Jaber Borran

Category: Society

  • Cruelty Is the Point, Not a Side Effect

    USDA emailed grocery stores around the country telling them not to offer special discounts or deals to SNAP recipients amid the freeze, warning that doing so would violate the program’s “Equal Treatment Rule.” That rule requires stores to sell eligible food items to SNAP-EBT customers at the same prices and under the same conditions as…

  • A Ponzi Scheme, or an Insurance Policy?

    So the genius billionaire co-president believes that the Social Security Program is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Actually, I take it back. While he may not be as smart as many believe he is, I don’t think he is as dumb as he pretends to be either. I am fairly confident that he…

  • A Democracy in Peril

    The minimum requirement for a democracy to function is that, at every election, each individual voter is able to correctly identify and vote for a person/party whose policies protects that individual’s own interests. Ideally, each individual would be able to determine what is in the best interest of the entire society, and would vote based…

  • Lack of Dialogue, and Extreme Polarization

    I don’t know when sentences like the following started becoming fashion statements: These days, many seem to be taking pride on not talking about political and socioeconomic issues of their societies, and instead talking about sports and celebrities. Not that anything is wrong with talking about sports and celebrities; but I just wonder how “not…

  • Ignorance is Bliss (2)

    My previous post on this topic focused on Trump’s nominations for critical cabinet and other positions in the executive branch. But I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to point out that the expression in the title applies to many other situations as well, one of which relates to a recent and unfortunate encounter I…

  • Ignorance is Bliss (1)

    The president elect has started announcing his picks for cabinet and other important positions in the executive branch. And each picks is more astonishing and controversial than the previous one. I am not planning on going through all of his picks here, but just mentioning a few will help appreciate the scope of the disaster.…

  • Agree to Disagree

    In the current tumultuous political environment, I often hear people say “let’s agree to disagree,” when they realize that they really don’t have any reliable source or evidence for their claims or arguments other than that they had heard it in a Trump rally, or from Fox News or Newsmax, or had seen it in…

  • Your Body, My Choice

    If you feel angry by just reading the title of this post, you are not alone. Millions of women in America are now feeling angry by seeing the misogynistic posts with this title all over the social media, posted by self-proclaimed “alpha” males who feel empowered by the results of the recent presidential election. Their…

  • The Day After

    So, we didn’t just lose the presidency, we lost the senate too. And chances are we will lose the house as well! 😟 Go project 2025. 😥 In his last term, he did what he promised (except for the wall): tax cuts for the wealthy (Reagan’s trickle-down economics) and overturning of Roe v. Wade (probably…

  • The Election Night

    With most polls indicating a very close presidential race -pretty much within their margins of error- I doubt anyone can confidently make a prediction about the outcome of the presidential election (please see How Reliable Are Election Polls for a more sinister view on the predictions made solely based on such polls in general). However,…