IMPORTANT READS

SPECIAL REPORT--A new Bloomberg analysis found that the planet’s 500 richest people saw their collective net worth soar by 25 percent over the last year The 500 richest people in the world, all of whom are billionaires, gained a combined $1.2 trillion in wealth in 2019, further exacerbating inequities that have not been seen since the late 1920s.

PAST TIME--Impeachment, Trump, impeachment, Trump. It’s hard to think of this year without obsessing about the occupant of the White House.

IMPEACHMENT POLITICS-A new poll released on Christmas Day shows record-level support among U.S. voters for the ouster of President Donald Trump—a finding that indicates the Republican Party's effort to obstruct accountability for the president is not having the desired result.

WORLD WATCH-Finally, Trump was impeached on December 18. It is a sad day for America because for the House of Representative to resort to such a historically rare punitive act suggests that Trump’s transgressions have been so severe that the House was compelled to take such a drastic measure.

2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION-Do people who cast their ballots in 2016 for Donald Trump wish today they’d voted for Hillary Clinton? 

CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS-After the COP 25 climate talks on the Paris climate agreement went into overtime Friday night amid a stalled agreement on wealthy countries' contributions to greatly reducing their climate-warming carbon emissions, civil society groups and climate scientists were shocked by the weak language that emerged from the late-night talks on Saturday. 

WORLD WATCH-Even a cursory review of the turmoil sweeping the Middle East points to Iran as one of the main culprits behind most of the conflicts that have and continue to destabilize the region.

VIEW FROM HERE-After nearly 20 years as a social worker trained in conflict resolution, I have learned some valuable lessons about the ways people communicate with one another.

MAKING AMERICA HATE AGAIN-Liz Sawyer at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that the Twitter account of Danielle Stella, the Republican challenger to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), has been shut down after she called for her opponent to be lynched. 

PAY TO PLAY--Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York’s mayors since 1942, hosted billionaire Michael Bloomberg for three terms.

WORLD WATCH-The long-anticipated indictment of Prime Minister Netanyahu has finally come to pass.

VIEW FROM HERE-President Donald Trump recently said he would like a full Senate trial if the House votes to impeach him. 

GUEST WORDS--Last week, the historian Timothy Naftali revealed a 1971 conversation between Richard Nixon, then the president of the United States, and Ronald Reagan, then the governor of California, in which Reagan referred to African UN delegates as “monkeys” who are “still uncomfortable wearing shoes.”

GUEST WORDS--If you have seen the 1995 movie Casino, the fate of Joe Pesci’s character gives a fairly good sense of how Donald Trump might eventually be impeached and removed from office.

PERSPECTIVE-Bill Gates wants you to know he pays taxes. “I’ve paid more than $10 billion in taxes. I’ve paid more than anyone in taxes,” Gates told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. “But when you say I should pay $100 billion, OK, then I’m starting to do a little math about what I have left over.” 

WORLD WATCH-Trump’s inviting of Turkey’s President Erdogan to Washington comes at a peculiar time when the House of Representatives is pursuing the impeachment inquiry against Trump and when Erdogan is preoccupied with his invasion of Syria and the growing frustration of the Turkish public with his ruthless domestic and adventurous foreign policy.

HIGHTOWER ON POLITICS-Jesse Jackson ran a strong populist campaign for president in 1988, advocating bold new policies and programs to address inequality.

PERSPECTIVE--Intrigued by the controversy that erupted over Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech before the American Association of Christian Counselors last week in Nashville — it was titled “Being a Christian Leader” and was eventually removed from the State Department website — I wound up reading the whole speech. And I actually found one paragraph that I liked.

OTHER WORDS-We caught a glimpse of humanity recently when Amber Guyger, a former Dallas police officer convicted of murdering Botham Jean, was embraced with compassion by the victim’s brother. 

ONE MAN’S OPINION-As many now believe or suspect, Trump did not plan on becoming President. 

ANOTHER TRUMP FIRST, SELF IMPEACHMENT-Jesus H. Christ on work-release, this is what they thought they could put out there? What's next? Digging up John Stennis and having him "review" the actual transcript?