LOGIC 101 ... FOR MY CONSERVATIVE FRIENDS

- Mark

IMF DEBUNKS TRUMP'S TARIFF CLAIM ... PROVING, ONCE AGAIN, OUR PRESIDENT'S A MORON

This isn't funny any longer ...

You can read the details by clicking here.

- Mark

FROM BOOT LICKERS TO SIMPLE ERRAND BOYS

With Robert Mueller coming out to explain that Trump effectively would have been indicted were he not president, this week's cover for The New Yorker is especially pertinent. 

- Mark

MUELLER: "CHARGING THE PRESIDENT WITH A CRIME WAS ... NOT AN OPTION WE COULD CONSIDER"

This is what integrity and honor look like ...

And, for the record, Trump was NOT exonerated.

- Mark

IN OTHER WORDS, "TRUMP WAS ENGAGED IN CRIMINAL ACTIVITY"

"If we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that ..."

- Robert Mueller

You can read more by clicking here. 

- Mark

16 YEAR OLD MIKE TYSON, JR. BEATS UP ADULT BULLY

OK, I'm not sure this is Mike Tyson, Jr., as the clip suggests. Still, this is pretty satisfying to watch, especially over a long weekend ...

- Mark

TRUMP'S 9/11

- Mark

THE PRO-LIFE CROWD LACKS HUMANITY

- Mark

THIS IS CRONY CAPITALISM

When you take publicly funded research, which led to the creation of a life saving drug, and then turn around and put that publicly funded drug on the market for almost $2,000 you are not a market capitalist reaping the benefits from your hard work and the sweat of your brow. You are a crony capitalist, benefiting from taxpayer funded research and other legislative gifts that should have gone to benefit the American taxpayer who paid for the development of the drug.

Put more simply, you are not a capitalist. Like the the market players on Wall Street who were saved by bailouts backed by the American taxpayer after 2008, you are a crony capitalist.

The line of questioning below from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) helps us understand how Corporate America and Big Pharma has benefited from favorable government legislation.

So, yes, when you depend on the state and favorable legislation for your profits and salvation - especially if you need bailouts and a team of bankruptcy/tax attorneys to keep you afloat (you know who I'm talking about) - you're not a free market capitalist. You are a crony capitalist, and a ward of the state.

It's really that simple.

- Mark

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT, 2.0 ... BUT THIS TIME IT'S REAL

In 1971 a psychology professor at Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo, conducted an experiment that involved students volunteering to participate as guards and prisoners. The goal was to study the psychological effects of perceived power. It did not go well, as this movie clip-trailer illustrates.

I bring up the Stanford Prison Experiment because it looks like many of the psychological elements that we saw in the Stanford Prison Experiment are playing out again. Only this time, we don't have makeshift prisons created out of plywood, and the prison guards aren't Stanford students operating under "controlled" conditions. We have private for-profit companies operating giant prison centers, with well paid guards who are often as ill-equipped as they are poorly trained. Their education levels, I can assure you, are not at the level of a Stanford student.

In most instances, the "prisoners" in today's immigration centers have minor immigration violations or are only "guilty" of seeking asylum in the United States, which is a legal right everyone who lands on America's shores can claim. Yet, they are treated and housed as if they are convicted felons.

A guard escorts an immigrant detainee from his segregation cell back to the "general population" at California's Adelanto Detention Facility in 2013.   

To date, several children have already died while in custody while thousands more have been forced into solitary confinement in U.S. detention centers simply because guards don't like or understand the prisoners. Specifically, the vast majority of those:

... in ICE custody are not facing criminal charges, and their detention is not intended to be punitive. They are in custody for civil immigration violations such as overstaying their visas or being in the country illegally. Some are awaiting deportation or court dates. Some are asylum-seekers.

What's worse, the whole spectacle is playing out in front of the approving eyes of America's Trump-inspired bigots and a political class that's too gutless to act against a megalomaniac president who is as morally depraved as he is intellectually challenged.

You can read more about what I'm calling "America's Stanford Prison Experiment, 2.0" by clicking here.

- Mark