Michael Josephson: The illusion of success

  Reach for the stars. Pursue goals beyond your grasp. These are good life strategies. We never know how much we can accomplish until we try.

  But what happens when we’re told we must reach the stars or suffer consequences?

Trump's unwitting devotion to socialism

  Donald Trump and, unfortunately, many of his conservative followers, are absolutely clueless when it comes to socialism. You couldn’t find a better example of this phenomenon than a Trump op-ed that was published in USA Today recently. In fact, Trump’s op-ed is a perfect demonstration of the life of the lie that has come to afflict the entire conservative movement.

  In his op-ed, Trump takes Democrats to task for supporting “Medicare for All,” which would essentially be a full-fledged socialist healthcare system. He says that this shows that Democrats are committed to turning the United States into another Venezuela, a country in chaos, crisis, poverty, and violence owing to its socialist economic system.

Ben Carson wants HUD to stop fighting housing segregation

  Today, a child born to a low-income family and raised in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans will have beaten the odds if they live past age 67. They can also expect to make just $20,000 a year by the time they reach their thirties.

  Just a 20-minute drive away, in the Uptown/Carrollton neighborhoods near Tulane and Loyola Universities, that same child could expect to live 20 years longer and take home roughly $53,000 more in annual salary.

How you vote In November could decide whether you get to vote on a lottery

  The lottery has been talked about for decades in Alabama. There’s no question that the voters support it, but the Alabama Legislature has failed to pass a bill that would let the people vote.

  Two years ago, the lottery almost made it through the legislative process before it died in the Senate. But now the lottery is getting new attention after the Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives told the press that a lottery would be on the legislature’s agenda next year.

  There’s no question that the lottery could do a lot of good for our state. The most recent estimates are that a lottery could bring in $332 million a year, and that kind of money could solve a lot of problems.

How to prepare for Russia’s October surprise

  Russia is in the business of mind control.

  They’re not doing it through sinister headgear, satellite interference, or dream invasion like in Inception, though.

  Instead, Russia seeks to control the minds of Americans through something we all have and spend arguably too much time on - social media.

  This isn’t news to many of us. For years we’ve heard how Russia infiltrated Facebook and Twitter in an effort to divide our nation during the 2016 election. It seems, however, that Russia’s interference in our last presidential election wasn’t a “one-and-done” deal.

Trump is rewriting our immigration law to come after families like mine

  Late last month, the Trump administration released a draft rule that would change the way immigration works in the United States. Under the proposal, immigration officials will try to predict whether a person applying for a green card might receive government assistance, like Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program, at any point during their future life in the United States. If it seems possible — because the applicant isn’t wealthy or has a disability — then the green card will be denied, even if the applicant has met all of the other criteria.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse – Democrats have three viable candidates, but Republicans will prevail

  In politics, perception is reality. It is perceived and therefore factual that a Democrat cannot win a statewide race in Alabama.

  The proof is in the pudding. We have 29 elected statewide officeholders in the Heart of Dixie. All 29 of them are Republicans.

  In addition, 6 out of 7 of our members in Congress are Republican. We have one lone Democratic member of Congress. Terri Sewell occupies the seat in Congress designed to be held by an African American.

'They served their time. Their voices could make a huge difference.'

  Lorena Barnum Sabbs was just 11 years old when she was arrested.

  She was trying to integrate the local movie theater in Americus, Georgia. But when the group of 30 girls refused to leave the balcony, police arrested them and drove them almost an hour away to the Leesburg Stockade. They slept on the cells’ cement floors. They were threatened. A snake was thrown into their cells. Some were held as long as 45 days.

  Their parents didn’t know where they were until a local dogcatcher spread the word. No one could get them out until the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee sent a photographer. Sabbs told the story of her 1963 arrest to Susan Chira, who interviewed more than 50 black women during a voter mobilization bus tour across Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi last week.

Three takeaways from the New York Times’ bombshell Trump investigation

  Last week, The New York Times published a bombshell investigative report alleging that the Trump family engaged in “outright fraud” and other schemes to dodge federal taxes over many years. Through these schemes, the Trump family may have avoided or evaded as much as $500 million of taxes on the transfer of wealth from President Donald Trump’s parents to him and his siblings.

  If true, the revelations in the 14,000-word story are shocking. They bear on Trump’s personal finances, his credibility, his greed, and—perhaps most importantly—his policies. The revelations include:

Being basically honest

  After a workshop, a fellow came up to me and complained that I had made him feel uncomfortable. “I’m not perfect,” he said, “But I’m basically honest.” His implication was that it’s unfair to expect people to be honest all the time.

  His comment reminded me of a cartoon where one fellow confided to another, “I admire Webster’s honesty, but his insistence on being scrupulously honest is really annoying.”