IMPORTANT READS

GUEST WORDS--Every real problem this country — and this planet — face is replaced by a fantasy problem, which all the powers of government then pretend to address. Meet Donald Trump, master of the street con, trickster extraordinaire.

ALPERN AT LARGE--If ever there was a reason to respect law enforcement, it is that understanding that if a crazy guy is running around naked and causing havoc, that it's law enforcement we run to in order to deal with him. 

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?--CEO pay at America’s 500 largest companies averaged $13.1 million in 2016.  That’s 347 timeswhat the average employee makes. 

URBAN PERSPECTIVE--"The White House judges nominees on the merits of their character and not on the clients they once represented as counsel.” This was the terse statement that #45 Trump issued in defense of the instant and loud criticism of his pick, Eric Dreiband to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. 

ACTIVIST JOURNALISM-When I’m not writing for OurFuture, I host a weekly news and opinion program on syndicated radio and cable TV called The Zero Hour.  My team there recently faced a major challenge when we received a secret recording of Donald Trump’s remarks to a closed-door, $35,000-a-head fundraiser. 

INDEPENDENCE DAY THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS--With a long holiday weekend lined up for the 4^th of July most people are probably worried about having enough food for the barbeque, or hoping that their get-togethers aren’t too political. Facebook will be littered with messages of freedom, and assorted dissents. I post a link to Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech "What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?" to mark the occasion most years. For many people this year will be different and it is important that we pay attention. The freedoms marked by the day are under attack. The Declaration of Independence declares: 

JULY 4, 2017--We keep hearing that the Fourth of July is more than fireworks, barbecues, and the like--but let's get real.  Our exhausting, pressure-filled lives demand time off ... but seriously, despite the rhetoric of Angelenos and other Californians being free-thinking, are we really "independent"?

CALLING OUT HYPOCRICY-Most media reports have portrayed Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski as aggrieved victims of Donald Trump’s Thursday Twitter tantrum. It can’t be pleasant to be attacked so personally by the president, but Scarborough and Brzezinski are fighting back. On their MSNBC show “Morning Joe” on Friday and in an op-ed column in the Washington Post entitled “President Trump Is Not Well,” they chastised Trump for his vicious and vulgar attacks on her appearance, for referring to her as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and him as “Psycho Joe.” 

GELFAND’S WORLD--Last week, the international press was aflutter with stories about German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly distancing herself from the Trump administration. This represents a new step in the loss of American prestige in the Trump era. Merkel's statement is not just an escalation. It is a whole new level of attack that represents a shift in the post WWII balance of power. It's been more than 70 years since Germany talked back to the U.S., and Trump has managed to accomplish this feat in less than six months. The New York Times foreshadowed the increasing downslope in American influence in an editorial, Allies start planning a life without America.  

CORRUPTION WATCH-Lies, myths, myopia and character assassination along with evil perfidy rule the discussion of healthcare. If Dante were alive today, he would probably assign the GOP to a lower rung in Hell for deliberately excluding as many people as possible from healthcare. But the GOP might have to share that rung with the Democrats who, deceptively, have not taken responsibility for their role in the nightmare that is now providing a platform for the GOP to kill millions more Americans. 

PROGRESSIVE POLITICS-Moments after rightwing Republican Karen Handel won America’s costliest congressional race ever in Georgia’s sixth district, the de rigueur post-election quarrelling erupted: Why did Democrat Jon Ossoff lose, and what does it mean for the Democrats and American politics? 

CORRUPTION WATCH--Eons ago, I was involved in group health insurance. One day in 1968, I was speaking with an Aetna senior vice president in San Francisco. His desk was most impressive – it had not a single piece of paper on it, only some objets d’art. The views of San Francisco (he had a corner office) were breath taking. Obviously, I was interviewing with an important person. 

POLITICS--On a crisp winter day in early February, a white-haired man with a thick New York accent, ranted to MSNBC decrying the influence of fat-cat political donors and superPACS. He promised the American people that he would be different than the other politicians they had grown tired of, arguing that he was the true voice of the people. 

THE COHEN COLUMN--The good news is that, at least for today (Wednesday, Jun 28^th), health care did not get dramatically worse in America. The Republican controlled Senate will not pass, or even vote on, a health care killing bill . . . today.

YES, RUSSIAGATE-I’ve been reading lots of words comparing Trump’s situation to Richard Nixon’s. Some pundits say the most recent iteration of presidential campaign scandal and what happened 45 years ago is more or less identical. And some claim one is very much unlike the other. 

THE DOCTOR IS IN--We live in a nation that has been confronted with "experts" who think they know so much but actually know very little.  So if you think you have all the answers, or are looking for all of the easy answers here, then maybe this piece just is NOT for you.  

TAXATION POLITICS-Republican legislators in Kansas did the unthinkable this month: They voted to raise income taxes, ending a painful five-year experiment with an extreme anti-tax agenda introduced by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. The Republican-held Legislature had to override a veto by the governor to pass the emergency tax increase, now crucial to prevent deep budget cuts for schools and other essential public services. 

GUEST PERSPECTIVE--You can almost feel sorry for Reform and Conservative Jews. After all, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bamboozled them, led them up the garden path and took them for a ride. He once waxed lyrical about how important they are to him, how critical the relationship between Israel and American Jews is, how he has their best interests at heart and so forth and blah blah. 

PONDERING PREVARICATORS-"The truth shall set you free" comes from verse 8:32 of the Gospel of John and is attributed to Jesus Christ. Pontius Pilate had the philosopher's response in verse John 18:38: "What is truth?" 

EASTSIDER-Largely uncovered by our 24/7 news media, Wednesday, June 21 marked a critical date for next year’s health care premiums under the Affordable Health Care Act. The 21^st is the revised cut off for health insurers to say whether or not they will participate in the ACA Marketplaces, which are federally subsidized, and what their premium increases will be for 2018. It’s a very big deal, since millions and millions of people are enrolled in these plans. 

THE COHEN COLUMN--Trump has always cultivated the reputation of been excessively vengeful.  Back in New York he would brag about getting even, multiple times over, against anyone he perceived to have slighted him.