Coup d'état

People, and the press, are looking the wrong way when it comes to the imminent Trump cabinet. Yeah, there is a bunch of billionaire executives. That was to be expected. Some are not billionaires, though. I’m more interested in that other half.


The junta:

Ryan Zinke, ex- Navy Seal Commander
James Mattis, Ret. Marine Corps General
John Kelly, Ret. Marine Corps General
Michael Flynn, Ret. US Army General
Mike Pompeo, first in his class at West Point. Jeff Session, Capt. Army Reserve
Rick Perry, former Air Force Pilot

That’s about half of the cabinet posts, and we’re not done. Who knows, maybe a quiet, bloodless take-over of the American government by the military is good thing. Or at least on honest thing. If we, as a nation, are spending 57% of discretionary spending on the military - $602 billion dollars a year – we should probably have those numbers represented up-front, at the table.

And we should be thankful there were no beheadings. These ‘strokes against the state’ don’t always go so smoothly.

The Milkman comes from McDonalds

I love this article by George Monbiot about McDonalds, globalization and the decline of democracy. It reminds me that I may not, in fact, be a total Chicken McNugget Little for writing The Milkman. Some smart people think the rule of corporations is less far-fetched than aliens, killer robots and self-lacing sneakers. (OK, not so much on that last one.)