The U.S. approval rate is down from 48% in 2016, and it slides even lower among democratic allies like Canada (20%) and Germany (12%). Any significant improvements, the report notes,…
“The American catastrophe seems to get worse every day, but the events in Portland have particularly alarmed me as a kind of strategic experiment for fascism. The playbook from the…
Stop Fretting About Trump And Do Something About It. Right Now.
Stop Fretting About Trump And Do Something About It. Right Now. Please copy and paste vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote into your browser, spend 30 seconds entering your name, address and date of birth,…
U.S. budget deficit shattered one-month record in June as spending outpaced revenue by $864 billion
At this point, anyone who doesn’t see that this idiot is doing to the whole country what he did to his casinos and football league and hotels and airline and…
I suggest we give Caroline Randall Williams our full attention. This video is a poem from her book and her ballet, Lucy Negro Redux. Here is a link to a…
Here is a link to knowledge crucial for the liberation of Americans of all ancestries, particularly those of European ancestry. It is essential that we, of European ancestry, put our…
Now is the time to finally resolve the Civil War in favor of equality for- and the end of oppression of- African Americans. The Civil War will finally be ended…
One of the greatest hits of the last four years. I suspect that this episode of television programmed and cemented phrases and ideas into the malleable and vengeful mind of…
Bill Monroe said he played the ancient sounds. He meant the birds and the frogs and the crickets and the wind and the water. I’ve heard bullfrogs under a bridge…
"In Esquire's July 1968 issue, published just after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., the magazine talked to James Baldwin about the state of race relations in the country. We've…
Here is an English translation of an epic song from Lydia Mendoza. This one goes out to whomever had Jeffrey Epstein killed. (And, of course, to Epstein himself.) Mal Hombre …
“Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. ... But in the final analysis, a riot is…
Gambling Barroom Blues takes up where St James Infirmary leaves off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5W7q8IsnPs St James Infirmary It was down in Old Joe's barroom, On the corner by the square, The usual crowd was assembled And big Joe Mckinney was there. He was…
Here is the contemporaneous newspaper story behind one of the great blues song this country has produced.
Here is the contemporaneous newspaper story behind one of the great blues song this country has produced. There have been many killer versions of this legend from Lloyd…
In January 1931, Albert Einstein met Charlie Chaplin at the City of Lights premiere. Prior to this meeting, Einstein had once said that Charlie Chaplin was the only person that…
She Predicted the Coronavirus. What Does She Foresee Next? NYT
"Laurie Garrett, who was prescient not only about the impact of H.I.V. but also about the emergence and global spread of more contagious pathogens, was featured in Frank Bruni’s column…
Donald Trump has destroyed the country he promised to make great again
When he was running for the position of President of the United States, the person who now sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office said the world is…
Trump and the Criminal Culture: Here is a perceptive overview.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has resisted advice from anyone qualified to deal with it, because he believes this would mean ceding some of his personal power. He prefers to…
The President Who Wasn’t There: The Tireless and Tragic Push to Make Donald Trump Competent by Jared Sexton
"Jared Yates Sexton has put with concision what I have been writing about my whole life. I am grateful and relieved, I suppose, that someone else has seen it and…
"When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private…
After the El Paso shooting, Ben Shapiro, a popular conservative podcaster, asked Americans to draw a line between the few conservatives who are white supremacists and those who, like him, aren’t.…
"On July 24, 2019, a buoyant Boris Johnson swept past crowds shouting “Bollocks to Brexit! Bollocks to Boris!” and was ushered into the hushed splendor of Buckingham Palace. There, he…
"It happens more and more these days. I’m embarrassed by much of American Christianity. I’ve spent a lifetime bring proud of the word, “Christian.” As a child, when other young…
"It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness." In September 1942, Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, was arrested and transported to a…
"Trump’s recent outburst — telling AOC and her squad to leave America — is so reminiscent of the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s. Of course both men…
Silicon Valley Billionaires Prepping for the Apocalypse
"How an extreme libertarian tract predicting the collapse of liberal democracies – written by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s father – inspired the likes of Peter Thiel to buy up property across the…
By DELMORE SCHWARTZ Calmly we walk through this April’s day, Metropolitan poetry here and there, In the park sit pauper and rentier, The screaming children, the motor-car Fugitive about us, running…
“Who cares, I have nothing to hide” — Why the popular response to online privacy is so flawed
On March 17, whistleblower Christopher Wylie revealed that software company Cambridge Analytica had siphoned data from 50 million Facebook users to serve advertisements for the Trump campaign. Facebook said that the social…
Mike Porco owned the restaurant-turned-music-venue Gerde’s Folk City in New York’s Greenwich Village, and one October night, a few friends showed up to celebrate Mr. Porco’s birthday. Allen Ginsberg was there, as…
The extractive attention economy is tearing apart our shared social fabric. The companies that created social media and mobile tech have benefited our lives enormously. But even with the best…
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except…
The Glory Game At Goat Hills: Good times and good ol’ boys on a Texas golf course
In honor of Sports Illustrated's 60th anniversary, SI.com is republishing, in full, 60 of the best stories to ever run in the magazine. Today's selection is "The Glory Game At Goat…
"Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed met in Springfield, Illinois, during the 1830s. Although Speed returned to his native Kentucky, they remained friends throughout life. In this letter, Lincoln expresses his…
A New Book Details the Damage Done by the Right-Wing Media in 2016
"Through data analysis, the authors of “Network Propaganda” illustrate that right-wing news outlets exist in an ecosystem that promotes “disinformation, lies and half-truths.”" Read More Here
Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years
Hundreds of millions of Facebook users had their account passwords stored in plain text and searchable by thousands of Facebook employees — in some cases going back to 2012, KrebsOnSecurity has…
House of Commons (UK): Disinformation and ‘fake news’ Final Report
“Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like 'digital gangsters' in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law." Read more here
The Century of the Self – Part 1: “Happiness Machines”
The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take…
“Content is king” was the catch-phrase of the 1990s and the heady (headless really) days of the Dot Com bubble. And although that stopped being a slogan with the resurgence…
I am going to begin today with a quote from Marshall McLuhan from his 1962 book, The Gutenberg Galaxy: “Instead of tending toward a vast Alexandrian library the world has…
The Invisible Light is a song cycle concerned with the reality that we have been the subjects of over a century of electronic programming. It is trance music. It is…