ArcaMax

Corporate powers are telling us not to worry our little heads about the humanoid robotics they're increasingly employing in America's workplaces.

Yes, they concede, AI's new generation of "thinking robots" will transform many jobs, but -- like magic -- they'll also create better career opportunities for "the human element." Really ... like ...Read more

Here's something I had never given any thought to: the price of fire trucks. Plus, a worrisome fire truck shortage!

Huh? What would cause any town or city to run short of this essential piece of its community infrastructure? Answer: old-fashioned greed, coming from a modern-day monopolistic construct called "private equity."

Essentially, ...Read more

Corporate chieftains are giants, even geniuses -- right?

Years ago, laissez-faire ideologue Ayn Rand hailed them as society's supermen, comparing them to Atlas, the mythological Greek god who "holds the world on his shoulders."

But look, here comes one of her modern-day gods now -- Timothy Wentworth! He stands astride Walgreens, the ...Read more

In the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the framers were clear on what they were NOT creating: a monarchy. One delegate expressed the group's absolute conviction that the founding document must exclude even the "fetus of monarchy."

Yet, 238 years later, watching Donald Trump's inaugural week, it was both awful and comical to see the royal ...Read more

It's been my honor to know a few real heroes -- people who've selflessly dared to fight greed and oppression to advance the common good. Diane Wilson, for example.

For 40 years, this fiery fourth-generation fisherwoman from the Texas Gulf Coast has battled tenaciously for the rights and very survival of the area's hardscrabble ...Read more

One thing you can say about Donald Trump is that he's absolutely clear on his furious opposition to immigrants taking American jobs.

Except, of course, when the corporate honchos profiting from cheap immigrant labor are billionaire funders of Trump's campaigns -- or, hello, when Trump himself is doing the hiring!

A work permit program called...Read more

You're not fooling me, Jimmy Carter. You did that on purpose! Dying when you did, I mean.

You chose last month to grab the global political spotlight once more to make a statement with the only Earthly move you had left: checking out. What better way to make people ponder the state of political integrity in America than to reflect on how the ...Read more

I made a few New Year's resolutions this week -- not for me, but as self-improvement ideas for some of the people running our country. No need for them to thank me -- happy to help.

I drafted one for the GOP's whole ultra-rightist gaggle of lawmakers who keep blocking passage of health coverage for poor people. "Resolved: We will forgo the ...Read more

This holiday season got me to thinking about America's spirit of giving, and I don't mean this overdone business of Christmas, Hanukkah and other holiday gifts. I mean our true spirit of giving -- giving of ourselves.

Yes, we are a country of rugged individualists, yet there's also a deep, community-minded streak in each of us. We're a people...Read more

America has endured a long panorama of corporate greed -- from the East India Trading Company to the Robber Barons, Gordon Gecko Wall Streeters to Elon Musk. But down at the bottom of raw greediness today, you'll find the insatiable profiteers of the private nursing home industry.

Of course, many providers deliver honest, truly caring service...Read more

Former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King was renowned for his frequent malapropisms and contorted logic.

For example, he once refused to back a bill pushed by loan-shark lobbyists -- but he pledged that it if the legislature passed the thing, he would sign it. Well, the bill did pass ... but Bruce vetoed it! The lobbyists swarmed him, crying that he...Read more

Social media has been lighting up like fireworks, with myriad Trump voters exclaiming, "I didn't know he meant me!" For example, many MAGA cheerleaders are now shocked to learn that his rallying cry to eliminate "Obamacare" means killing the popular Affordable Care Act that provides their health coverage!

Perhaps the most stunned, though, are...Read more

Howard Lutnick wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Then, he intends to eat your cake. Lutnick is another billionaire corporate huckster who was a campaign bagman for Trump, and now he's to become the commerce secretary. But first, he's been tasked with picking hordes of corporate loyalists to be placed in Trump's government as ...Read more