The origins of the ‘Blood and Soil’ chant

Those of you who watched the disturbing but gripping Vice News video of the neo-Nazis and white nationalists marching in Charlottesville during that infamous rally in support of confederate statues would recall that one of the chants they used was “Blood and Soil”. The meaning seemed unclear to me but taken in conjunction with their other chant of “Jews will not replace us”, I gathered that it had some kind of anti-Semitic origins but was not sure what. Historian Yoni Anijar explains that it dates back to the 19th century.
[Read more…]

Why are some rich people so cheap?

Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and is reportedly extremely wealthy. And yet he seems to be the kind of rich person who is incredibly cheap, the sort who tries to get other people to pick up the check for his own expenses. Maybe that behavior works when he has dinner out with friends but he seems to be trying to do that to taxpayers too.
[Read more…]

What is going on with Trump?

Ok, now I am really confused. I predicted that Donald Trump would use every major issue that came before him to push for funding for his precious wall as part of the deal. But now I have been proven wrong twice. First Trump agreed to a short-term extension of government funding and raising the debt ceiling without getting wall funding. And now just yesterday, after a dinner with the two top Democratic party leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Trump seems to have arrived at some kind of deal with them to restore the DACA program that does not include funding for the wall.
[Read more…]

The missing foreign policy element in Clinton interviews

Glenn Greenwald writes that one notable missing element in Hillary Clinton’s book tour and media appearances has been the ignoring of the role that her disastrous policies of military intervention played in her defeat. He says that many media commentators seem to think that it was only domestic issues that played a role because it was absurd to think of Donald Trump as some kind of peace candidate. But Greenwald says that Trump shrewdly manipulated people’s anger over the state of endless wars that Clinton helped expand and perpetuate.
[Read more…]

Clip from Jordan Klepper’s new show

The Daily Show alum Jordan Klepper has a new daily show where he adopts the persona of a character based on the wild right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. The show is called The Opposition and premieres on September 25. Here is a clip that previews it, where he attends the recent Trump rally in Phoenix where people could not tell the difference between a right-wing nutcase and a parody of a right wing nutcase making fun of them.
[Read more…]

Edith Windsor, victor over DOMA, has died

She died at the age of 88. In 2007 Windsor had married her partner Thea Clara Spyer in Canada, where such marriages were legal, after being together for 40 years. They moved to the US later and Spyer died in 2009 but DOMA prevented Windsor from claiming the federal tax exemption for inheritances that are available to spouses. So she sued to overturn DOMA. Her case United States v. Windsor, that she won 5-4 in the US Supreme Court in 2013, helped pave the way for same-sex marriages becoming legalized two years later. The court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that, among other things, denied federal tax benefits to lawfully married same-sex couples, was unconstitutional.
[Read more…]

Bernie Sanders introduces ‘Medicare For All’ bill

Today at a press conference Bernie Sanders will present his plan for a universal single-payer health plan. It will be based on a gradual expansion of the Medicare program over four years to eventually cover everyone, not just those currently over 65 years or those who are younger but have disabilities and a few illnesses. People zero to 18 would be eligible for the coverage in the first year. In following year, the eligibility age would be lowered to 45. The next year, it would drop again to 35. In year four, everyone else would be included. The advantage of expanding Medicare instead of creating a new system is that it does not require a new bureaucracy and those who are on Medicare like what they have.
[Read more…]

Why did Trump agree to the debt ceiling and budget deals?

I was taken by surprise at the short-term deal that Donald Trump made with the Democratic leaders to extend the debt ceiling and the budget financing until December 8, 2017. Both those issues had faced September deadlines and I thought that Trump would refuse to pass ‘clean’ bills that accomplished just those things and would use them as a threat to shut down the government if he did not get funding for his wall or get the tax cuts for the rich that he and the Republicans want so dearly.
[Read more…]

This is the kind of news that makes me despair

Yesterday’s issue of the Plain Dealer had a brief news item that read in it entirety as follows:

Authorities are investigating the death of a 3-year-old boy who reportedly shot himself at a home in central Ohio. Police in Franklin County’s Madison Township were called to a home around 9 a.m. Sunday for a boy with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to a Columbus children’s hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police say the boy’s father told officers he keeps a loaded gun in the kitchen.

[Read more…]