The Super Bowl teams’ mascots have some ugly history behind them

Super Bowl Sunday is a uniquely American celebration of guts and grit, cash and commercialism. It’s our annual ritual and favored sport. Thanksgiving is the only other American holiday that Super Sunday rivals.

This year it’s San Francisco versus Kansas City in Miami for Super Bowl LIV,” the 54th championship gladiator event.

But before there was the NFL, there were real 49ers who fought against actual chiefs. It was history’s Version 1.0 of a non-gridiron battle where native sons fought Native Americans. This partly forgotten fight remains a shameful part of U.S. history. That long-ago chapter is relevant today, at a time when racism and foreign immigration remain hot-button political issues. READ MORE

New trade agreement with U.S. could breathe new life into Mexico's economy

Tijuana, Mexico –

Zonkeys are a unique animal inhabiting this Mexican border town and found mainly along the central commercial drag on Avenida Revolución. A zonkey is a donkey painted white with dark zebra stripes in order to stand out in its unnatural habitat and attract both sober and drunk visitors onto their saddles and into pricey tourist photos. Zonkeys are a symbol of this border town and, like so much else here, appear to be one thing but are actually quite another.

Neo Kounalakis astride an unusual beast with a bit of kick in it.

Tijuana is portrayed as crime-ridden, dirty, impoverished, and a destination for caravanning Central Americans seeking to cross the border into the USA. It is a wall and fence riven city with steel stakes that are piled not only across the polluted, national boundary crossing the Tijuana River but also along streets, onto beaches, and far into the water on the Pacific Ocean’s shore. That is the sight you see when standing on a bridge or in a high-rise building looking north. What you don’t see is actually quite different. READ MORE

Americans are real victims of our trade war with Mexico and China

America has declared war on China and Mexico, but it is a new style of warfare. Or at least it seems so. With the latest volley of levied and threatened tariffs on Chinese and Mexican exports, POTUS has thrust the U.S. into a new phase of economic warfare against both competitors and friends.

Americans, however, will end up paying the price.

Modern warfare is no longer just conducted by guns and bombs. Wars today are ongoing and take place during what seems like peacetime. Just because a financial war appears bloodless does not mean it is also harmless or without victims. In fact, the silent, unseen economic warfare Donald Trump is waging — and threatens to escalate — is highly effective at hurting both people and nations. READ MORE

Trump strikes out in rejecting Cuban baseball agreement

Baseball is a colorful sport where bleacher bums spend entire games browbeating umps for making early-inning bad calls. President Trump has made a lot of bad calls during the past two years, but none is likely to incense the general public more than his decision to dump the Major League Baseball Cuban player agreement.

Well, maybe healthcare.

Unbelievably — and unceremoniously — Trump just struck out with both American and Cuban baseball fans. For Miami, it’s bad enough that the Marlins are dead last this early in the season. What’s worse is that POTUS just shut down the deal that would have brought a few more gifted, big-bat Cubans into the league. As Marlin Stadium habitués might put it: “Throw the bum out!” READ MORE

Cut the charade and crown the president

Wow! Did the Supreme Court just give the president the power of decree? Finally, a branch of the United States government that recognizes its junior status and accedes to the supreme authority of the executive branch. The travel ban ruling is a parsed argument that effectively states the president of the United States has the authority to proclaim that his national security policies are overarching and that his being is infallible.

A malleable, rubber-stamping Congress and a freshly quiescent Judiciary have now fully abdicated their roles as a check on presidential power and collectively put a bow around a now fully-evolved imperial presidency. They just packaged and presented this generous gift to President Donald J. Trump.

Yes, the travel ban ruling is a reasoned and narrow decision that focuses on the executive’s authority over immigration. But the effect of the ruling ignores the express intention of the president’s ban. It also fails to acknowledge that the current Oval Office occupant defies reason, while, ignores previously limiting checks, and takes every opportunity to expand the powers of his office. Justice may be blind, but it is not supposed to be deaf and dumb, too.  READ MORE