administration backed the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Honduras. Now the Army has overthrown the government of Zimbabwe. Although that government with hardly a democracy, it is also true that you cannot support a military coup and claim to be in favor of democracy. That apparently seems to be something that the American media does not understand.
Democrats accuse Russia of meddling in the 2016 election. What do they mean by meddling? Apparently it means “exposing the fact that Hillary Clinton and the DNC cheated to deny Bernie Sanders the Democratic nomination.”
Deutsche Bank says that it could replace half of its 97,000 employees with robots within the next 20 years. Setting aside the obvious economic implications – if robots replace us, how are we supposed to earn a living? — this makes one wonder about the new meaning of robo-signings, the practice by many of the big banks during the housing melt down used to conduct illegal foreclosures. Meanwhile, as artificial intelligence becomes more of a thing, one wonders, will our new robotic banker overlords feel guilt?
Employees get fired for just about anything. Meanwhile, certain members of the political entertainment elite get away with just about everything. I’ve gotten fired for relatively trivial offenses. Maybe I should have tried to do the truly disgusting stuff that people like Harvey Weinstein stand accused of instead. They got away with it for years.
