IMPORTANT READS

TRADE DEAL FOR THE RICH-The Trump administration’s overhaul of the North American Free Trade Agreement  is both the best trade pact signed by an American president in 30 years and a corrupt mess that offers working people almost nothing. 

SEEKING FREEDOM FROM IMMISERATION-My kid sister arrived to visit me this morning, on a 7 a.m. flight, and as she took a nap, unable to sleep, I headed off bleary-eyed to the little street where I sip my coffee and think my thoughts.

CORRUPTION WATCH-The Democrats’ Identity Politics makes a person’s race, religion, ethnicity, and gender of paramount importance. For decades the Dems promoted quotas in schools and in employment, while casting aside the individual’s needs or abilities. 

SUPREME POLITICS-When Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in March of 2016, Lee Drutman wrote: 

VIEW FROM HERE--A female friend of mine said something about the Kavanaugh/Ford issue I can't get out of my head.

COVERING A CRISIS-Americans’ rights to vote, and to have their votes counted accurately, are the basis of democracy.

I don’t often think fondly of Christopher Hitchens, but an insight of my ex-friend did brighten my eyes during the last week. 

PERSPECTIVE--Recently I had an interchange with a female Ivy League graduate from the 1980's. 

MY TURN-This topic is a mixed bag of complicated pieces that begins with the sexually suppressed conservatives and extends from the men that preach it to the women that buy into it.

WORLD WATCH-With Syria’s civil war nearing an end with the takeover of the city of Idlib by Assad’s forces and his allies, I do not expect that Syria will soon enter a period of calm and amicably divide the spoils of the war. Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the US have conflicting strategic interests in Syria, which are on a collision course.

PERSPECTIVE--Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 1982, is set to testify Thursday on the matter before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

MY TURN-One only has to do a small amount of research to get a detailed list of the embedded hatred that the Republicans have for women

MY TURN-Since when did the conservatives “define” the concept of patriotism based on the quantity of flags plastered all over their homes, cars and even clothing? 

NEW GEOGRAPHY--Neither Kevin Kwan’s novel “Crazy Rich Asians” nor the movie based on it should win any prizes as literature or film.

MY TURN--As liberals across the country rally to get people out to vote, there is an underlying current that no one is talking about.

WORLD WATCH--As Turkey’s President Erdogan runs out of money, he is now, more than any time before, using religion to exploit the Balkans, especially the states that are more susceptible to Islamic influence.

 MY TURN-“In order to know how good you are at something requires exactly the same skills as it does to be good at that thing in the first place,” Cleese elaborates, “which means — and this is terribly funny — that if you are absolutely no good at something at all, then you lack exactly the skills you need to know that you are absolutely no good at it.”

NEW GEOGRAPHY--Where do we go after Trump?

CONSIDER THIS-For an administration adept at peddling conspiracy theories, here is one that would surely impress the president because it involves his favorite subject.

MY TURN-For a short moment in time, the country listened to President Obama and we felt refreshed, renewed, and almost “normal” again.

AT LENGTH-I was never a fan of Arizona’s Sen. John McCain. It is only belatedly that I’ve come to admire him for his reputation as “maverick” given his thumbs-down vote preserving the Affordable Care Act against the Republican Senate majority.