Volume 265 | No. 13

Mon, March 15

2018—Six people die and eight are injured in Miami by the collapse of a bridge designed by the same firm as the new Sarah Mildred Long Bridge. 1999—Geophysical Research Letters publishes the “Hockey Stick” graph; corporate liars get a career boost. 1989—To flatter veterans without incurring actual additional expenses, the Veterans Administration is elevated to Departmental status. 1982—Donald Trump gets a New Jersey casino licence—normally a months-long process—in hours. 1980—A Boston Globe editorial about a speech by Jimmy Carter is headlined, “Mush from the Wimp.” 1969—The National Security Council OKs the Nixon/Kissinger plan to illegally bomb Cambodia. 1962—Flying Tiger Flight 739 from Travis AFB to …

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Sun, March 14

2018—Hoping not to get shot like their late peers, a million American students walk out of school to demand gun control that works. 1977—RIP Fanny Lou Hamer, organizer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, who said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” 1965—“Except for Vietnam,” the AP reports Richard Nixon saying, “U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles.” 1964—We still don’t know who killed JFK, but on this day a jury decided Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald. 1961—A B-52, its cabin temps over 130° due to a heater snafu and its crew’s performance perhaps sub-par due to bennie use, runs out of fuel over Yuba …

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Neoliberalism’s Latest Offering

A recent headline out of South Carolina compels us to drag the term neoliberalism out of the closet; our apologies to the reader. Whenever we use this term we meet with some pushback from certain quarters—and rightly so. It’s one of those abstract, obscure, multi-syllabic terms that is rarely if ever taught in school. It would be downright rude to just throw in on the page and expect everyone to understand what we mean. In those rare cases when it comes up in conversation, an argument is probably underway—or about to begin. These negative characteristics tend to reduce the use—and therefore the usefulness—of the word. …

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Let’s Take Piercy’s Low Road

Bye-bye, former guy. We are now seven weeks and change into a new era. You can tell things are different now; it’s actually quiet enough to think. This is not to say, of course, that everyone will take advantage of that opportunity. It’s just to say that one of reality’s fundamental switches has been reset to the default position: no longer is the most powerful position on the planet being exploited solely to create and foster a certain brand of American Carnage™. Now that all of us have been blessed with a greater degree of mental freedom than we’ve had for over four years, we …

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Kill the Filibuster

Dear Editor, Can a minority party, intent on supporting partisan corruption by repeating the Big Lie as gospel, win future elections? Yes, if they limit the Democratic Majority’s votes with 253 “election reform” laws, being proposed in 29 states. The proposals would limit voting by mail, reduce voting days, and enable legislatures to select Electoral College electors irrespective of the popular vote count. To thwart this preparation to steal the next election, the For The People act protects our fair voting system. It will pass in the House, but to pass in the Senate, the Dems must end the filibuster to enable a simple majority …

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