The tax bill advertised by Republicans as a Christmas gift to the American people is in fact a gift to the Global Corporate CEOs and other such executives on incentive compensation plans.  The most favored of this group are the executives of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) with Lockheed Martin at the top.  Their gifts – to transition from multi-millionaires to billionaires.

The earlier 10% increase in military spending specially benefited MIC executives and their Carlyle Group directors.  The cut in the corporate income tax rate will probably increase their compensation at a generous multiple of the percentage which that cut represents to the increase in corporate net income and rate of return on equity.

Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart’s forthcoming documentary “Off country” examines the devastating, still-lingering effects of atomic bomb testing on the communities around the White Sands missile range in New Mexico, the Nevada Test Site and the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado, where plutonium triggers were manufactured until its 1992 shutdown (the latter facility was studied in the galling 1982 documentary “Dark Circle,” which probed into the various deadly illnesses and deformities plaguing nearby residents whose complaints had been shunned by authorities). Everyone knows about the horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in August 1945. Far less discussed are the 40,000 Hispanic and Native American peoples who lived within eight miles of the White Sands site, an area that officials believed no one lived in, and where those very bombs were tested, a month earlier.

I’ve known Jill Stein for years. I knew weeks ago that the Senate “Intelligence” Committee was coming after her.

Twenty-Seven psychiatrists and mental health experts have produced a book called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, which I think, despite stating that the fate of the world is in the hands of an evil madman, understates the danger.

The case that these authors make is one that I believe would strike most readers not loyal to Trump as common sense. The evidence that they compile, and with which we’re mostly already familiar, strongly supports their diagnosis of Trump as hedonistic, narcissistic, bullying, dehumanizing, lying, misogynistic, paranoid, racist, self-aggrandizing, entitled, exploiting, empathy-impaired, unable to trust, free of guilt, manipulative, delusional, likely senile, and overtly sadistic. They also describe the tendency of some of these traits to grow ever worse through reinforcing cycles that seem to be underway. People, they suggest, who grow addicted to feeling special, and who indulge in paranoia can create circumstances for themselves that cause them to increase these tendencies.

Tuesday, December 19, 5pm
URGENT! This is the last week to push for a clean Dream Act. We need your help to coordinate and advertise a vigil led by COWC Board Member and DACA recipient Jessica Camacho and other DACA/immigrant leaders to be held tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 5pm. Please get involved in one of the following ways. Please watch our Facebook page for more information. If you would like to volunteer with rapid organizing, please notify Austin Kocher ASAP (ackocher@gmail.com, 614-381-8583).