“The Ides of March came and went with less drama than in 44 B.C., when Julius Caesar was assassinated. Nevertheless, 2,070 years on, there was a reason to beware mid-March this year. It marked another momentous, if mostly unremarked, moment in the nation’s accelerating self-assassination. The Peterson Foundation says that on or about March 18, the national debt will reach $39 trillion. This was less than five months after it reached $38 trillion. At our current pace of profligacy — it probably will accelerate — three trillion-dollar milestones can be passed during one fiscal year. … The debt has doubled in the 10 years since Donald Trump, on March 31, 2016, vowed to eliminate the debt in eight years. He did not try, but if he had, he would have been stymied by this grinding political dynamic: The fastest-growing age cohort is people 65 and older.” (03/18/26)
“Health care has become so expensive in the US now that it has become a threat to public safety. At least that’s the message out of Okanogan County, Washington, where Sheriff Paul Budrow announced this month he’s stepping down because the elected position doesn’t come with health insurance for his family. … ‘As an elected official, the Sheriff’s position does not provide insurance benefits, and ensuring healthcare coverage and financial stability for my family became a responsibility I could not set aside.’ Health care affordability has become a national issue, with President Donald Trump having discussed it in his State of the Union address.” (03/18/26)
“My childhood (metaphorically speaking) ended in the early 2000s, when traditional, kid-focused, Saturday morning broadcast television was fading away. Being in my thirties at the time, it was probably overdue. Even so, the misguided government regulations that helped end a rite of youth now form a case study in the futility that often results when bureaucrats wedge themselves between producers and consumers.” (03/18/26)
“You’re probably tired of hearing about the U.S. government’s looming debt crisis, because it’s a continuing backdrop to political conversations in this country. Unfortunately, the government’s debt problem comes up so often because most politicians do very little to address the issue. Year after year, they spend more than the government collects in revenue. A new report cautions that growing federal debt not only guarantees a day of reckoning but hobbles chances of fixing the situation.” (03/18/26)
“For most of the four-year war in Ukraine, Russia’s trading partners in Africa have maintained a studied silence on the issue. These nations rely on Russia for crucial imports – especially the oil that fuels their modernization and the wheat that feeds their burgeoning populations. But recently, civilians in several of these trade-dependent countries have pushed their governments to speak up about a much different, much murkier type of trade with Russia – the deceitful trafficking in humans who are forcibly thrown into the Russian battlefront in Ukraine. Last month, families of Kenyan men allegedly duped into fighting for Russia held protests in Nairobi, as the government revealed that more than 1,000 citizens had been so recruited. ‘These are … matters of human rights, national responsibility, and continental dignity,’ declared the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Zambia.” (03/17/26)
“An aspect of the argument that a draft would make politicians think twice before allowing a war to take place because politicians’ children might get drafted into the war is not really much of an argument when considered historically. Looking at the last war where US citizens were drafted — the war in Vietnam, it is more than apparent that those draftees who did most of the killing and dying in that war were working class men. If those men were black, they were even more likely to end up as nothing but cannon fodder. … Another part of this same argument is that the US people would be more likely to oppose US involvement in a war if their children were involved. Once again, history tells us something different.” (03/18/26)
“Why did Donald Trump attack Iran? Did he believe that a quick victory would boost his poll ratings? Was he looking for a way to change the subject from the Epstein files and affordability? Was he seduced into war by the Israeli government? The answer, surely, is all of the above. Bad decisions don’t have to have a single explanation. In fact, debacles on the scale of what we’re now experiencing usually have multiple causes. But when I look into the larger picture of Trump administration policy — not just the attack on Iran but domestic policies, especially the administration’s seemingly irrational hatred of renewable energy and its determination to keep America burning fossil fuels no matter what — I keep coming back to the huge influence now being wielded by oil money.” (03/18/26)
