IMPORTANT READS

CLIMATE POLITICS-Progressive organizers are mobilizing behind the Green New Deal resolution—unveiled last week by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—with renewed energy to build "an unprecedented political coalition" to radically transform the nation's energy system and address the climate crisis while also facilitating a just transition to a new, greener economy. 

EXPOSED-In 2013, Time magazine published an article entitled “Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation,” which bemoaned millennials’ inability to live up to the gumption and sturdiness of baby boomers or the entrepreneurial spirit of Generation X. It had a laundry list of criticisms, but the one that stood out was that millennials were “stunted, having prolonged a life stage between teenager and adult.” 

DOLLARS AND SENSE--Every so often these days, I read it. I think the Economist did a cover story on it. Bloomberg, an article. The Times, an op-ed. “We have to save capitalism!” LOL — my friends, laugh gently with me. We don’t have to save capitalism.

GUN POLITICS--As President Donald Trump weighed the prospect of declaring a national emergency to erect a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border without dealing with Congress, one of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, offered an alternative: How about Trump declare a national emergency over gun violence instead?

VIEW FROM HERE-According to the Government Accountability Office, President Trump's early trips to Mar-a-Lago cost 13.8 million dollars. The Defense Department and Homeland Security incurred most of those costs, approximately 8.5 and 5.1 million respectfully.  

WORLD WATCH-Kosovo investigative journalist Parim Olluri knew the assailants who physically attacked him two years ago in front of his house, while the police and other security institutions remained silent. “I sent names to the Kosovo Police as well as to the Prosecutor’s Office, but none of them took any action,” says Olluri. Instead, the politicians, who were identified by the journalist to the police, sent messages to Olluri denying that they were involved in the attack. 

INEQUALITY AND WEALTH-Their very existence is now the subject of political debate, sparked most recently by tax-the-rich proposals from two prominent politicians. 

MY TURN--Most Americans have been placated to the point of assuming that no group or leader could ever dupe them to the point of a complete takeover.

CLIMATE CHANGE--“It’s a disturbing discovery,” according to Pietro Milillo, a radar scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, who co-authored a recently published study: Heterogeneous Retreat and Ice Melt of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, Science Advances, Vol. 5, No. 1, Jan. 30, 2019. 

WORLD WATCH--The longest war in American history may come to an end following an agreement in principle between the US and the Taliban,

DISCRIMINATION IN PLAIN SIGHT--If racism was a school-sanctioned sport, I’d love to see the white supremacy team from Covington Catholic High School MAGAts face off against the traditional powerhouse bigots of Paw Paw, Michigan because, according to the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Paw Paw Public Schools might be one of the greatest racism training programs in America. 

MILLENNIAL WATCH-There’s a strange and terrible thing I’ve noticed — and you might have too. Nobody I know under the age of 40 or so can make it anymore. That applies to people over 40 as well, of course — but as we’ll see, an economy’s fate hinges in many ways on young people. 

VIEW FROM HERE-Needless to say, what happened in our nation’s capital with the Covington High School students has become a tinderbox.

CLIMATE CHANGE-“It is time we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today.” -- Jem Bendell. In other words, the world is coming to an end. 

VIEW FROM HERE-I find something ironic about the now viral clash between a large group of MAGA hat wearing Catholic high school students and the Native American marchers at the nation's capital.

WORLD WATCH-Over the past three decades I wrote more than two hundred articles about Israel, envisioning it to be a democratic state, independent and free, a champion of human rights, a force of unity for world Jewry, united in its citizenry, admired by its friends, envied by its detractors, and above all at peace with the Arab states and especially with the Palestinians.

WALLS AND AUTHORITARIANISM-It’s the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Federal workers are rationing their insulin.

It seems the US is more divided than ever. Both the right and left are resorting to more radical approaches and everyone wants to talk, but no one wants to listen. 

MY TURN-There have always been diverse differences between liberals and conservatives. However, in the past, conservatives had an agenda that seemed to be more fiscally-driven, with a hint of religious undertones.

WORLD WATCH--Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to call for an early election, scheduled to take place on April 9, was really nothing short of another political stunt that Netanyahu has masterfully learned to employ when the time is right and he is reasonably assured of another victory.

VIEW FROM HERE-Let's get real. Trump does not care about the federal government.