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?