Gadfly

America—A For-Profit Democracy

April 20th, 2016

Well, Folks, It’s Time To Sharpen The Pitchforks

Now we really know the ultrarich in the world are very serious about keeping their money. The Panama Papers prove it. The British Virgin Islands, a tax haven in the Caribbean, has a population of 30,659 in 2016, but, amazingly, it might have over three thriving profitable shell companies hiding under the beds of each citizen of any age. It’s one of those popular tax havens filled with 113,000 shell companies incorporated there. Some…

CUBAN DEFECTOR

April 13th, 2016

None of us made it on our own

In 1949 a poor, tall, gangly black sophomore kid in Oakland, California was cut from his junior varsity basketball team by the coach after just one tryout. After the cut, one of the coaches told him he should try for the varsity team when he was a junior. The coach then drove him to the local Boys & Girls Club, told him he wanted him to play basketball every day at the club, and then paid his membership fee.

The tall kid played every day, and later he was…

HOW TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM VOTING? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!

April 6th, 2016

Voter fraud in Texas and Wisconsin

In the last ten years over 20 million votes have been cast in Texas state elections. Only two cases of voter fraud in that span of time have been prosecuted to conviction.

Because of a lawsuit in Wisconsin, a district judge and aides prepared a 90-page study on 2004 voter fraud in Wisconsin and determined that there were only seven invalid votes made by individuals. Those ballots represented 0.0002 percent of the total votes cast in the state, and all of…

DOES MONEY UNITE CITIZENS? SOME SAY NO

March 31st, 2016

Expensive “free speech” doesn’t mean anything

Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University has surveyed 157 countries to find the “world’s happiest place” based on such facts as Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP), social support, healthy life expectancy , freedom to make life choices, generosity, and income. All of the top ten “happiest” are countries that have some form of Democratic Socialism government, led by…

America: A land of warts

March 24th, 2016

The battle between Republican crony-casino capitalism and Democratic socialism

After listening to Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination claim “America is going to hell” and other undesirable places, President Barack Obama in a recent magazine article counterclaimed: “For all of our warts, the United States has clearly been a force for good in the world.”

“Warts?” My God! “Treason!” Admitting we have warts before the entire world? “Un-American!”…

Do You Live In An Iceberg?

March 18th, 2016

A New Listing In The Real Estate Business

Because of the “new” world economy there’s an increasing gaggle of golden geese millionaires and billionaires building monster homes on exclusive streets in cities and country estates around the world. Many want to continue to live in London, Europe’s financial center. They want to live near other ultrarich in or near Kensington Palace Gardens, the most expensive property in all of Britain. But there’s a catch. There are…

Ignorance Still Plagues Us

March 10th, 2016

Killing Cats And Dogs, Selling Human Heads, And A Little Cannibalism

I got a severe case of the heebie-jeebies the other night during the Republican debate when Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz were in the middle of yelling at each other and exchanging insults and lies at warp speed. One of these guys might become leader of our temporary civilized “free” world?!! I thought of a few lines from Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” When Atticus Finch, the lawyer defending…

A Case of Confirmationus Interruptus

March 3rd, 2016

The Supreme Court and Gitmo

Even before Justice Antonin Scalia’s body at that exclusive Texas ranch-resort had assumed room temperature, leaders of the American Taliban, the Republican Party, said it would be useless for President Barack Obama to nominate a replacement because Republicans would not allow an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

Other Republican right-wing nuts twitterized and facebooked that they were sure Democrats had killed him. Donald Trump, the savior of the white…

Remembering Army Sergeant Kristoffer Domeij

February 27th, 2016

Shouldn’t Everyone Carry Blood-Red Poppies?

Every time a soldier was shot and fell in the satiric movie “Oh What A Lovely War” the screen went red and a red poppy grew. The symbol of a red poppy for a death on the battlefield came out of the horrendous casualties in World War I.

In the most costly battle of the war for both sides, the battle of Somme, France, in 1916, Britain suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day. In the month following, the Allies advanced the front five…

Gladiators in the Colosseum

February 18th, 2016

Is the NFL Football Deflating?

Humans have always had a thing about contact sports to take their minds off the real world when life gets heavy. They packed the Roman Colosseum to watch Christians and criminals eaten by lions and tigers. They used their thumbs to save a fallen gladiator because he had performed well or was a cute blond—or to kill a loser who showed temerity or cowardice in battle.

When New Guinea tribes got bored and wanted barbecue on their menu they raided other tribes…