4/16/2017

Politics and Reality Radio: United Isn't Alone; A Stealthier Assault on the ACA; Trump v. Kim Jong Un Won't End Well We kick off this week's show with Helaine Olen, who wrote in The New York Times this week that United's decision to bloody a paying customer for refusing to "voluntarily" give up his seat is a microcosm of some larger, and genuinely troubling trends in our society.

On Contact With Chris Hedges’: Putting the War in Syria in Full, Unedited Context

It's been more than a week since the Trump administration abruptly switched out of "America first" mode and into intervention mode by dropping 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian airfield. As Chris Hedges and Alternet journalists Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton argue in this episode of "On Contact With Chris Hedges," the American public has been lacking something very important ever since.

Sebastian Gorka likes to be called ‘Dr. Gorka.’ He gets his way only in conservative media.

Interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to President Trump, really, really likes to be called "Dr. Gorka" - a hang-up for which he was mocked last week by comedian Samantha Bee. On Twitter , Gorka goes by "Sebastian Gorka DrG."

Trump is Hiring Lobbyists and Top Ethics Official Says “There’s No Transparency”

The hiring of dozens of lobbyists represents a reversal from Trump's statements during the campaign, when he said he would have "no problem" banning lobbyists from his administration. President Trump has stocked his administration with a small army of former lobbyists and corporate consultants who are now in the vanguard of the effort to roll back government regulations at the agencies they once sought to influence, according to an analysis of government records by the New York Times in collaboration with ProPublica.

California Leads the Way in Solar Power

For the first time, on the day of March 23, 40 percent of Californian grid power between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. was generated by utility-scale solar plants. This proportion was a seasonal effect but not a fluke, and it certainly points to what will be routine in the very near future.

‘Cuck’ Steve Bannon Will Be Out Of A Job On Day 101

In an interview with the New York Post 's Michael Goodwin, Donald Trump makes clear that Steve Bannon is a dead man walking: When I asked the president Tuesday afternoon if he still has confidence in Bannon, who took over the campaign in mid-August, I did not get a definitive yes. "I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late," Trump said.

Today in the Fact that J.D. Vance is a Huge Grifter Who Hates His Own Culture

The fact that people will read his book, and assume that all Appalachian people are trying to actively run away from their culture, and that if they are smart, they will understand it to be less than and the people they came from to be crazy lunatics is, to me, one of the more personal attacks that Vance hurls at Appalachian people in his 261-page simultaneous fetishization and admonishment of my culture. "Elegy" has no class, no heart, and no warmth.

Obama said there was never a better time to be alive. Trump thinks a…

President Trump listens as he and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg participate in a news conference in the East Room of the White House on April 12. Addressing the United Nations last fall, President Obama took a moment to highlight for fellow world leaders what he called "the most important fact" about the state of the global affairs: human existence on planet Earth is good - and getting better. War is down, he said, while life expectancy is up.

Five Months After The Election, Some Outlets Still Don’t Understand The Fake News Problem

Multiple outlets are incorrectly calling deceptive articles aimed to drive up stock prices for certain companies "fake news" in yet another misappropriation of the term. Although such fraud is indeed problematic, conflating it with fake news -- truly fabricated content meant to drive traffic or push a political message -- detracts from awareness efforts to combat the threat actual fake news continues to present.