Common Dreams

Posted at Common Dreams on Aug. 18, 2020

Republicans Struggle to Reboot Their “Small Government, Personal Responsibility” Scam

Joe Scarborough, on his morning TV show, had a roundtable with George Will and David Frum in which these three old conservative war horses discussed the possibility of the Republican Party returning to its "conservative values." Those values they identified included balanced budgets, personal responsibility, and small government. It's important for Americans to understand what conservatives mean when they use these words.
Posted at Common Dreams on Aug. 11, 2020

Will Enough Americans Show Up to stop Trump From Using the Dictator's Playbook?

The single most consistent defining characteristic of an emerging dictatorship in a country that started as a democracy is that the dictator regularly holds elections and always wins, because he uses the instruments of government to make sure he wins. Trump has now done this with the Justice Department, the Post Office, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Reserve, and our intelligence agencies.
Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 28, 2020

Not the 'Heals Act' But the 'Heels Act': GOP Covid-19 Plan Puts Corporate Greed Before Human Need

It should be called the HEELS Act, not the HEALS Act. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans' price for supporting unemployment checks and other benefits for average working people has been several trillion dollars shoveled directly into corporate coffers, both through tax breaks, grants, and the Federal Reserve buying trillions worth of corporate stocks and bonds. Now Republicans are saying they want to cut people's unemployment benefits, and they'll only go along with giving unemployed people a measly $200 a week if they can also give immunity to corporate CEOs and managers when their stupid decisions cause people to die.
Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 21, 2020

Will Trump’s Secret Police Succeed in Provoking Riots in Your City?

The Republican Trump administration has gone full authoritarian. Portland is a test, but only a test. Donald Trump signaled his election strategy a few days ago when he talked about ending legislation passed back in the 1960s to support fair housing that he said had sent "people" out into "the suburbs."
Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 16, 2020

If You Can’t Stop People From Voting, Just Help Them Die?

First, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, when formerly serving of Secretary of State, did everything he could to keep hundreds of thousands of Black and Hispanic voters in Georgia from having their votes counted or even being able to vote at all. In the months running up to his own race for governor, he conducted massive purges of the voting rolls, closed polling places in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and refused to certify the recent voter registrations of about 50,000 African Americans. Now it appears he’s decided that if he can't prevent Black and Hispanic people from voting he should just help them die.
Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 14, 2020

Will Americans Reject Trump and the GOP Death Cult This Fall?

The Trump administration is a death cult. They revel in their efforts to end Obamacare and cut millions of Americans off healthcare. They celebrate last night's resumption of federal executions. They enthusiastically authorize the use of formerly banned pesticides that cause cancer and neurological damage to children. Trump's first official action was to allow coal and oil companies to dump more waste in our rivers, poisoning people downstream.
Posted at Common Dreams on Jun. 19, 2020

Treasonous Trump Rejects Bringing US Jobs Home to Get Himself Reelected

Donald Trump‘s trade guy, Peter Navarro, proposed that America should spend roughly $2 trillion to bring manufacturing back to the United States from China. Doing this would both strengthen American national and domestic security, and create an explosion in what could be very good-paying jobs for American workers. While this would seem to be absolutely consistent with the positions Donald Trump campaigned on, it turns out his administration is actually opposed to it. Which has everybody scratching their heads. Why would Trump tell Americans, over and over again for five years, that he wants to bring jobs home, and then reject a reasonable effort to do just that?
Posted at Common Dreams on Jun. 16, 2020

What Should the Punishment Be for the Crime of Weaponizing a Virus for Political Purposes?

Trump's rally in Tulsa this weekend and his moving the Republican convention to Florida both demonstrate that he is more than willing to take actions that will kill Americans in order to get his ego stroked and increase his chances of reelection. A new book by Trump's niece tells the story of how Donald Trump cut off payments for his nephew's medical treatment, who had cerebral palsy, as a negotiating weapon to extract more money from his father's estate. Meanwhile, scientists report that if more than 80% of Americans simply wore masks, the R transmission rate would go below one, and the virus would begin to fade out. These three separate data points are not really separate. They are all the same thing.
Posted at Common Dreams on Jun. 10, 2020

What Will It Take to Stop Republicans From Maintaining Structural Racism in Our Voting?

Yesterday we saw the Republican’s number one voter suppression strategy on display, as black areas in Georgia were absolutely deprived of enough voting machines and polling places to accommodate their citizens, producing lines as long as six hours to vote. While that is infuriating in and of itself, the real crime here is that the media continues to refuse to report on this for what it is: structural racism that produces naked voter suppression.
Posted at Common Dreams on Jun. 8, 2020

How Exactly Should the US Reinvent Its Police Departments?

The Founders of the United States of America had it right: control the guys with guns. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, our nation’s Founders put our military in a box, which has prevented a military coup for over 240 years. We have to do the same today with our police.

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