The BCRA's Failure To Pass Is A Welcome Reprieve

Seeing that the bill pushed by the Senate GOP failed its vote for passage is a tell-tale sign that the BCRA is dead (or on life-support). If 9 Republicans jumped ranks when the vote came up, it means that more will begin to cave as pressure from their constituents increases. 1 of the Republicans that voted against it, Dean Heller (R-NV), is up for re-election in next year's midterm and he's representing a state that voted for Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential race. This shows that popular opposition is enough to overcome big money's beckoning.

Comcast & Other Big Cable Companies Must Be Nationalized To Save Net Neutrality

For too dang long, big cable companies like Comcast and AT&T have been throwing their weight around and now they're intent on getting rid of net neutrality altogether. They've proven that they're enjoying the threat they pose to free speech on the internet that net neutrality offers, and they need to be stopped. The only way to do so is to nationalize all the big cable companies before they shut down free speech online. Contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress and tell them that you're going to remove them from office next year if they don't pass legislation nationalizing big cable. This isn't about government controlling free speech, it's the American public shutting down a threat to the 1st Amendment right of free speech.

Seeing The Left Destroy Itself

I know that I wrote about how the Right was destroying itself last year, but I think it's time to give the Left its due. The biggest problem is that the "leadership" is doing everything humanly possible to prevent anything meaningful from being enacted. This is a massive problem when the Democrats are holding America hostage just to fatten Corporate America's wallet (the GOP notwithstanding), while only pretending to care about the issues that actually matter to the electorate. At this point the Democratic National Committee has lost its mind, only carrying on (until about last week or so) Hillary Clinton's post-election media tantrum. Be it about Donald Trump's supposed connections to Russia, or how everyone who voted for someone other than Clinton as a mysogynist. That's just a couple of examples, but it paints the picture of how badly out-of-touch the "Left" (and I'm being very generous to the Democratic Party's current leadership) has become. Until there's a revolt from within, there's no way for the left to actually assert itself in America's political dialogue. Especially when we're fighting the very worst elements of the far-right.

Trump's Obsession With Bringing Back Jim Crow And Democrats' Lacklustered Noncommitted Response

It's no secret that Donald Trump has been on the move towards bringing back Jim Crow, but the Democrats' lackluster response is going to ensure that Trump succedes. Their platitudes are just simply lip-service as the DNC has had no interest of doing anything to rectify any of the underlying issues that are driving this recent push. We need to continue to show the DNC that if it wants our support, it needs to act on the issues affecting all of our lives. Otherwise it gives the current demagogues in control of the GOP their blank check to continue to use non-Whites as scapegoats for the public's problems.

It's time for them to grow a pair and start actively opposing this new push for social injustice. It's time for them to stand up and fight back. Anyone within the Democratic ranks that refuses to fight back should be primaried and removed as they're part of the problem.

James Comey's Firing & What It Shows About The Politicization Of The Justice Department

It's not exactly a secret that James Comey's job was on the line since Donald Trump entered the White House in January. No one can deny that there's a political motivation in the works, which does no service to we the people, but that's only the tip of the iceberg here. While it's a fact that in no way should we back any attempt by President Trump to politicize the Justice Department, we need to bear in mind that there's another layer of government commonly known as the unofficial "Fourth Branch" (aka the Intelligence Community/Deep State) that was looking for any excuse to get the President to fire Comey.

There are a couple of reasons behind this theory. For starters, he bungled an attempted cover-up that actually began inside The Obama White House regarding Hillary Clinton's emails. In addition, there's the investigation into possible collusion between President Trump's campaign and Russia in last year's election. The latter reason had to do with possibly exposing the propaganda/misinformation campaign meant to discredit the President from the very first day he entered office.

In terms of politicization, there's no effort to hide the Trump Administration's intent on using the Justice Department to silence many of its most vocal political opponents. That's been a common theme from day 1. How this ties to Comey is his failed effort trying to maintain the FBI's non-partisan integrity. He was set up to be the fall-guy should anything come to light regarding both Russiagate and Emailgate. Comey's refusal to let partisan politics to take precedence over the FBI's sole duty to enforce federal law is what partially led to his ousting. That may have contributed to his ouster, and is part of a long pattern that the Trump Administration has been following over the past few months. There's no question that some of the reason is a way of covering up any potentially questionable ties that many of Trump's closest advisors may have had before he entered office.

Another factor to bear in mind is that Trump has slowly been turning the Justice Department into his personal secret police force to go after anyone (especially those who are public figures) that opposes him politically. As opposition hardens, he's going to get much more violent in his response. Think of Richard Nixon's presidency when J. Edgar Hoover was the FBI Director. That's what we're going to be looking at. However, unlike under Nixon, The Democrats have been lackluster in their response to Trump's maneuvers. The disarray in the party today in 2017 is much worse than it was back in 1969.

Why Fears Of A War Breaking Out Between America And Both Russia And China Are Overblown In Regards To The North Korean Nuclear Crisis

There's been a lot of talk in news headlines around the world that America is on a collision course to war with both Russia and China regarding the ongoing crisis with the Kim Regime's Nuclear Program. That's not the case as both the Russians and Chinese's strategic patience has worn almost thin enough to endorse an American-led military strike against North Korea. Even though there have been traded conventional and nuclear war threats between America and North Korea, the fact is that the North Koreans' closest "allies," Russia and China, won't back them up. They'll see giving up the Kim Regime as an evil they can live with if that's the way to get American military hardware out of the region.

Should war break out, the Americans' response to the North's aggression will be several fold stronger than in World War II, especially in defense of both Japan and South Korea. Both the Russian and Chinese leaderships know this, which explains why the likelihood of them retaliating against the Americans is very low. North Korea has long thumbed its nose at international law and has continually shown that it will only settle its disputes with military force. By consistently threatening to engage in preemptive nuclear warfare, it's shown that it has no regard for human life.

How To Curtail Trump As The 2018 Midterm Nears

I know that for many of us looking to establishment channels to hold Donald Trump accountable, but I need to give a cold shock to that by illustrating just how useless The Democrats and the GOP have become. Neither body wants to change the structural hurdles that we the people have to jump through when they make too much money accepting corporate donations. The only real way to curtail Trump goes as follows.

The way to rein in Trump is to completely bypass the DNC, and instead work to nominate outside candidates with the zeal of taking on the corruption shrouding Washington. In addition, it's also on all of us to protest loudly and strongly to keep our elected officials' feet to the fire when they move to placate their corporate donors. We should also take guidance from Bernie Sanders and other progressive leaders about pushing through the agenda set by Our Revolution. Don't worry about the corporatists within the Democratic rank-and-file, as they're completely disinterested in pushing for the kinds of structural reforms that we the people desperately need.

Trumpcare's Demise And What It Means In 2018

Here's the deal with what just happened yesterday: Trumpcare didn't have the support of all of the House Republicans just ahead of its rescheduled votes. Many within the House Republican Conference were not keen on going back to their districts explaining to their constituants why they voted for the American Health Care Act. In addition, they were very uneasy about having to defend Donald Trump in their districts as well. The implications for the GOP at any level of government are not good, not when Trump's approval rating is in the mid-30s. Yesterday's vote was a shining example of the Republicans' utter incompetence at governing.

The Reign Of The Incompetent

Seeing that it's been almost a month since Donald Trump's been in office, and it's been nothing but non-stop incompetence. Pitiful, as it makes George W. Bush actually look competent in comparison. Luckily this is temporary, as we got the 2018 Midterm Election coming up in a little more than a year from now. In the meantime, we have to keep organizing and pushing to bring the change we desperately need.

The New Era Dawns

There's no doubt that with Donald Trump as our 45th President that we are entering a new era. It no surprise to hear that because there's united government under the GOP, both House Republicans and the Senate GOP are now drunk with power. Take this article illustrating a recent tussle between Ron Wyden and Pat Roberts from Politicus USA , and it's easy to see how this new direction is about to take us into a period of chaos. This is a reason to keep organizing opposition to the ongoing antics that the Republicans continue to pull. Now hopefully Trump will force them to do right by the oath that they've taken to protect and defend the Constitution, but even that's a low bar to set.

If there's any ideas pushed out by the new Trump Administration to put people back to work, then by all means we should join forces with them to make sure that comes into fruition. Trump's absolutely right in saying that our infrastructure is falling into deep disrepair, and that our foreign and trade policies are a trainwreck that need some deep revisions. I'll go by what Bernie Sanders has said about working with Trump, but I'm not holding my breath.