“Libertarian” Phil Scott enforces nanny state values — wtf? 

ermont, of all places, offers the latest example of how marijuana makes people crazy, the people in this case being the Republican governor and most of the Republican Party. For all the “Reefer Madness” propaganda from governments over the past century, the real madness comes from opponents of marijuana, not its users or proponents. 

Cover of Undoctored book, with an apple with a prescription pasted on it

I have to confess I feel a bit like a middle-aged groupie, but I just can’t stop telling people about William Davis’ new book, “Undoctored.” Dr. Davis is a Milwaukee cardiologist known for his New York Times bestselling “Wheat Belly” books.

And in case I’ve already lost you or am at risk of doing so, let me just quickly share this:

“Excess fat melts away effortlessly, joint pain and skin rashes recede, acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome symptoms reverse within days, fibromyalgia and ulcerative colitis begin a powerful retreat.”

This is what he witnessed, as more or less unexpected side effects, after he’d convinced his patients to give up wheat for 30 days for their heart health. Imagine if these were the side effects you or someone close to you experienced from something the doctor or, more likely the physician’s assistant, had prescribed.

The health benefits were so dramatic, and his book so successful, it launched a new career for him: from cog-in-the (broken)-system cardiologist to personal health empowerment crusader.

Easy Rider album cover

I found a magic little coffee shop and I'm going to keep it as much a secret as I can. I do not want to share it with you cultural appropriators.

No two coffee shops are the same, say the platitudinous. Not so, not so, crazy bald-head. They, anymore, unanimously seem the same, more or less. Back in my country, the character flavor of the shop itself lives or dies as much as the bean roast. What does it take to become a coffee shop of distinction, to join the Royal Order of His Highness's Favorite Caffeine Hook-Ups?

Though I'm early in my new relationship, the unceasing pleasure I will build up a little more. My new infatuation-turned-I-think-this-is-the-real-thing java joint is as special as the time I was cruising the back roads of England, north of London, and I found a little lane canopied with lovely spring-budding trees, sculpted farmland on either bucolic side, rustic as the quaintest shire in Middle Earth. Something about it more quaint than the hundreds of quaint lanes of the green, green isles of our original home. That's how special my magic little coffee shop is.

The Trump administration has already done enormous harm to the United States and the planet. Along the way, Trump has also caused many prominent progressives to degrade their own political discourse. It’s up to us to challenge the corrosive effects of routine hyperbole and outright demagoguery.

 

Consider the rhetoric from one of the most promising new House members, Democrat Jamie Raskin, at a rally near the Washington Monument over the weekend. Reading from a prepared text, Raskin warmed up by declaring that “Donald Trump is the hoax perpetrated on the Americans by the Russians.” Soon the congressman named such varied countries as Hungary, the Philippines, Syria and Venezuela, and immediately proclaimed: “All the despots, dictators and kleptocrats have found each other, and Vladimir Putin is the ringleader of the unfree world.”

 

John Kiriakou’s Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison paints a disturbing portrait of a U.S. prison in which Kiriakou spent time as retribution for having admitted that the CIA used torture. His ongoing whistleblowing on the state of U.S. prisons, as well as on the ways in which the U.S. government has gone after him, is as valuable as his opposition to CIA torture.

The prison as described in the book is largely unaccountable to the rule of law. Prisoners in need of medical attention are simply allowed to die, or hastened along toward death by sadistic or incompetent malpractice. Education for prisoners is nonexistent. Rehabilitation efforts are nonexistent. Slave labor is universal. Those who leave, leave having acquired additional skills and attitudes of criminals. This prison system serves not to protect, not to rehabilitate, not to compensate or make restitution, and not to reduce crime.

Making Jeremy Corbyn the Prime Minister of the U.K. would do more for the world and everyone in it than either of the two available outcomes of any recent U.S. election could have done. Here in the U.S. I always protest that I am not against elections, I think we should have one some day. Well, now we have one — only it’s across the pond.

Corbyn’s record is no secret, and you don’t need me to tell you, but I have met him and spoken at events with him, and can assure you he’s legitimate. He’s been a dedicated leader of the peace movement right through his career. He had the decency last week to point out yet again that invading and bombing countries and overthrowing governments produces terrorism; it doesn’t somehow reduce it or eliminate it or “fight” it.

Britain is the key co-conspirator in U.S. wars. One real-life Love Actually refusal to bow before Emperor Donald, and the facade of super-hero law enforcement will begin to crumble, revealing a rogue serial killer standing naked in his golden hotel suite.

Red background with white letters Columbus DSA with Columbus skyline

Sunday, June 4, 12noon-3pm
Whetstone Park Of Roses, 3923 North High Street
Join Columbus DSA at the Whetstone Park of Roses to relax and enjoy springtime with fellow socialists! Feel free to bring your kids and dogs!

It's requested, but not required, that you bring food to share. Please see the Google doc linked below for more information and to let us know what you'll bring.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GmYduoJiomLAxm7SXCEwtzyiGxuUqsz3Y5ca89-yzME/edit?usp=sharing

While Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is getting most of the attention as the Co-Chair of Donald Trump’s “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity,” the appointment to that Commission of notorious election rigger Ken Blackwell, Ohio’s former Secretary of State, is the real threat to democracy.

Blackwell played a role in Ohio’s 2004 election parallel to that played by Florida’s Secretary of State Kathleen Harris in the 2000 election. He co-chaired George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in Ohio. Blackwell is a far-right Republican who administered Ohio’s 2004 election using an “all the above” barrage of tactics pioneered throughout the Third World by the CIA and other covert operatives since the beginning of the Cold War.

Prior to the election, Blackwell established a wide range of measures aimed at systematically disenfranchising potential Democratic voters, and for electronically shifting the vote count to guarantee a Bush-Cheney victory.

Banner about the Left Forum

Election Integrity.2
Urgent Election Reforms for the 2018 Midterms
(that Circumvent Media Silence): Reports from the Field

Pages

Subscribe to Freepress.org RSS