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Why Would Anyone Want to Flee Beautiful Honduras?

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As thousands of Honduras camp outside the border of San Diego, their desperation is clearly evident. We’re told they are fleeing their country because of the harsh conditions there.

But isn’t Honduras a tropical paradise somewhere out there in Central America? Don’t they have a lot of neat old Spanish churches and stuff? And all those crazy and wonderful Mayan ruins. Why would anyone want to flee beautiful Honduras?

So, we have to wonder why any person would travel by foot thousands of miles through jungle, desert, towns, large cities and wilderness to reach our borders when they have plenty of nice beaches there.   [Read more…]

Thoughts and Prayers for the NRA’s $57 Million Drop in Revenue

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By Walter Einenkel / Daily Kos

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that the NRA was hurting so badly that their Fairfax, Virginia headquarters had cut out free coffee and water to their employees. Of course, we all sent out thoughts and prayers their way. According to Politico, their revenue dropped by about $57 million this past year.

The gun-rights group posted an even steeper drop in membership dues, which fell 22 percent, or $35 million, to a five-year low, according to documents the NRA filed with the Internal Revenue Service this month.   [Read more…]

Helter Skelter News: Administration Sex Scandal, Big Brain at Work, Rotten Romaine, Pelosi Pummels Penn

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I took a week off from writing this column over the Thanksgiving holiday. This time of year is typically slow in political circles, and it was obvious to me that Democratic wins in the midterm election would continue to accumulate. (And they have!)

These aren’t typical times, however. My morning meander through the media looking for topics, seemed like more work than trying to make a choice from one the many excellent New Orleans restaurant menus I viewed last week.   [Read more…]

There Are No Tear-Gassed Babies in Melania’s White House Version of Christmas

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By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

Despite her “There Will Be Blood” hallway and the lurid excess surrounding it – 20,000 feet of lights, 14,000 ornaments, 12,000 bows, Be Best! balls and wreaths of sharpened Be Best! pencils – there is as yet no baby in a manger. Maybe, some ruminated, her husband’s regime has already tear-gassed them all?   [Read more…]

Swimming With The Sharks: Or, Crime Does Pay (Big) in New York’s Gilded Age | Part II

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By Mel Freilicher

Some of Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum’s “little chicks,” as she called her pack of master criminals, cultivated after the Civil War, were themselves declasse bluebloods, like Charlie Bullard, boarding school educated and classically trained, with ancestors reaching back to the Mayflower. With long, nimble fingers, ”Piano Charlie” played the instrument like a professional, was an expert safecracker, and one of the city’s most skilled and daring burglars.

The invaluable Bullard entertained her dinner guests, playing anything from Beethoven’s “Sonata in C sharp minor” to the popular “Little Brown Jug” on the white baby grand that adorned Marm’s extravagant dining room. His skills as a butcher also provided the finest cuts of meat for her dinner parties.   [Read more…]

ACLU Deputy Director Lee Gelernt on How Trump is Subverting the Asylum Process | Video Worth Watching

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ACLU Deputy Director, Immigrants’ Rights Project, Lee Gelernt speaks with All In’s Chris Hayes about the process of seeking asylum in the U.S., and the current Administration’s attempt to subvert that process in violation of current U.S. and international law. One recent attempt on November 9th was for Trump to issue a proclamation declaring that only those entering the United States at designated ports of entry would be eligible to apply for asylum. It then submitted a rule to the federal register, letting it go into effect immediately and without the customary period for public comment. After a number of civil rights groups took the government to court, Lee Gelernt successfully argued against that case, with Judge Jon S. Tigar of the United States District Court in San Francisco in Monday issuing a temporary restraining order blocking the implementation of that rule.   [Read more…]

Swimming With The Sharks: Or, Crime Does Pay (Big) in New York’s Gilded Age | Part I

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By Mel Freilicher

As the city’s premier fence, Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum, a German-Jewish immigrant, accumulated more money and power than any woman in the Gilded Age, inconceivable for any woman engaged in legitimate business. A July 1884 New York Times article called her “the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime in New York City.”

Her quite infamous career began as purveyor of stolen wares to dry goods merchants, legitimate commercial establishments, and many individuals, some in the underworld: first as a pushcart peddler, then out of a storefront on the lower east side, connected to a warehouse chock full of purloined merchandise of all kinds. It’s believed she herself never stole anything, but worked strictly as a fence.   [Read more…]

Oligarchy Sucks: Billionaires Are Undermining Our Democracy and Killing the Planet

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We live under oligarchy. Yes, we have elections, but the interests of a tiny opulent minority are far better represented in our government than the concerns of the vast majority of Americans. That conclusion was the central takeaway of a Benjamin Page and Martin Giles study published a few years ago that grimly observed, “economic elites and organized interest groups play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.”

Now Page is back with two new academic partners, Jason Seawright and Matthew J Lacombe, and a new study that further unmasks the role of billionaires’ stealth role in driving American politics. Buried during the stretch run of the midterm elections, the Guardian published an article by the aforementioned trio outlining the thesis of their forthcoming book Billionaires and Stealth Politics that shows us how it is not the rich and famous we need to worry about but the very rich and unassuming donors to the coffers of the Kochs’ political causes.   [Read more…]

Ana Tijoux – Antipatriarca | Video Worth Watching

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Ana Tijoux was born in Lille, France in 1977, daughter of Chileans that had fled the 1973 Chilean coup of Pinochet. Her interest in rap, hip-hop and dance began in 1988, but she didn’t return to Chile until after 1973 when civil power was restored. This song is from her 2014 album Vengo and even though it’s in Spanish, I believe the sense of independence and autonomy will come through even for non-Spanish speakers. Equally as impressive is the evident diversity of her world. For me, it echoes the sensibilities of Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man.

Since lyrics can be difficult to discern, especially on a first listening, I’m including the lyrics after the video.   [Read more…]

As Critics Obsess Over Her Finances, Ocasio-Cortez Urges Media to Focus on Issue ‘Actually Worth Airtime’: Low-Wage Jobs

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“While we’re discussing personal finances,” says newly-elected progressive, “Trump’s tax dodges represent millions of dollars taken from schoolchildren, teachers, firehouses, senior centers, and more.”

By Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continued to shoot back at those who draw attention to—and criticize—the amount in her savings account by calling for coverage instead of far more worthy issues—the nation’s pervasive low-wage jobs and President Donald Trump’s “public theft”—and accusing some sitting congresspeople of lashing out at her because they are blinded by privilege, and thus unable to represent their constituents.   [Read more…]

An Awakening

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Lately I’ve been feeling so good.
Like a little boy would
unwrapping the toy
he most wanted
on Christmas Day
simply because
we, as a society, finally,
the first opportunity
we got to have a say,
said “Enough is enough”
to a pretend president
who has had his way
trampling on our collective psyche
without mercy
like a hungry bull
trying to knock down
a barn door
separating him from a bale of hay.   [Read more…]

A Progressive Looks at the San Diego Mid-Terms – OB Rag Interview With Doug Porter

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Intro – Doug Porter, the main political writer for the San Diego Free Press – sister online publication of the OB Rag – and one of 7 SDFP editors, has been observing and critiquing elections in San Diego City and County from a progressive point of view for years. Here is an interview he did with the OB Rag over the weekend on the recent mid-terms:   [Read more…]

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