Plutocracy

By Nomi Prins | ( Tomdispatch.com | – – Given his cabinet picks so far, it’s reasonable to assume that The Donald finds hanging out with anyone who isn’t a billionaire (or at least a multimillionaire) a drag. What would there be to talk about if you left the Machiavellian class and its exploits for […]

Donald Trump

The Manhattan White House, the Secret Service, and the Painted Bikini Lady

Juan Cole

By Nick Turse | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – High above, somewhere behind the black glass façade, President-elect Donald J. Trump was huddled with his inner circle, plotting just how they would “drain the swamp” and remake Washington, perhaps the world. On the street far below, inside a warren of metal fencing surrounded by hefty […]

Donald Trump

Maybe if most Americans knew who Berlusconi was they wouldn’t have elected Trump

contributors

By Bill Emmott | (Project Syndicate) | – – LONDON – For the past couple of weeks, the world has been guessing at how US President-elect Donald Trump will behave in office and what policies he will pursue, following a long campaign full of contradictory statements. America’s previous businessman-presidents – Warren G. Harding and Herbert […]

Donald Trump

With Trump, we’ve all Entered the Dark Dimension of Dormamu

contributors

By James A. Haught | (Charleston Gazette-Mail) | – – Existentialists contend that humanity has a streak of irrational absurdity that defies logical understanding. The Donald Trump presidential victory rouses that feeling. Ever since election night, I’ve felt like a Franz Kafka character caught in incomprehensible circumstances that make no sense. Whatever possessed 61 million […]

Democratic Party

Election Postmortem: Did the Labor Unions get Taken for a Ride?

contributors

By Andrew Kolin | (Informed Comment) | – – According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “Labor Unions Step Up Presidential Election Spending,” labor unions contributed to Hillary Clinton at a scale that is without precedent. The article pointed to $108.2 million contributed in this presidential election cycle. These contributions raise questions […]

National Security State

America through the Hell-Gate of Horn

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – The one thing you could say about empires is that, at or near their height, they have always represented a principle of order as well as domination. So here’s the confounding thing about the American version of empire in the years when this country was often […]

Banking

Why couldn’t the Corporate Old Boys’ Network Stop Trump?

contributors

By Johan Chu & Jerry Davis | (The Conversation) | – – If corporate money controls our politics, as Bernie Sanders and others have claimed, then how did the Republican Party – the reputed party of business – manage to nominate a candidate whom almost no one in Big Business supports? And why have so […]

Democratic Party

The Vanity of the Billionaires: Circuses and no Bread

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Rome was a republic until between 40 and 27 BCE, when the generals overthrew it. Military dictator Gaius Octavius put the nail in the coffin when he made himself Augustus Caesar on the latter date. The later satirist Juvenal, to whom we owe the phrase ‘bread […]

Censors

Journalist Amy Goodman to Surrender and Fight Dakota Charges

contributors

By TeleSur | – – Update: North Dakota prosecutor changes charge against Amy Goodman to ‘rioting.’ The Democracy Now! host said the charge is a “direct attack” on freedom of the press. Journalist Amy Goodman says she will turn herself in next week to authorities to fight the charge of trespassing after filming a vicious […]