AMERICA’S GIFT TO RUSSIAN GAS KINGS AND QUEENS

The logic is straightforward – NPR reports that the Ukraine government spends about 7.5 percent of the country’s GDP on gas through a subsidy to its citizens. Over 60 percent of Ukraine’s gas comes from Russia. Plus, Ukraine’s gas bill is overdue by more than USD 3 billion. Russia’s increases in the price of gas […]

THE PAST IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK: SPIES OF MISSISSIPPI

Here’s another reason why many Americans refuse to have a conversation about race—like reconciling a dysfunctional relationship, one or both sides get to discover more about the trifling stuff each other did! Shee, and who wants that?! Except there’s a big difference—what black folks wanted during the civil rights movement was far […]

UKRAINE CONFUSION

I won’t spend too much time writing about the military situation in Ukraine today, but as usual, I want to hit a few points that the mainstream media and American foreign policy critics seem to be silent about. First, we’re talking about UKRAINE, folks! By the turn of the century, Ukraine may not even exist […]

SHINY NEW WIRES WON’T FIX OBAMACARE

I still don’t get why we keep focusing on technology as Obamacare’s main problem, when technology problems are more likely the outgrowth of more fundamental issues. An early lesson I learned as a management consultant is that systems modeled after a crap strategy and equally bad business practices mean you will have chaos on […]

YES, NSA. THERE IS A BETTER WAY.

I just watched a fascinating interview with National Security Agency Director, General Keith Alexander, where he answers critics of the NSA’s counter-terrorism surveillance programs with a challenge at the 15:09 mark: “Can somebody come up with a better way of doing it?” Here’s my way: starve the terrorist beast. I admit that my way […]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND THE US DRONE SHOW

Shortly after Pakistan’s hottest young human rights export, Malala Yousafzai, warned President Obama that current US drone attacks in support of the global War on Terror are killing civilians and fueling terrorism, Amnesty International reviewed a subset of US drone attacks in Pakistan and released a report [PDF] with a takeaway that the organization […]

WHAT DID THIS GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ACCOMPLISH?

I see two things accomplished by the recent partisan-driven budget standoff between Congress and the White House. In a case of twin-irony, the Party of No Guts displayed a rare streak of courage while the Party of No Brains won something that they’ve always claimed to be viscerally against – more government regulations! (Laughing) C’mon, what […]

TARGET: OBAMA OR OBAMACARE?

Talk show host, blogger and online comrade Tanya Free raised a question yesterday that will likely spark a passionate debate: “What role, if any in your opinion, has race played in the government shutdown? Is it about ObamaCare or Obama?” My short answer is “Both,” and the evidence I’ll present in this post is one […]

THE DUMP AMERICA THEME CATCHES ON

Remember when I posted last week about how the myopic budget battles between the Party of No Brains and the Party of No Guts miss the bigger picture of other nations looking at our internal beef and beginning to question America’s status as the owner of the world’s reserve currency? After all, why should […]

DOG FOOD ALERT STILL IN EFFECT

Why are Conservative members in Congress feeling more optimistic about reaching a budget deal with President Obama to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, as reported in today’s New York Times? I’ve hinted in more recent posts that I always felt the target of the current budget drama is bigger than […]