How to Win Compliments, Dispel Fears, and Influence People

I’ve grown used to random compliments from strangers. It’s normal now. I have to think back years to what it was like without that. And they’re not just compliments, but also expressions of solidarity, revelations of the existence of people who agree and aren’t afraid to say so — or maybe that I’ve just helped them to become unafraid to say so. These compliments, which can initiate discussions and deeper engagement, have nothing more to do with me than the shirt I’m wearing. And read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Tariffic!

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Going, Going, Gone!
The World According to Donald Trump

By

I remember the phrase from my boyhood, listening to baseball games on the old wooden radio by my bed. A major hitter would be up and — bang! — he’d connect with the ball in a big-time fashion. The announcer in a rising voice would then say dramatically: “It’s going, going, gone!” It was a phrase connected to read more

David Swanson: NATO Is the World’s #1 War Criminal

By Transnational Institute, May 13, 2025

David Swanson, peace activist from World BEYOND War, argues that NATO is not a defensive alliance but the most powerful war-making and weapons-dealing machine in history. Far from protecting democracy, NATO has backed colonial powers and dictatorships, waged illegal wars, and acted as a read more

Rahm, Hakeem, and Special Places in Hell

People sometimes get away with a certain kind of evil action precisely because most of us have a hard time imagining the levels of cruelty or cynicism involved.

Rahm Emanuel, booster of militarization in Japan as U.S. Ambassador, apologist for racist police violence and closer of schools in Chicago as Mayor, and Democratic Caucus Chairman in the U.S. House of so-called Representatives from 2007 to 2009, did something evil in January 2007. This was just after antiwar voters had handed his Democratic read more