CJ Werleman Posts

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are more than allies, they’re equal partners in a joint venture to maximize returns from the Arab state’s natural resources. This much is obvious, but once you understand and acknowledge that, you understand why the U.S. will never win the war on terror.

If you’ve ever wondered why America doesn’t have nice things - universal healthcare, affordable education, and hi-speed rail – it’s because rich people can afford the best schools, hospitals, and private jets.

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and that in the hours following a terrorist attack, Republicans will cry, “The time has come for Muslim leaders to stand up and say something.” In swallowing a dose of their own medicine, isn’t it high time Republican Party leaders stand up and say something about Nazi era racial epitaphs that are all too commonly used by the conservative base?

When employees at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga voted 712 to 626 against joining the United Automobile Workers Union, the Republican Party received a further boost in their effort to turn the country into a third world nation on behalf of the super rich. From the moment Reagan declared war on the unions, and America bought into the Republican myth of trickle down economics, the living standards of middle class Americans have fallen behind no less than a dozen European countries.

The Republican Party gave no less than a half-dozen different "official" responses to last night's State of the Union. Rebuttals that ranged from delusional to outright insane, and all gave us a reminder that not only does the GOP not have a single coherent policy outside of their demented obsession with repealing the Affordable Care Act, but also there really are two Americas, and one is incapable of dealing intelligently with our problems.

If you have access to electricity, and I apologize to the Amish, it’s likely you saw the Russell Brand BBC interview as a post on Facebook. The antagonistic exchange again demonstrated the British comedian’s mastery of the English language, and his deep humanistic understanding of social injustice and today’s socio-economic ills. But Americans will do well to ignore his prescription.

History has it that Zuckerberg designed the social networking site for the purpose of rating boobs, but if his overall social goal was to help the intellectually lazy out themselves as psychologically unhinged, he hit a grand slam. My experience with Facebook is merely the experience of my own.

Yesterday I posted a tweet that read, “Sam Harris is to atheism what Pat Robertson is to Christianity.” Attached was a link pointing to an article titled, “Sam Harris slurs Malala: Famed atheist wrongly co-opts teenager’s views.” My tweet was silly, but in less time than it took to delete it, I received a sternly worded email from Mr. Harris that read, “The writer misrepresented my views in every relevant respect.”

Yesterday I posted a tweet that read, “Sam Harris is to atheism what Pat Robertson is to Christianity.” Attached was a link pointing to an article titled, “Sam Harris slurs Malala: Famed atheist wrongly co-opts teenager’s views.” My tweet was silly, but in less time than it took to delete it, I received a sternly worded email from Mr. Harris that read, “The writer misrepresented my views in every relevant respect.”

The 2013 Values Voter Summit was where irony went to hi-five itself given the two things today’s Republican Party lacks: values and voters. The annual summit is the Christian Right’s quest to identify its standard-bearer and presumptive nominee for 2016. If you’ve read the transcripts, you will know how far from the mainstream the Republican Party’s leaders and its base are from the attitudes held by a majority of Americans.

Polls show that Democrats and independents blame Republicans for the government shutdown; Republicans blame Democrats and Obama; and the media in their desperation to report a 50/50 false equivalency above facts, spread the blame equally. So, who’s right? They’re all wrong. The nation’s economy is on the brink of Armageddon thanks to the most morally and intellectually stunted segment of the American experiment: the Christian Right.

In the first 36 hours, the primary website for Obamacare enrollment hit 6.1 million unique visitors. Predictably, the Republican Party’s talking points had nothing to do with what was an extraordinary rush of Americans looking to take advantage of affordable healthcare, but everything to do with, “Look at all the glitches.” It begs the question: have Republicans forgotten how bad actual healthcare “glitches” had become in this country?

In the 8 years tha

According to a recent Pew Research survey, half of the nation holds an unfavorable view of labor unions, which might explain why a majority of Americans still don’t have nice things – like happiness and food.

According to a recent Pew Research survey, half of the nation holds an unfavorable view of labor unions, which might explain why a majority of Americans still don’t have nice things – like happiness and food.

In 2012, the American public had a clear choice for which direction they’d like the country to move towards. Both major parties laid out clear and starkly contrasting visions: the Republican Party’s philosophy of, “You’re on your own,” versus the Democrat Party’s, “We are in this together.”

I had no idea the poor were fraudulently trading their food stamps for the Wall Street derivatives that crashed the entire f@*#ing economy. Well, that’s what House Republicans would have you believe given their vote to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly food stamps, by nearly $40 billion over the next 10 years.

States with predominantly undereducated, low salary workers, and thus workers who are at a greater risk of sustaining a workplace injury, thanks to the absence of labor protection, are not only the states most in need of Obamacare, but are the states most against it. The ironies abound, just don't ask these constituents to define "irony."

Poll after poll shows America is a center-left country. A majority of the nation leans left when it comes to same-sex marriage, abortion laws, and social safety nets. The country elected a liberal in the past two presidential election cycles. What’s the problem?

Perhaps the giddiness progressives experienced with Obama’s victories, particularly 2008, have served to be the perfect political distraction. The Christian Right is focused on “taking the country back” one local and state legislature; one governor mansion and one court house at a time, and they’re doing it with alarming ease. All the while, progressives become victims of the intoxicating drug of gradualism.