Volume 265 | No. 4

White House Gangster Wants to Avoid Nuclear-Armed Stigma

by John LaForge The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is about to win its 50th state ratification, the golden number needed for the treaty to enter into force. The list of 47 current signatories can be seen at ICANw.org, website of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition that helped navigate the treaty. Formal ratification of the new law—TPNW for short—is a nation’s binding promise “never under any circumstances…develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” The United Nations opened the TPNW for consideration by a vote of 122 …

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The Longest Tuesday

“I want to thank the American people for their tremendous support,” said a grim-faced President Donald J. Trump to a group of maskless sycophants packed into the East Room of the White House early on Wednesday morning for another in an extended series of illegal campaign events on government property. “Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight…,” Trump observed, conveniently ignoring the fact that several million more had voted against him. “…and a very sad group of people,” he went on, “is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it.” Here, yet again, in attempting to report what …

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And Now For Something Completely Different

[Muttering: Surely we can write about something that has nothing to do with the orange guy squatting behind the Resolute desk…. Aha! – The Ed.] Let us now turn to something less distressing that Presidential electoral politics. Almost anything would fit that bill, right? Michael Hiltzik, the Business Columnist for the L.A. Times, wrote a fascinating piece recently on efforts by Congress to fine-tune the IRS. Improving an institution so universally loathed—how hard could that be? And therein lies the problem; improvement was not the aim. Congress is, of course, Constitutionally responsibile for the federal budget, which is to say, raising and spending money. Individual …

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