Gadfly

American Paychecks

August 1st, 2018

1978-2018: Average CEO Pay Up 64% To $13.94 Million Average Worker Pay Up 2.6% To $38,613
Since the Bush Great Recession ended in 2009 corporate profits have grown at an annualized rate of 6.5%. Big bank profits have grown at even a higher rate. If we go back forty years we come up with the shocking figures in the headline. Since the end of the recession in 2009 yearly wage growth has never hit 3% while the Consumer Price Index has hovered around 2%. The Labor Department just announced…

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​American Exceptionalism

July 25th, 2018

The Long Road From Plymouth Rock To Fantasyland
Did a liberal or conservative make this statement?

“I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live. So what that means is health care is a human right. It means that every child, no matter where you are born, should have access to a college or trade school education if they so choose it. And, you know, I think that no person should be homeless if we can have public structures and…

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​American Coyotes and Fat Cats

July 18th, 2018

“Hi Ho, Hi Ho! It’s Off To Work We Go!”
How many undocumented workers are in the United States? Estimates range from 11 to 25 million. We need some history to understand why our immigration laws are in such a mess. The most important of our hundreds of immigration laws has never been enforced. That’s the one that says any employer who hires an undocumented worker is committing a felony and can be rewarded with a clanging jail cell door. Over three decades ago fat cat American…

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Are Americans ‘Good?’

July 11th, 2018

Can It Happen Here?
So it has finally come to this. From the normal of a century to the abnormal of the last 30 months, we are at each other’s throats. We represent either the “looney left” or the “righteous right.” Instead of negotiating with each other for the common good, a lie-a-minute psychopathic Great Leader has us talking about waves of red and blue, building 2,000-mile great walls, rants about Mexican gang rapists and Muslims terrorizing cities, and accusing Crooked…

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Ageless Jim Crows

June 27th, 2018

How Long is the Civil War Going to Last?
The American Civil War officially ended slavery in 1865 and supposedly freed the slaves. But what has happened in the 150 years since then has not accomplished either. The new voter suppression laws being passed by white Republican legislatures across the country under the guise these laws will eliminate voter fraud are actually beginning the Fifth Jim Crow period since slavery began in the 1600s. Jim Crow #1 started when slavery became the…

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​Abortion and Gender

June 20th, 2018

Ireland Has Sent Pope Francis and The Vatican A Dear John Letter: “It’s Over!”The Irish people and the Vatican have been developing a huge cultural grand canyon for decades over the issues of gender identities, contraceptives, abortion, same sex marriage, and the roles of women in the church. In an absolutely historic referendum vote in May, Irish voters of the once most-Roman Catholic country in Europe, repealed the 8th amendment in their constitution banning abortion by a 66.4…

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​Africa: The Human Birthplace

June 13th, 2018

Muhammad AliMemo To My Fellow Africans
Science tells us that anatomically modern human beings started to evolve in Africa from our very close relatives the chimps and apes about 300,000 years ago. We are still not sure of the exact time and place in Africa, but recent fossils discovered in Morocco have human features.

According to scientists in many fields, we humans stayed in central Africa for the next 200,000 years, slowly evolving our features and bodies while beginning to move around the…

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American Racism

June 6th, 2018

Jim Crow Is Bald And Has Huge Talons
Since black San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee in August of 2016 during our national anthem that emphasizes the phrase “land of the free and home of the brave,” at least 378 black Americans have been killed by police in firearm “incidents.” The list was compiled by the Washington Post, and it adds that other blacks killed by choke holds and other types of attacks are not included in that total. Remember New Yorker …

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Random Death By Bullets

May 30th, 2018


Our Culture Is Seriously Ill
I was not shocked by the murders at Santa Fe High School. Whenever there has been a mass murder, I just wonder how many and where the next mass murders will be. A society that trades the Second Amendment for a toddler killed every four days by firearms is practicing blood sacrifice and is seriously ill. We also kill 75 pre-schoolers a year with firearms. Our politicians are worshipping at the altars of Big Gun. We don’t even blink at the fact that we have…

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Armageddon and Rage

May 23rd, 2018

Is Our Democracy Dying From A Koch Assisted-Suicide?
The One Percent is going after wealth like Captain Ahab went after The Great White Whale. Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal recently wrote about “the up-market way to prepare for Doomsday.” We already know of dozens of the American uber-rich buying up thousands of acres of “Doomsday safe” land while purchasing New Zealand “citizenship” for millions of dollars. We know of tech titans and other filthy rich creating…

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