IMPORTANT READS

WHAT I SAW--This was a highly anticipated speech. Would Trump go off script? Would he be combatitive, or attempt to bring everyone together? What color would his tie be? Would any members of the Congress walk out? Would some wear white, black, have roses on their lapels?

TRUMP WATCH-There are a lot of people speaking out right now against obstruction of justice, calling for rule of law.

BIZ POLITICS--Growing tension between California and the federal government over immigration has business owners in the crosshairs, worried about the potential effect on their enterprises and unsure which laws they should follow. 

DC DISPATCH--In American Pravda: My fight for truth in the era of fake news by James O’Keefe, delivers an interesting, thought provoking piece of reading. Basically, it raises questions on the role of media, equating the American journalism, as it stands today, and Stalin’s suppression of freedom of speech in 1930’s. Pravda was of course the Soviet Union’s bastion that became Stalin’s vehicle back then. He used it extensively to propagate lies, which nobody dared to oppose. People accepted those lies, even though they knew them to be so. Americans have always prided themselves of being free from similar constraints, proclaiming democracy to be the best form of governance, with freedom of speech being at its core. 

DC DISPATCH-For the past few months, Bitcoin has been making more headlines than normal. In July 2011, Bitcoin had parity with the U.S. dollar and has since catapulted to an all-time high of 17,900 on December 15, 2017. So many have asked, what is propelling this exponential growth? 

TRUTH WATCH--Comparing Trump to Hitler may sound like it has been overplayed, but there has never been any administration in the history of the United States that followed the fascist doctrine so closely. It was well-know that Trump studied Hitler’s speeches and this was validated in a 2016 Vanity Fair interview with his former wife, Ivanka. 

CHANGE AGENCY-Assume, for the sake of argument, that Mueller’s team believes Donald Trump is a crook. They’ve discovered evidence of something  --  obstruction as president, collusion as a candidate, money laundering that leaves him compromised, whatever -- that convinces them Trump should be removed from office.

RELIGION AND POLITICS--Today, just about everyone -- including lobbyists, state legislators, and Supreme Court litigants -- assumes that freedom of religion naturally means opposition to same-sex marriage and reproductive rights, and sits in tension with anti-discrimination and civil rights laws. 

RACISM AND POLITICS--In the past couple of weeks, thanks to the president’s racist comments about Haiti and African countries he can’t even name -- remember “Nambia”? -- as well as the stamp of approval he awarded future immigrants from Norway, we’ve seen a surprising amount of commentary about that fortunate country.

MEDIA WATCH--American mass media journalism is broken. There are some simple elements of U.S. journalistic practice that have proved easy for special interests to hack, and the editors at least have allowed themselves to be used by sinister forces. (I am speaking primarily of television news here, and primarily of the 24 hour channels).

DC WATCH--If you google the phrase “locker room talk,” (LRT)  you won't see an image of a sunset-hued Neanderthal dressed in a  kosovorotka, but a definition put forth by the Urban Dictionary. This method of communication is defined as “any manner of conversation, that polite society dictates be held privately - with small groups of like-minded, similarly gendered peers - due to its sexually charged language, situations or innuendos.” 

THE END OF CIVIL DISCOURSE-The funeral has begun. The casket lies open on the altar of decency and the asterisk rests quietly within, while the officiant prepares to close the coffin and lower it into its grave.

POLITICS--Former Maricopa County Sheriff and U.S. Senate candidate Joe Arpaio at his office on January 10, 2018, in Fountain Hills, Arizona

THE PRICE OF A TRUMP PRESIDENCY--The United States' global standing has plummeted under the Trump administration, according to Human Rights Watch's (HRW) annual report and an international Gallup survey regarding the country's reputation as a world leader.

SCIENCE AND AGING-A start-up company in California called Alkahest has an unconventional, and rather vampiric, idea for curing Alzheimer's disease. The founders believe that the disease can be slowed, stopped, or possibly reversed using blood from young people.

CORRUPTION WATCH-When the federal Ninth Circuit Court issued its decision In re Sunnyslope on May 26, 2017 (WL 2294746), it may have saved Los Angeles from disaster. 

PACIFIC STANDARD-Many labels come with stereotypes attached, and applying them can influence how a specific individual is viewed, and treated. While these harmful labels are often based on race or religion, new research identifies a different large group of Americans who are surprisingly subject to being stigmatized: Baby Boomers. 

GUEST COMMENTARY--In a New Year’s Eve display of liberal newspaper death penalty abolition harmony – buoyed by the release of the Death Penalty Information Center’s (DPIC) annual report evidencing another year in the long-observable trend of capital punishment’s disuse and disfavor in America – both the Washington Post and New York Times’s editorial boards published opinion pieces arguing for an end to what the Times called a “cruel and pointless” practice; one that is “savage, racially biased, arbitrary,” and which “the developed world agreed to reject...long ago.” 

NON VIOLENCE--About a year ago, sometime between the feelings of depression that followed Trump’s election and his inauguration, an old activist friend – and occasional Capital & Main contributor – contacted me. Vivian Rothstein had traveled to the South to register voters during the civil rights movement, and she thought it was time again to focus on non-violence as a way of resisting what was floating to the surface in America. She meant not only white supremacy, but what many activists recognize in Trump’s authoritarian tendencies: a threat to democracy itself. Would I join a small group of people to offer trainings in nonviolent resistance, including civil disobedience?

JUSTICE-Because it seems that, some 20 years after its creation, the so-called “Baron & Budd witness coaching memo” has gone missing–well, at least from Wikipedia, where it resided for years. 

PERSPECTIVE--Long before he started running for president, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that he’s both brainy and well-educated. It is one of his most persistent lies.