Congressman James Comer Jr. (R-KY) is the current ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. In January, when the 118th Congress is seated, he is set to become the Chairman of the committee when Republicans take control of the House. The proposed new Chair of the Oversight Committee has already...
BlackKos
In last night’s midterm results, deep red states remained blood red, and gerrymandered Democratic districts in Florida and New York turned purple or outright red, like Miami-Dade County in Florida. Now that the red wave has been dashed against the shore, I must write another of the millions of rehashes...
I was surprised this weekend when I looked out my window and did not see masked marauders carrying clubs, knives, or guns. My neighbors were not cowering in fear, trying to reach their cars or go to the mailbox. Teens were not armed to the teeth, and adults were not...
In the last days of campaigning, Republicans are narrowing their election focus to the so-called independent voter and conservative Democrats. Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz told his supporters their job is to talk to independent and conservative Democrat(sic) friends. They are to emphasize only three issues, economy, crime,...
A conservative justice on the Supreme Court asserted after the overturning of Roe v. Wade that other rights were safe, including LGBTQIA rights, birth control, and interracial marriage. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has long had a bee in his racial bonnet, started his quest in 2013 by eliminating section...
One can only live in fear if one listens to Republicans and watches their campaign ads. Republicans consistently decouple gun control from crime. Criminality is a real problem, but Willie Horton is not waiting around every corner. I have lived in Philadelphia for over 16 years and have not been...
While hyperventilating over imagined affronts such as kitty litter in schools to accommodate kids who believe they are animals or teaching courses that may offend little white kids with history, the hope of the greatest generation is now clouded in fear. When Franklin Roosevelt told America, “We have nothing to...
A part of the nationalistic, anti-immigrant, and rising anti-Semitic hunger in America is the refusal to examine the U.S. side of the border. The last presidential administration wanted to build walls and accused immigrants crossing our southern borders of being rapists and murderers. In 2018 over 30,000 murders were reported...
I may be a little late to the party, but I have just gotten through the first two episodes of Inventing Anna on Netflix. Anna is a self-absorbed faux socialite bent on using her friends, the press, and anyone with a Centurion Amex card for power. Early in their interview...
In less than thirty hours, we saw and heard decisions to fine broadcaster Alex Jones nearly 1 billion dollars in actual damages, with punitive damages to follow soon. A member of Congress (Marjorie Taylor Greene) defended his vile exploitation of the parents and spouses of murdered children and educators, asserting,...
Before I turn many of you off thinking this is some bible-thumping tirade, far from it. Sure biblical scholars and theologians will point out that misquoting the bible is a devilish trick. The often repeated bible verse “money is the root of all evil” is rightfully corrected to “ the...
Now that Hunter’s laptop has replaced Hillary’s emails as the distraction topic déjouer, I need someone from the right wing to tell me how their transgressions make Donald Trump innocent. Reports of the younger Biden being videoed snorting cocaine or Hillary Clinton bleaching emails are now a part of the...
For over a year, teachers and school boards have fought the myth of Critical Race Theory (CRT) being a bludgeon to batter white kids’ delicate psyche(s). Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has long been an advocate of school choice and privatization and glommed...
When a group of Islamic radicals terrorized the country on September 11, 2001, the resolve of Americans was mobilized, and the GOP doubled down on the hate. Despite the fact former President George W. Bush made it clear that Islam was not the culprit for the actions of a few...
Recently, and not the first or last time, issues involving the black community have been workshopped without input from one of the groups it affects most. On August 4, University of Virginia historian Allida Black, Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz, journalist Anne Applebaum, presidential historian Michael Beschloss, Vinay Reddy,...
In the mid-1920s, the term ‘Pinko’ reared its accusatory head. Anyone deemed a sympathizer but not a full-on communist was labeled a pinko—dare I say—semi-communist. The word’s resurgence was on display during the Army-McCarthy Hearings of the 1950s. Then Senator Joe McCarthy of Minnesota brought paranoia to new levels. He...
I have been a registered Democrat since 1976. Over the years, I have had many verbal—but respectable—battles with Republicans, Libertarians, and the Green Party. Throughout all those sometimes contentious disagreements, the only group that consistently and derisively refers to me as a socialist has been Republicans. I bring that point...
I was thrilled to wake up this morning and see the Biden administration hitting back at the critics of the President’s college-loan debt relief program. As the GOP gropes and grinds for an issue to get women and the so-called “woke” to stop caring about women’s rights, this week’s target...
In 2007 when former President Barack Obama announced for the presidency, Republicans immediately labeled him a celebrity candidate. Juxtaposed against shots of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears sauntering through crowds, a 2008 campaign ad for his opponent, John McCain, says of Barack Obama, “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world,”...
Remember when kids online were swallowing spoonfuls of cinnamon and setting their genitals on fire for likes and clicks? Adults like me would shake their heads, sigh, and be thankful to be a boomer because we just licked frogs and ran naked through mud-filled parks on acid trips. Those terror-filled...
Since the legal FBI search—not a raid—was revealed to have taken place at the Trump property in Mar-a-Lago, my phone has rung off the hook; what do you think, what did they get, who ratted him out? Since the punditry’s heart-pumping nonreporting began, leaning on former members of Trump’s inner...
Arizona’s Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema vowed to constituents she would help to lower the cost of prescription drugs. “We need to make health care more affordable, lower prescription drug prices, and fix the problems in the system – not go back to letting insurance companies call all the shots,” she...
Growing up in black America and old enough to remember, pridefully watching many blacks do something for the first time embeds possibilities in one’s historical eye. Two of the icons of my youth passed away over the weekend, William Felton Russell and Grace Dell Nichols. They are better known as...
I am not counting my trees before they are hugged, but with the help of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, Joe Biden is one Democratic party vote away from passing a historic climate bill. The former Build Back Better legislation is now called the Inflation Reduction Act. There are still...
To begin with, the Constitution makes no allowance for the arrest of a lawless current or former President. If that presidential exception existed, a sitting president could stand on Fifth Ave and shoot someone; Oh, wait! Despite the mountain of evidence, Donald Trump is not in jail for inciting a...
With over 250,000 adults living in the United States who routinely use the word “yesterday,” Donald Trump, who once said, “I know words,” apparently wants to eliminate its usage because it is hard for him. x YouTube Video Watching his mind sputter over the innocuous word “yesterday’ in the outtakes...
The GOP keeps dropping their theocratic pants, and America gets mooned. Despite having no platform beyond trolling the Democratic party, and self-serving religious attacks disguised as culture clashes, America is sliding to the bottom of that shining city on the hill Republicans are so fond of talking about. Democrats have...
At the turn of the century, horse racing was the number one sport in America. By the time Babe Ruth overtook Seabiscuit amidst the Great Depression, baseball had become America’s pastime. There are various iterations of what symbols mean the most to America, but the one I am most familiar...
Shortly after the slap heard ‘round the world last night, I feared my phone would catch fire from the tweets, messages, and calls. I am notorious for avoiding self-congratulatory award shows, and my friends know it. So they felt compelled to give me the news of Will Smith slapping the taste...
When Donald Trump repeatedly asked Russia [Vladimir Putin] to find thirty-thousand emails of his opponent Hillary Clinton, The press ate it up like a bowl of gazpacho. “Russia, if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably...
We Shall Overcome, Black Power, No Justice-No Peace, Say Her Name, I Run with Ahmaud and Daddy Changed the World. The preceding words are just a few chants, pleas, memes, and cries for help from black mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers over the years. I have chanted some of those...
America began its’ latest racial justice divide with the killing of Trayvon Martin. In the dark, alone, and taking his last breaths, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin felt his life ebb from his body due to a gunshot from his killer, George Zimmerman. From that moment, America began a game of choosing...
States’ rights, America first, Make America Great Again, and Freedom. As much as the right-wing tries to bestow nobility on their coded phrases, those buzzwords were bastardized to promote racism, antisemitism, and misogyny throughout American history. When all else fails, the tactic switches to ignore the truth and replace it...
Watermelon Man is a movie released in 1970, written by Summer of ’42 author Herman Raucher and directed by the late Melvin Van Peebles; for those younger than me, the elder Peebles is the father of Mario. About a year later, he released a low-budget cult classic entitled Sweet Sweetback’s...
If you were old enough and curious enough, most of us can remember where we were when tragedy struck. Historically sad events have a way of freezing that point in time like it is suspended in dry ice; only thawed by the heat of another heartbreak. Again, if you are...
The right-wing has spent the last few weeks gnashing and grinding their teeth to the gum line, trying hard to compare the Afghan evacuation to Ho Chi Minh City, (Saigon). President Biden extricated America from a black hole of war that sucked the very lives, resources, and emotions out of...
…suppressing your opposition with power; strong regimentation of society and economy, and dictatorial power- Fascism In the collegial setting, politics is taught as a science. It is meant to be an apolitical study based upon history or comparison, its global effects i.e. international implications, and accepted theory. Although modern fascism...
Not since, Tuco, Blondie, and Angel Eyes formed a triangle, within a circle, has greed, corruption, and self-interest intersected so destructively. Politics in America, for nearly 250 years has boiled down to money, policy, and humanitarianism in that order. Now it is strictly a good, bad, or ugly proposition. In...
[Governor] “If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” CNN debate moderator Bernard Shaw asked that question of then-presidential candidate Governor Michael Dukakis in 1988. The viewers wanted the visceral response but instead received a thoughtful and principled one, one that...
When I was a boy and strayed way, way past the rules of behavior set by my great-grandmother, she would say, “ enough is enough, and too much (sic) stinks.” Well, we reached that point in Afghanistan on Sunday. From the time then-National Security Director Zbigniew Brzezinski convinced then-President Carter,...
Most of us saw or heard the campaign ads for the gubernatorial race for Florida. Ron DeSantis, dressing his infant daughter in MAGA motif pajamas, helping her with border wall building blocks, and reading her a faux bedtime story about the fanciful mind of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the internal xenophobic...
For the past few weeks, I have heard from friends, colleagues, and enemies who say, ‘I never heard of ‘ Black Wall Street.’ Statements like that are why America needs Critical Race Theory in its’ school curriculum. I have spent my life, first as a child of public education and...
Once Senator Mitch McConnell staked out the politically uncompromising GOP opposition to ‘everything’ Democrats proffered, during the Obama administration, the redline was drawn. Slowly but surely, the so-called moderate Republicans like; Susan Collins, Rob Portman, and John Thune have repeatedly torn their knickers on the fence. Collins, for example, agreed...
The simplest explanation for lawyer Michael Godwin’s law is that the longer a debate or disagreement extends, it will eventually devolve into an unfounded comparison to Hitler and the Nazis. Godwin’s Law is a current topic because of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Marjorie Taylor Greene may have decisively proved...