America Trends

We’ve all been told that we will no longer have our hands on the steering wheel much longer.  We will be replaced by artificial intelligence and the autonomous vehicle.  Anthony Townsend, author of ‘ Ghost Road’, suggests we slow down the hype about the imminence of that changeover and recognize that this technology may result … Continue reading EP 393 Beyond the Driverless Car

Amazon. How many of us can live without it in this pandemic age? Jeff Bezos and his spinwheel fueled by artificial intelligence(we explain that concept in the podcast) keep accelerating their impact in various sectors of our economy and in our lives. It’s an awe inspiring story, but there are damages in the wake of … Continue reading EP 392 The Amazon Behemoth Gains Momentum in This Moment of Crisis

On Election Day 2020, we are posting this podcast, recorded on Friday, October 30, recounting the soul searching and internal debates that went on in the Democratic Party as they tried to understand Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in 2016. Is this a conscious and helpful exercise? If you recall, the Republicans did the … Continue reading EP 391 Did the Democrats Learn From Their Loss in 2016?

The word populism has been bandied around a lot lately in our politics.  What does it really mean and what evidence do we have that it is a real force in American politics and not just a word co-opted by charlatans to bring people to their side?  In his book, ‘The People, No’, author Thomas … Continue reading Special Edition #11 Anti-Populism in the United States

There’s been a ten year study done of women who had an abortion and women who were turned away at a clinic because they missed the deadline to have one.  The intent was to see the impact that this decision had on these two groups over a long sweep of time.  The Turnaway Study is … Continue reading EP 390 The Impact of Having an Abortion on the Woman’s Life

  The nation’s pharmaceutical companies have worked very hard to make themselves indispensable to the world’s most medicated society. They have done it by selling cures and treatments for a range of conditions, accenting the positive and downplaying the side effects which, as in the case of opioids, often are catastrophic.  Further, they have marketed … Continue reading EP 389 Big Pharma’s Addiction to Huge Profits

In 1992, when Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporters, Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, set out to first determine what had gone wrong with America’s promise for its people economically and socially they found troubling signs of pervasive inequality and the public sector weakened to a point where it was unable to craft new … Continue reading EP 388 America: What Went Wrong Revisited

Daily we are bombarded with one scientific finding after another. How often have you quoted this or that finding to a friend and suggested that a change of behavior might be in order as a result? Stuart Ritchie, author of ‘Science Fictions’ suggests that you may want to curb your enthusiasm to insure that the … Continue reading EP 387 Can You Believe in the Scientific Breakthroughs You Read About?

With well publicized concern that a spike in the coronavirus might result in a possible buckling of our health care system in America, many are imagining the changes to get better systems in place to protect public health and insure access and quality to clinical services for more Americans. As a podcast focused on the … Continue reading EP 386 Health Care in America in the Wake of the Pandemic

A recent headline in the New York Times indicates that the Trump Administration is reversing nearly one hundred environmental rules on issues relating to air pollution and emissions, drilling and extraction, water pollution, toxic substances and more. And this is after pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords and appointing a former coal industry lobbyist … Continue reading EP 385 Climate Change Takes a Backseat to Other Crises and a Backhand From the Federal Government

The rules-based world order that developed after World War II was not an accident of history. It resulted from America’s vigorous leadership. So for our allies in Europe, Asia and around the globe is was so puzzling that President Donald Trump would walk away from treaties and organizations America designed. While he blustered about America’s … Continue reading EP 384 The Empty Throne Grows Dusty as America Sidelines Itself on the International Stage

It is constitutionally required that we do an ‘actual enumeration’ of the residents of the United States every ten years on the 00’s. Well, it’s that time. And in the middle of a pandemic and a presidential election, we are being reminded of how challenging that process can be and yet how important it is. … Continue reading EP 383 Census 2020 and Its Impact on Elections Going Forward

Before we engage in any war, Erik Edstrom asks us to imagine three visions: First, imagine your own death. Second, imagine war from ‘the other side’. Third, imagine what might have been if the war had never been fought. Through that lens and his own combat experience, Edstrom graphically depicts why in all his time … Continue reading EP 382 A Soldier’s Disillusionment With Our Longest War

  In 2017, research showed that 4.5 million Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 were neither in school nor working.  Falling into that gap is a far different experience than the one enjoyed by more affluent and socially connected people that age who can take a ‘gap year’ between high school and college … Continue reading EP 381 The Science of Achieving Adulthood is Changing and Many Are Abandoned in the Transition

Sometimes riots come to define communities as you attach the name forever in your mind with the riots–like Watts, Attica, Detroit and others. And sometimes riots get lost in the long arc of American history. Few, however, are as little remembered and yet profoundly impactful as what occurred on May 8, 1970, in lower Manhattan. … Continue reading EP 380 The Hardhat Riot Marks Moment the GOP and America’s White Working Class Came Together

While the number of religious nationalists may not be overwhelming their influence on American politics, and access to those in the White House, is a stunning political achievement. Some may envision evangelicals as fighting a culture war against modernity, but the movement described in Katherine Stewart’s book, ‘The Power Worshippers’, is so much more than … Continue reading EP 379 Religious Nationalists Have a Growing Influence on American Politics

It’s tough to accept hard truths, but it’s also deadly and bewildering to continue to accept that the most well financed military in the history of the world has not had a true victory, while being involved in many conflicts, in the last 75 years. Why is this? Where do we begin? The quality of … Continue reading EP 378 Whistleblower Portrays Serious U.S. Military Failures and Dishonesty

There are so many unknowns when it comes to Russia and its relations with the United States.  Quick quiz: friend or foe? Democracy or dictatorship?  Who can tell from the glowing words that President Trump has spoken about Vladimir Putin.  He appreciates his strong leadership, while others equate his rule to a strongman approach to … Continue reading EP 377 Vladimir Putin: Playing a Bad Hand Really Well on the World Stage

In many ways, gun adherents and those who seek to control their use in America have something in common. They misinterpret the true initial intent of the Second Amendment. Most commonly we hear that it was adopted as way to insure that Americans could protect their homes or to allow them to hunt or join … Continue reading EP 376 The Much Misunderstood Purpose of the Second Amendment

Fifty-two large fires are now burning 748,987 acres in the western United States, with many proving to be very difficult to contain.  The number that have burned by this time of year is the largest in a decade, with 33,000 fires searing over 1.9 million acres by July 12.     In California, fire is as … Continue reading EP 375 California on Fire