If nothing more than for the brilliant musical score, many of us have watched the biographical movie about the life of Ray Charles more than once. If you are like me, you are familiar with a line uttered by Jamie Foxx, portraying Charles early in the film. When Ray Charles...
Abortion
Most of us have heard the tale of the frog in boiling water. If you try to put a frog in boiling water, it will hop out, but if you place it in the water and heat it slowly, it will sit and cook to death. The Republican party has...
Democrats court trouble when they use metaphors and comparative thinking. Remember when former President Barack Obama used an old idiom. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” in a June 2008 fundraiser during his run for his first term as President. Republicans like his opponent John...
Saturday, October 8, 2022, not 1952, Alabama Senator and former football coach Tommy Tuberville tossed the hood of racism into the fray with cynical jabs at people he described with the pronoun “they.” According to Tuberville, “They are not soft on crime. They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime...
As a practicing Democrat, I have endured the slings and arrows of the conservative-Christian community for years. I have heard that caring about the poor, taking the stewardship of the planet seriously, and leaving the decision to have a baby to God and the mother were spawns of the devil....
It ceases to become patriotism. As a child, I remember reading about post-revolution farmers laying down their plowshares to serve a year or two in government. It was understood that serving one’s government was a patriotic, albeit temporary, duty, not a career. Growing beans, potatoes, and corn made you a...
In the White House Rose Garden yesterday, President Joe Biden read from a twelve-page pamphlet labeled by its author Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) as the “12 Point Plan to Rescue America.” The Republican party’s most fervent dreams are in it, getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Just as...
The video of the grinning, cackling devotees of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ deliberate cruelty is what we should fear. No signs of empathy or concern, just scornful sarcasm and laughter. The hypocritical enclaves of self-professed Florida and Texas Christians who want to force victims of rape and incest to bear...
A day after the Queen of England died, the President of the United States traveled to Ohio. Joe Biden announced a manufacturing revitalization plan for the rustiest of the rust belt states. With the federal government’s help, the Intel corporation is building a 20-billion-dollar chip fabrication plant outside Columbus, Ohio....
Anyone who has read my column, stories, blogs, and meanderings is well aware that I am an avowed liberal. I am so anti-gun in the hands of civilians—banning assault rifles would be the beginning for me. Despite the recent assassination of their former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, I am a...
They can at least keep up. The industrial world has moved past the days of child brides, concubines, and selling our female children as brood chattels. The case of a victimized, brutalized, and impregnated ten-year-old in Ohio is a perfect example. The conservative media is losing their minds over a...
The panic over 9/11 that led to the Patriot Act is almost understandable. We had seen thousands of our fellow Americans incinerated, and our military and financial invincibility symbols were toppled. So, limiting a few freedoms for revenge seemed reasonable amid anger and fear (at the time). I am baffled...
Since around age sixteen, I have had friends and adults in my life who have said to me more than once, ‘no, no, I don’t do politics.’ Well, to those who angrily rebuffed me—I say—you may not do politics, but politics is doing you. From local legislatures and school boards...
Yes, everyone has the right to swing their fist; but no one has the right to swing their fist at my nose. The previous statement is a reworking of the old saw—your rights end at the tip of my nose, but vaccinated Americans need to reiterate their rights to life...
“[The debt limit suspension] ensures our federal government will not approach any kind of short-term debt crisis in the coming weeks or months. It secures our nation’s full faith and credit and ensures that Congress will not throw this kind of unnecessary wrench into the gears of our job growth...
Let me start by saying no one—for or against—is in favor of abortion. Subjecting a woman and her partner to outside scrutiny from what is the most anguished-filled decision of their lives, is no business of any of ours to decide for any woman. One of the few tenets left...
Layaway, on-time, and paying-something-down-on-it have been very familiar phrases in black, brown, and poor neighborhoods for generations; credit was for the people who did not need it. Financial freedom because of race, religion, and status was prohibitive for countless numbers of Americans and immigrants. The constant pressure of having to...
A few years ago, a pro-choice science fiction author named Patrick S. Tomlinson challenged anti-choicers about their priorities when it came to protecting human life. He set up a straightforward thought experiment in which one is asked to make a snap value judgment about the competing needs of a 5-year-old...
Repost: Fordham Political Review. No one issue in politics today causes greater polarization than the issue of abortion. I remember sitting down with my mother in high school, nerves fluttering in my stomach as I asked her, “What do you think about abortion?” I was thinking about the fact that...
Some big news today out of North Carolina: Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s career in politics is not over. McCrory, a Republican who served one term as the state’s chief executive and 14 years as Charlotte’s mayor, has launched a campaign website announcing his run for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate...
“As in the Times Op-Ed from which the book originated, the title refers to the results of studies conducted in Germany from the mid-nineteen-eighties onward, which reported, among other intriguing findings, that eighty per cent of East German women always experienced orgasm during sex, compared to sixty-three per cent of...
State level GOP parties are doing all kinds of stupidity, censuring its US senators, and following on the usual RW craziness, resorting to the pre-GQP tropes, as befits a state that elected Tommy “not Mr. Potato-Head” Tuberville. This is another extension of the old CT of global new-world order, something,...
Replying to Representative Adam Kinzinger’s family, what a sad letter diatribe to send to one of your own. I am a democratic socialist. I am an antifascist. I support gun control. I am a non-theist Buddhist [atheist]. I support Extinction Rebellion. I approve of the Green New Deal. I believe...
Trump aide who slipped an abortion pill into a girlfriend’s smoothie claims Trump is happier. The reality is that there may be a Trump sockpuppet account in Parler anyway, but fortunately no one has yet noticed. x https://t.co/tFzNoKODki— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) February 8, 2021 x A Former Aide Would Like...
The Supreme Court heard another case pitting religious “liberty” against science and—hey, ho!—science lost again. Religious liberty is a bedrock American value. It doesn’t simply protect believers’ right to believe; it also, perhaps indirectly, helps preserve my right not to believe. If Mormons aren’t allowed to believe in sacred underwear, how...
Oh, this is beyond delicious. Like a giant tub of Red Vines cascading down my Twizzlers-hole like a … this simile has gotten away from me. Never mind. Anyway. Delicious. The National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson. Witless Ape Rides Helicopter Well, that sucked. Memo to MAGA and all its myriad fellow-travelers: Maybe Death...
It’s always been obvious to people with more than a cursory understanding of politics that Republicans only pretend to care about working people and small business owners. They accomplish this by endlessly flogging cultural wedge issues like abortion, gun rights, LGBTQ rights, and perceived Christian “persecution” — while at the same...
A piece in The Bulwark gives us another political neologism, as if we had enough to deal with in designated “more conservative”, “more moderate”, “less liberal”, and even anti-progressive Democrats. At their margins they may be responsible for the Democratic losses in Congress even as Trump has been defeated. “Can’t we all just get...
Lemmings, with the Secret Service locked and loaded. Was this also a protest of DC gyms’ occupancy limits? x This loser parade must’ve left their self respect at home. https://t.co/ztC8SLOMUC— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) November 14, 2020 x MOMENTS AGO: Trump supporters rush to see the president's motorcade driving by. pic.twitter.com/h0brs4gfC0...
I have republican family members and I know right-wing fellow workers.I researched for the unions in the South for a decade. I’ve done collective bargaining to protect the health plan of an industrial worker group of several hundred union members who voted almost 100% for Trump in 2016. The...
I’ve argued with many a conservative over the years. No matter what the argument, be it violence against women, kids in cages, killing old people to save the economy, etc., the right-wing extremists will always try to bring up abortion. They do this for two reasons: they can’t possibly justify their...
Donald Trump in 2016: There has to be some form of punishment for the woman. x 📺 NEW VIDEO This is #WhatsAtStake pic.twitter.com/LSUCYRcSaU— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) October 27, 2020 Roe v. Wade will be overturned. Red states will outlaw abortion, and penalize those who seek it. The only hope is a...
From The Huffington Post: Though Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has lost several key endorsements to Democratic challenger Sara Gideon this election cycle, she received the full support last week of at least one group in her state: the anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion Christian Civic League of Maine. During an Oct. 13 interview...
One has to remember that an Amendment to the Constitution is PART of the Constitution, and since it is LATER than the original text of the Constitution actually becomes more relevant. And so I remind you that the Bill of Rights was ratified by a Congress including a number of...
It is one of the GOP’s tried and untrue slanders, deployed every time a Republican President nominates an anti-abortion Catholic to the federal judiciary. The GOP and its amen corner claim Democrats are waging a “war on Catholics” and requiring a “religious test” for office. This week’s confirmation theater for...
Donna Provencher at The American Independent has a great piece about how U.S. Senate candidate, John James (R. MI), has been cozening up right-wing extremists like Ted Nugent (pictured above) and some other awful groups: He has been photographed with and is alleged to have received campaign contributions from Ryan...
You’ve probably heard that the Regeneron antibody treatment Donald Trump received and subsequently touted as a “cure” for COVID was tested on cells that originally came from an abortion. I’m sure this isn’t the first time an abortion has saved Donald Trump’s ass (just guessing here), but in this case, he’s the...
She’s so fucking awful: x Remember: China gave this virus to our President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @FLOTUS. WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.— Kelly Loeffler (@KLoeffler) October 2, 2020 United States Senator Kelly Loeffler directly blamed China for infecting President Donald Trump in a Friday morning tweet. In the...
Bull shit: Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) says she doesn’t think the Supreme Court will overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling, even though she signed a brief urging the court to do so earlier this year. “I think the likelihood of Roe v. Wade being overturned is...
Other than delusions of victory, Trump is trailing and needs to win the debates. Yet Trump, as with his original 2016 plan, remains focused on surviving past inauguration day short of an indictment. Trump is desperate for a post-election deal that will cover his massive billion-dollar debts which he may cover...
int.nyt.com/… According to a New York Times/Siena College poll, 59% of likely American voters support granting statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, while 20% were opposed and 15% were undecided or gave no answer. The survey taken September 22 to 24 comes from the pollster rated A+...
I’d like to crowd source reaction to the following proposed list of questions — because we don't have much time to prepare for confirmation hearings. The questions are not said with hope of derailing the nominee, but recognizing (very much so) that the confirmation hearings are part of a larger political...