MAY 8, 2025
Dave Johnson is Founder and principal author at Seeing the Forest (www.seeingtheforest.com). Dave is a frequent public speaker and talk-radio guest and a leading participant in the progressive blogging community. He does a regular weekly segment on the popular Fairness Radio radio show. Currently Dave is a Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future, where he writes about issues involving American manufacturing, trade, and industrial policy. Recently Dave helped co-found Carbon Tracing, Inc., the company developing the desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US. Before starting Seeing the Forest, Dave had over over 20 years of technology industry experience and has previously held senior industry positions including CEO and VP of Sales and Marketing. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic, and he was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers.
I think we should all be aware that confirmation bias is a real thing. The US has done terrible things. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was illegal aggressive warfare, with its “run up” of propaganda lies to justify what Bush did. Vietnam, wow … CIA overthrowing elected governments and installing horrific, murderous dictatorships. And what we did with Russia after the Soviet Union fell led to Putin and the oligarchs running things. So Continue Reading...
You probably think I’m going to mock this. Nope. Watch this interview. It is a master class in propaganda. What he says was obviously (to me) written in one of their well-funded think tanks. He has obviously rehearsed this. Those of us who mock it just don’t get what the real message is and how effective it is. As I keep saying, the current Republican fascist appeal all goes back to “NAFTA” – which is the brand name for the Continue Reading...
“Protectionism” literally means we, as a nation, protect our national interests. It is one more word that has been twisted to make people think it’s a bad thing, like “entitlement” (the things we are entitled to as citizens in a democracy) or “welfare” (people in a democracy making each others’ lives better.) “Trade” is about competitive advantages. It used to mean one region can grow bananas and another can grow corn, and by trading they each Continue Reading...
Corruption is such an issue… This is part of a 2014 post titled Eric Cantor Goes To His Reward. I’m posting this in honor of Joe Biden cashing in on public service by receiving $200K for speeches. Take The Gold Or Take The Lead Our system has become corrupted and everyone knows what I mean. Everyone understands that government officials who “play ball” can get a huge paycheck after leaving government if they help certain big businesses Continue Reading...
I agree with the tariffs, but not the way it is being done. It should have been planned, phased in, coordinated with US industry and, most important, part of a comprehensive US economic/trade/industrial policy. The latter just isn’t going to happen under Trump nor under a Wall Street dominated economy even with Democrats running things. Continue Reading...
Driving up deficits and then using deficit fear to stop spending on things that We the People want and need has been open Republican strategy since Reagan. Google “strategic deficits.” Tom Wicker explained in the NY Times in 1985, in IN THE NATION; A Deliberate Deficit, To hear Larry Speakes tell it, President Reagan emerged from anesthesia righteously demanding action on the budget deficit ”this week.” That sounds fine – except that it now Continue Reading...
Democrats are making a terrible mistake fighting the Republican tax cuts by saying they add to the deficit, that they will “blow a hole in the budget,” etc. Why are Democrats saying this? They are using the “increase deficits” line because they think they can appeal to a few “deficit hawk” Republicans who spent the Obama years complaining about government sending and “deficits.” Continue Reading...
For some reason, the public thinks politicians side with corporations. Imagine that. And they’re looking for politicians who do not. The LA Times reports on focus groups with voters, seeing what they think today, in These voters in Arizona are fed up with Democrats, Republicans and, most of all, Trump, More than two dozen voters gathered in Phoenix this week delivered a bipartisan broadside against President Trump, Republicans and Continue Reading...
Here are some thoughts on the report that Russia was trying to — or did — hack into our election systems before the election. 1) Why was this a secret? Who from? Obviously it wasn’t a secret to Russia. Maybe they’re keeping the idea that they detected it a secret? (And this tips Russia or whoever off to what we did not detect, by the way.) 2) We only know about hacking that we detect, not that which we do not detect. It’s like the Continue Reading...
Republicans are proposing a huge, huge cut in corporate tax rates. They are also proposing to let giant, multinational corporations keep much of the taxes they already owe on profits they are keeping in “offshore” tax havens. Lower tax rates mean higher after-tax profits, which increases the value of stock holdings. Continue Reading...
Who could be against fair pay and safe workplaces? Give you one guess. President Trump just signed a bill, passed by the Republicans in the House and Senate, that repealed President Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order. Continue Reading...
This is classic dumb guy wedding speech writing: “The chorus of their dating became an earthquake of their love.” – Samantha Bee on Trump’s speech Donald Trump just gave a fact-free, and detail-free, speech to a joint session of Congress. Early on in the evening, the president – who has loaded his cabinet with billionaires and his administration with former Goldman Sachs executives – earned audible guffaws from the assembled lawmakers when he Continue Reading...
Friday was Holocaust Remembrance Day. As you may have heard, the White house marked the occasion with this statement: It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror. Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest. As we remember those who Continue Reading...
The business-oriented media are loudly proclaiming that president-“elect” Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations will “boost” the economy. ● WSJ: Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Could Boost U.S. and Global Growth, Says World Bank ● CNBC: Trump tax cuts could boost earnings by 20 percent next year: Yardeni ● Fortune: OECD Says Trump Tax and Spending Plans Will Boost Global Economy ● Fox Business Video: Why Trump’s tax Continue Reading...
“You better keep your eye on your kids. We know what car you drive.” That’s the kind of threats a local union official is getting after President-presumed-Elect Donald Trump tweeted something bad about him. “You gonna die. Death is coming to you real soon.” A Florida woman is arrested for threatening the parents of a child killed at Sandy Hook. Trump-tied “fake news” sites claim the shootings there were a “hoax” intended to push gun Continue Reading...
