TheNextReport

Independence? That depends. The United States of America passed its 241st birthday rather quickly, its hands partially covering its eyes.  Mired in the biggest scandal since the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974, much of the country has been left wondering how it happened. For those who claim to love democracy, there is a profound discomfort in the air, on television and in social media. It seems to confirm that the Republic is really a delusion. Peer behind that curtain and it hits us right in the face. We are living under the thumb of a homegrown oligarchy, a  twisted coalition of natavist fascism and fundamentalist theocracy, fueled by the deep pockets of a multi-billionaire corporate gentry. Today, the engine of the United States is being run by a legislature that is home to a group of hard-line ideologues, and an incompetent executive that is thoroughly corrupt. Coupled by an ignorant electorate that no longer reads and takes every opportunity to profess its disdain fo...

Oil in the Arctic is a hidden treasure that may provide answers to many of the questions surrounding America's deepest political scandal--the hacking of the 2016 presidential election. A 2008 United States Geological Survey estimates that areas north of the Arctic Circle have 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, recoverable oil (and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids ) in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum. This represents 13% of the undiscovered oil in the world. In June 2007, a group of Russian geologists returned from a six-week voyage on a nuclear icebreaker, the expedition called Arktika 2007. They had traveled to the Lomonosov ridge, an underwater shelf going between Russia's remote, inhospitable eastern Arctic Ocean, and Ellesmere Island in Canada where the ridge lies 400m under the ocean surface. According to Russia's media, the geologists returned with the "sensational news" that the Lomonosov ridge was l...

All the talk about Jared Kushner and secret "back-channel" communications seems designed to keep people wondering and interested in the Washington intrigue. Back-channel talks between Russia and the US on a range of critical issues have been ongoing since the Cold War and some good has indeed come of it. I worked with a small group of people during the late 90's led by television producer Ren Breck whose whose company (News Center One) provided networked communications for international crises. This was BI (bef ore the Internet) when actual human intervention was often necessary.  News Center One played a key role in networking scientists from around the world who used their expertise to address the problems generated by the Chernobyl disaster. Ren's work earned him the commendation of the Russian Academy of Science and established a measure of trust between the involved parties. The News Center One team helped facilitate a Bay Area back-channel visit b...

The Conductor is having a ball working on the orchestration, pitting himself -- the twittering hero -- against the machine, unable to admit his social glaucoma, unable to admit that he is the machine. His deliberate obstruction of justice seems to have worked. He won't go to jail, however, and when it is all over he will have plenty of "content" at his disposal to construct a variety of entertainment packages, all with hardly a dent made in his personal empire. There's Trump the board game, Trump the caviar, Trump the vodka, Trump the champagne,Trump the lunchbox, Trump the after-shave; Trump luggage, Trump jewelry.  What's next? Perhaps asylum in one of those Persian Gulf principalities or maybe, just maybe, somewhere behind bars in the bowels of North Carolina, in a seat next to Bernie Madoff,...

President Trump passes his hundred days. Better to call it a period than an era. The game of politics known as the GOP can advance with its dangerous agenda for the nation and the world. When the period of Trump is at last over and the historians and commentators look back on what will surely be known as one of  the most profoundly unsettling episodes in the history of the American presidency, The long delayed reaction should be loud and clear--The Trump period revealed a serious flaw in the way we practice democracy. Adjustments to our democratic process must be made if we are to avoid a repetition of a similar disaster in the future. An amoral, nihilistic charlatan was elected President of the United States, a man with no experience as an elected official, a man who proceeded to subvert the most fundamental laws and norms of the republic with no concern for the damage done. In an age of nuclear weapons, we the people, must set some standards (other than double standards) for ...

Diplomacy 1. The art or practice of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements. 2. Tact or skill in dealing with people   "The days of strategic patience are over--all options are on the table." Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Translation: Expect to have your nation obliterated at any time. This was the dialogue conducted last week between the American Secretary of State and a representative of the North Korean government. Yesterday, President Trump underscored the point warning of a "major, major conflict" with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. . The American government has made it clear--it considers the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, to be a madman. What makes the situation twice as dangerous is that the United States doesn't have a particularly high regard for the sanity of its own leadership. The possibilities for negotiation behind...

Flim Flam 1.Nonsense; humbug. 2. A deception; a swindle. tr.v. flim·flammed , flim·flam·ming , flim·flams To swindle; cheat. "When you are given immunity, that means you've probably committed a crime."        -- Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (Sept. 2016) Lieutenant General Michael Flynn was a sought-after speaker in Russia when he was nominated to be National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump. As a former military man, Flynn had knowledge of strategic matters that were of particular interest to his Russian audiences (and to the regime in Turkey), earning him in the neighborhood of $1.3 million per year.  Flynn was forced to resign as Trump's advisor after failing to disclose talks he had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about sanctions the U.S. had placed on Moscow and for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.  As the nation's leaders so often like to remi...