As part of my process of posting my published articles here on my blog for easier access, here is one that was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education Review on May 9, 2010. Note that this was back in 2010 so the word ‘new’ may no longer be applicable. The editors of the magazine said that this article received one of the highest readerships that they had seen.
(Michael Kosta from The Daily Show)
I have been avoiding much of the news about the possible indictments of Donald Trump because prosecutors’ offices tend to be pretty tight-lipped, so the constant speculation about if or when he will be indicted, by whom and for what, tends to be fact-free and thus of not much value. One might as well wait until something actually happens. But then last week Trump himself said that he expects to be indicted and also arrested on Tuesday by the Manhattan district attorney on the recommendation of the grand jury looking into his case and that caused a media frenzy. It is not clear if Trump had some inside source for this news or whether he was also guessing and simply trying to rally support in the event that he does get indicted soon.
Tuesday came and went with no indictment. Since the grand jury only meets on Mondays and Wednesday, that would make today the possible day. I do not how how the process works in detail but I would have thought that in complex, high-profile cases it would take at least a day or two after the grand jury ends its deliberations and delivers its verdict for the DA to prepare and file an indictment, so I would not expect anything today either.
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On the latest episode of his show Last week Tonight, John Oliver explains why timeshares (where one buys a period of time, say a week or so a year, on a property at a resort) is a terrible idea. He says that timeshares have been so widely ridiculed that pretty much everyone who bought one is now embarrassed that they got suckered into doing so. But they should also be skeptical of companies that say that they can get them out of their timeshares, for a fee of course, because they can be scams.
I was once staying at a hotel and was invited to attend a presentation in one of their hospitality suites with the promise of a free gift or lunch or something in return for sitting through a presentation. Such ‘free’ offers are always a warning sign and since I knew about timeshares, I declined. Besides, I couldn’t see the appeal of committing myself to go to the same place every year. But on another occasion my in-laws visiting the US went to Atlantic City. Being unaware of timeshares and this kind of pressure sales tactic, they succumbed to such an invitation and had to endure a long high-pressure sales pitch. My father-in-law finally managed to get away by repeatedly saying that he had to consult his son-in-law (me) before he could make any purchase. It was not true, of course but it worked to get the salesperson to finally let them go.
The Iraq war began twenty years ago. Jon Schwarz says that those who lied us into that disastrous war that led to the destruction of Iraq and neighboring countries have not faced any consequences. His review includes George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, John Bolton, Condoleeza Rice, David Frum, David Brooks, Jeffrey Goldberg, Judith Miller, and Joe Biden.
THE U.S. AND its allies invaded Iraq 20 years ago in Operation Iraqi Freedom. President George W. Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer twice accidentally referred to it as Operation Iraqi Liberation, which was definitely not its official name and would have generated an unfortunate acronym.
The men and women who launched this catastrophic, criminal war have paid no price over the past two decades. On the contrary, they’ve been showered with promotions and cash. There are two ways to look at this.
One is that their job was to make the right decisions for America (politicians) and to tell the truth (journalists). This would mean that since then, the system has malfunctioned over and over again, accidentally promoting people who are blatantly incompetent failures.
Another way to look at it is that their job was to start a war that would extend the U.S. empire and be extremely profitable for the U.S. defense establishment and oil industry, with no regard for what’s best for America or telling the truth. This would mean that they were extremely competent, and the system has not been making hundreds of terrible mistakes, but rather has done exactly the right thing by promoting them.
You can read this and then decide for yourself which perspective makes the most sense.
There is a lot of crazy people in the Republican party these days. But in terms of their visibility, most of the attention has been focused on people like Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and Matt Gaetz. But there are others who share the same extreme views but have kept a much lower profile, trying to pass themselves off as more mainstream politicians. The group known as Indivisible has decided on a campaign to identify 18 of those crazies who managed to get elected in districts that Joe Biden won in 2020 and make their extreme views well-known to the electorate so that they have a better chance of being defeated in their swing districts at the next election. (I have coined the term ‘MAGAts’ (pronounced ‘maggots’) to label those who are loyal to the Trump MAGA cult. UPDATE: My claim to fame was premature as larpar points out in the comments. Oh well, back to the drawing board!)
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As longtime readers know, I supported Bernie Sanders in both of his runs for the presidency in 2016 and 2020. But I started supporting him much earlier ever since I became aware of how, in his long political career, he has been so consistent and passionate in his support for those who are less well off and his excoriation of the greedy wealthy people who make obscene amounts of money while using every trick in the book to avoid paying taxes that come anywhere close to being a reasonable fraction of their income. His relentless advocacy for a single-payer health insurance system and his attacks on high drug prices in the US, especially for essential ones like insulin, while the drug companies make huge profits and pay lavish salaries and bonuses to its top executives, has resulted in those issues becoming part of mainstream political discussions and undoubtedly has paved the way for the recent drops in the prices of insulin drugs. He has been a supporter of civil rights from the days when as a college student he was arrested in 1963 for taking part in demonstrations. He was found guilty for resisting arrest and fined.
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The ridiculous efforts to gin up right-wing outrage continues apace. The latest are the proposed regulations to make washing machines more energy and water efficient. Naturally, this has been seized on by right-wing media to suggest that our clothes will come out dirtier. This follows the general manufactured anger over similar developments like low-flush toilets. These are being used as examples of the ‘wokeness’ that is destroying the American way of life. They are even blaming the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on the management being more focused on being woke than financial matters. Yes, really.
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The program known as TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) “provides states and territories with flexibility in operating programs designed to help low-income families with children achieve economic self-sufficiency. States use TANF to fund monthly cash assistance payments to low-income families with children, as well as a wide range of services.”
On the latest episode of his show, John Oliver describes how this program has been abused so that a lot of the money does not go to the people it was meant for.
Part of the problem is that although it is a federal program, rather than the federal government giving the money directly to needy people, conservatives lobbied to have the federal government give it in the form of block grants to states who were given guidelines on how the money could be spent. But the guidelines were loose enough to allow states to siphon money away to build things like a new college volleyball stadium. This is why proposals to convert federal programs into block grants to states should always be viewed with extreme caution.
Before the mid-term elections last November, Michael Moore went against the conventional wisdom that there would be a Red Wave and said that democrats would do very well and he was proven right. He produced a daily series of what he called ‘Truth Tsunamis’ and this was one of them.
