IMPORTANT READS

CORRUPTION WATCH-The idea of “Truth, Justice and the American Way” is dead, dead, dead.The phrase is from the 1930's when Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegal created Superman.

D.C. DISPATCH-When bombshell bribery and corruption allegations surfaced last December against OSI Systems, a 5,000-employee port-and-aviation scanning company based in Hawthorne, they arrived with all the earmarks of modern investigative reporting: anonymous sources identified as former employees with detailed knowledge, links to public documents supporting the allegations, even a well-made 13-minute documentary illustrating why one expert felt the company was "rotten to the core." 

TRUMP WATCH-The Republicans on the House so-called Intelligence Committee this week precipitously announced a "bi-partisan" report and decision to shutdown their investigation of Russian meddling and interference in the2016 election.

 TERRORISM POLITICS-A narrative was being spread throughout mainstream media like wildfire.“Was Orlando shooting terror or homophobia? Yes,” claimed a CNN headline. 

GUEST COMMENTARY--Of course, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is not the world’s most useless white person. That title belongs to sentient-pile-of-shredded-Monopoly-money-lining-an-albino-hamster’s-cage Jared Kushner, who has somehow managed to stay dead in the center of every Trump-related scandal despite the fact that no one knows what he does or did before whatever he’s doing now, or even what he fucking sounds like. Shit, even though we know what he looks like, he’s so indistinct and so aggressively “eh” that if you went to Trader Joe’s tonight and saw him working there, you wouldn’t think, “Wow. That cashier looks just like Jared Kushner!” Just “Wow. For some reason I’m compelled to smack the shit out of this cashier!”

GENESIS AND THE ORIGINS OF MONEY-With the price of a bitcoin surging to new highs in 2017, the bullish case for investors might seem so obvious it does not need stating. Alternatively, it may seem foolish to invest in a digital asset that isn’t backed by any commodity or government and whose price rise has prompted some to compare it to the tulip mania or the dot-com bubble. Neither is true; the bullish case for Bitcoin is compelling but far from obvious. There are significant risks to investing in Bitcoin, but, as I will argue, there is still an immense opportunity.

TRANS LIVES MATTER--More and more, transgender, non-binary, and alternate pronouns are being lawfully mandated to be included in the parlance of workplaces, schools, and halls of government. In my opinion, these expressions do not need to be viewed as impositions on freedom of speech; they can be an opportunity for all members of society to become more creative and respectful in their manner of communicating. 

PILL POLITICS--If the devil wears Prada, what do America’s most destructive drug pushers wear? They wear smiles. The drug pushers we have in mind here have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, enough fatalities to decrease overall U.S. life expectancy at birth for the last two years running. Yet no police SWAT teams have pounded down any doors hunting these drug pushers down.

MID EAST--The following is a satirical would-be conversation between Prime Minister Netanyahu (Bibi) and President Trump (Donald) during Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to the White House on March 5th.

IN SEARCH OF HOPE--Nearly a century ago, Mohandas Gandhi started a new publication to share his vision of nonviolent organizing, filling it with inspiring quotations and political insights. He titled the journal Young India, to indicate that its teachings were intended to help the people plan for eventual independence, fusing the methods of building a movement with those required to begin (re)building a nation. Gandhi saw the means and ends as interconnected, and reflected this in his personal practices and societal aspirations.

TRUMP WATCH-The discovery of the Russian influence in the fake news arena comes as no surprise to those of us that were monitoring the campaigns. The mere fact that the extreme left and right were basing their social media feeds on the same so-called “news” topics became quite apparent from the get-go.

SQUEEZING THE WORKER-When we give someone a tip, we expect the money will go to the workers who provided us with service. We might leave a little extra because someone went above and beyond for us. Or because we want that person to have a slightly easier time getting by. Whatever the circumstance, we trust that the money will help the workers who served us. 

TRUMP WATCH-It’s common knowledge that if you are forced to listed to Trump’s rhetoric, he will always tell you what he is guilty of because he makes accusations of others of what he himself has done. This was apparent early on during the campaign as he accused Hillary Clinton of being involved in so many weird situations that we assumed he was simply nuts. 

TRUTH WATCH-This is one of the most important questions of our time. As we continue to be horrified at the daily onslaught of conservative Republican and Trump blatant disregard of both law and the people, we need to establish a firm concept of who and what we want to represent our forward-thinking views. 

TWO STATE SOLUTION IN DOUBT-The United States has been and remains the staunchest supporter of Israel, and its unqualified support will cause significant damage to Israel’s future wellbeing. The United States’ continued political, military and economic backing has enabled Israel in the past to maintain the occupation and create new political and physical conditions in the West Bank that have severely undermined, if not destroyed, the prospect of a two-state solution.

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.