IMPORTANT READS

CALIFORNIA--Defenders of the open internet celebrated a major victory late Tuesday after a federal judge ruled that a California law establishing strong net neutrality protections can take effect, a severe blow to the telecom giants that spent big money trying to kill the measure through aggressive lobbying and litigation.

RAND GETS HIS ANATOMY CONFUSED--The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a joint hearing to confirm Surgeon General Nominee Dr. Vivek Murphy and Dr. Levine, who is transgender and is the current surgeon general for Pennsylvania.

CLIMATE POLITICS-January 29 marked the day the United States of America rejoined the Paris Climate Accords and is back in the global fight against the climate chaos, which is inevitable if we follow business as usual, now termed RCP (representative concentration pathway) 8.5.  

DEMOCRACY AT STAKE-The invasion of the Capitol on January 6 now stands alongside 9/11 as an act of war against American democracy. Unsurprisingly, news coverage of the incursion has come to resemble war propaganda.

COUNTER PUNCH-Rush Limbaugh’s death represents a moment for reflection on the state of American politics.

TEETERING ON THE EDGE-“Radical solutions require radical solutions,” I wrote in my 2010 book “The Anti-American Manifesto,” a polemic that calls upon us to save ourselves from imminent social, economic and political collapse by overthrowing the system and rebuilding society from the ground up.

PERSPECTIVE--Pardon me while I break the fourth wall.

TRUMPISM EXAMINED-I am quite sure the majority of Trump supporters do not embrace the “theory” that the Democratic leaders are pedophile cannibal satanists whom Trump sought to destroy, to protect the children.

COVID POLITICS--Back in April 2017, only a few months after Donald Trump’s inauguration, one of world’s most prestigious medical journals, the London-based Lancet, established a special commission to keep tabs on “Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era.” 

OTHER WORDS-Conspiracy theories like QAnon are outlandish, dangerous, and often absurd. So why do people believe them? 

PANDEMIC POLITICS-In June 1990, future South African President Nelson Mandela addressed a joint session of Congress only months after being released from 27 years in a South African apartheid prison.

SPECIAL REPORT-In the wake of Saturday's failure of the U.S. Senate to convict Donald Trump for his alleged incitement of the violent insurrectionist attack at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, legal experts, political observers, and government watchdogs are calling for criminal prosecution as the only remaining path for accountability and to prevent the disgraced former president from ever seeking elected office again.

PERSPECTIVE--Imagine a “USA!” that has truly outgrown – transcended – racism. Would it still have a Republican Party?

GUEST WORDS--As a coalition of rights groups urges Joe Biden to expand his commitment to ending billions in Trump-era U.S. arms sales enabling a bloody Saudi-led war on Yemen -

MY TURN--The GOP and the Democratic parties are in a competition to see which can be the most treacherously venal and both are winning. 

COMMON DREAMS-Participants in the photo above are holding letters spelling TAX WALL STREET.

WORLD WATCH-The bombing continues unabated. The explosions are heard in the distance. A family with seven children is cowering in fear in a corner of their shack, not daring to step out, dreading instant death from shrapnel or a sniper’s bullet.

OTHER WORDS-Unity and bipartisanship sound wonderful. But can anyone explain how “building bridges” to today’s GOP will get anything done? 

COMMENTARY-In an age of misinformation, we have to be careful of anything that plays into a specific bubble of belief and yet has little or no basis of truth.

UNTANGLING LIES-Much has been made recently of the concept of the “big lie”: 

FOREIGN POLICY RESET-The predominant direction of a progressive U.S. president should be toward “Making America Safe for the World.”