At dawn, and again at sundown, the cloud scudded winter skies over the foothills of Southern California’s Sant Ynez mountains have been flushed recently with pinks and violets, shadowed with undertones of browns and grays. In the early mornings, the charred skeletons of laurel sumac, chamise, and ceanothus are silhouetted against the blazing firmament above these burn lands. The flame and drought plagued mountains are a grey-brown, newly studded with pale sandstone, exposed by the Thomas Fire. The foothills look as though they are covered with the mottled skin of some bottom-dwelling sea-creature. More

Trump, who has not been sworn to truthfulness, has sworn to uphold the Constitution, though he has spent virtually every day in office conspiring to assault it, without facing any real political or legal consequences, because he knows that in Washington, as in Hollywood, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley, “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” In this, Trump is not alone and joins a notorious roster of deceptive oligarchs, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell whose deluded search for WMDs in Iraq not only mislead the American people but destabilized an entire region and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, yet none of them has faced jail time in a nation renowned for its carceral zeal. More

Bathed in the soothing waters of the Blue Wave, such that it was, a new US Congress will be baptized on January 3rd. But what portends when “Mad Dog” Mattis, arch racist Jeff Sessions, and deep state spooks are canonized by self-identified liberals and leftists as bulwarks against fascism? When all mainstream “opposition” politics can be reduced to a single issue: Trump. And when the midterm elections ignored deepening impoverishment at home, endless wars abroad, and climate calamity – let alone the tax cut for the super-rich – and instead focused on the “threat” posed by (take your pick) immigrants or the Russians.  More