Rational Nation USA

Closing out the decade of the 1960’s was one of the top billboard hit of 1969,  In The Year 2525 by Zager and Evens. As we observe events 49 years later this tune’s message reverberates  as much today as it did at the close of the sixties. Read Hit song of 1969 recorded in Odessa

We are hopeful Trump will soon experience an unusual  wave of sanity gripping him to do the right thing. If he doesn't, perhaps the republican controlled Congress will. We can hope, can't we? 500 French, British and German MPs write to their US counterparts to support the JCPOA On May 12, president Donald Trump might decide to finally abandon the JCPOA, the deal between France, the UK, Germany, the United States, China, Russia and Iran regarding Teheran‘s nuclear program. Several hundred members of parliament of the three European signatory states, from all parts of the political spectrum, have decided to plead to the US congress to help keep this major diplomatic breakthrough alive. It is a pledge for transatlantic strength and a promise for further collaboration on the Iran issue and many other pressing challenges of international politics. To the members of the United States Congress : For more than a decade, we – Europeans, Americans, and the internatio...

Whether Trump is a racist and a xenophobe is left up to each individual to decide for themselves. For many, the number is probably in the many millions, his words as candidate and president are responsible for ushering in an overt and despicable acceptance of these evils among his base and followers. The following excerpt is from an article in Reveal by Will Carless . It serves as a reminder, for me anyway, that Trump does NOT represent the values that Make America Great . Editor’s note: To provide a full picture of what hate speech victims experienced, we have not edited out offensive language. It was the day after the 2016 presidential election. Melissa Johnson was walking out of a Trader Joe’s in the heart of San Diego when a shiny BMW pulled up alongside her. The driver was a man in his late 30s. Dark hair. Green eyes. Her first thought: He’s kind of hot. The car slowed down. Then the man shouted at her through the open window. “Fuck you, nigger, go back to Africa. Th...

Every so often it is necessary to turn off the noise, step back, take a long breather, and put all things in proper perspective. If El Donaldo has done anything of value since his inauguration it is that he has shown the rest of the world, and some in America, what a red, white, and blue jackass looks like. For this I thank him, tenfold times over. The offshoot of this, at least for now anyway, is that this weblog is dropping out. Turning to things that will provide a positive healthful physical and mental environment, one that politics, the media, and the continual left-right struggle for total power only destroys. Be well. Perhaps someday, after El Donaldo and company have disappeared from the scene, we'll return. Until then: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”   T.S. Eliot

The shooting deaths of African-Americans by police officers that have prompted nationwide racial tensions are local matters to be dealt with by local authorities, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at her Wednesday press briefing. ”Certainly a terrible incident. This is something that is a local matter and that’s something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities at this point in time,” Sanders said in response to a question about the acquittal of two Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers involved in the 2016 death of Alton Sterling. Sanders was also asked about the recent fatal shooting of Stephon Clark in California, and the 2014 death of Eric Garner. The death of Sterling and similar shooting deaths of other African-Americans became a key issue in the summer of 2016 amid the presidential race between Donald Trump, who voiced strong support for police, and Democrat Hillary Clinton, who expressed support for police while also calling...

More on the great myth fabricated by conservative extremists, aka right wing reactionaries. And the following On the Myth of “Cultural Marxism”  by Keith Preston • Culture Wars/Current Controversies , Economics/Class Relations , Left and Right , Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism

BEIJING (AP) — China announced a $3 billion list of U.S. goods including pork, apples and steel pipe on Friday that it said may be hit with higher tariffs in a spiraling trade dispute with President Donald Trump that companies and investors worry could depress global commerce. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to veto the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill already passed by Congress, only hours before government funding would lapse. The about-face comes a day after the White House had said Trump would sign the legislation despite his misgivings. The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday if Trump does not sign a funding bill into law. George Mason University will use a $5 million gift to its economics department to create three faculty positions, the school announced Thursday. The gift comes from the Charles Koch Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to colleges and universities across the country. The Koch family is known for its support of co...

This just in: Ralph Peters, a longtime Fox News military analyst, said Tuesday that he is leaving the network. And he's leaving in the most dramatic way possible: By sending to colleagues a blistering critique of the network as pro-Trump "propaganda." Peters wrote in a letter to a handful of colleagues that Fox is "assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law." He called it "a destructive and ethically ruinous administration." We couldn't agree more!! More HERE