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 often use a three-word idiom to explain human behavior; accident, coincidence, and trend. The current anti-Semitic controversy surrounding the demonstrations of ignorance by NBA star Kyrie Irving makes my point. His accidents of language have stopped being funny, are not a coincidence, and have become a trend. In 2017...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
The split in America is less about politics than—it is—politics becoming our lives. It is more about party alliances and tribal wars. It has reached such a crescendo that in January of 2021, it morphed into an armed insurrection at the nation’s citadel. Many seem incapable of allowing common sense...
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...
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...
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...
There is an adage that reads ‘tragedy plus time equals comedy; hence the joke, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? It is always hard to write about a recent death without sounding crass or tasteless, but the truth is essential and enlightening. The death of...
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...
Most of us have lived next door to a man or woman who opens the backdoor to their home, welcomes the morning sun, and tosses out breadcrumbs for the birds. Generally, it is not a piece of freshly baked bread or a slice of that ciabatta one craves dipped in...
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...
Democrats have an opportunity to simplify the treacherous and near treasonous behavior of Donald Trump. Plain talk is required. I attended a neighborhood improvement meeting, and the local councilman started his address by saying he was there as the “validation marketer.” After a few quizzical looks, he finally said, ‘I...
Democrats have wanted to invest in climate control for twenty years and, at the least, take the issue seriously. After weeks of turning their backs on soldiers exposed to human, chemical, and toxic waste from burn pits, GOP politicians finished their ruthlessness by voting, by a majority, to deny children,...
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...
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...
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 January sixth committee members are faced with two questions regarding the tentative appearance of Steve Bannon as a witness. Is he trying to use the committee to save his skin and avoid a possible conviction on the contempt of Congress charges he is facing because he refused the committee’s...
Speculation has flourished for more than a year about whether Donald Trump wanted to escort the mob that descended on the Capitol in January of 2021, or was it just more of his empty bravado and bluster. In the latest January 6, Committee hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, former advisor to Donald...
Being a black man, I have a perspective that I am sure will match the experience of other races. People of color in America spend a lot of time apologetic to racists. Massa, we sick. I am sure he did not mean it that way, he has never said anything...
Strong black women have surrounded me for most of my life. I cannot speak, personally, to accomplished women of other races, which I know there are many, but I can rely on my own experience. I was raised by a black woman—born pre-1910—who mentored and protected five generations of my...
Again, the invasion and war crimes in Ukraine demonstrate how the GOP is habitually wrong. Whether it be something as serious as our southern neighbors trying to escape the same types of violence and death in El Salvador and Honduras—like women and children in Ukraine, or if a green M&M...
Vladimir Putin has made his second foray into Ukrainian territory since 2014, first Crimea and now poised to march into Kyiv. Both moves were against Democratic presidents, and both seem retaliatory for personal reasons. Putin’s tension with the Obama administration is well documented, especially with former Secretary of State Hilary...
The moment you mention racial discrimination in this country, some recoil in horror. First, come the denials—because the people accused are not carrying a noose or wearing a hood. Next, the attempt to shut down the discussion with the two-word phrase ‘race card’ which has been replaced with the word...
Since anti-Obama protesters donned three corner hats adorned with dangling tea bags, the Republicans have proven, over and over, they are followers, not leaders. After some consultation, the so-called “grassroots” group removed the tea bags because of the sexual connotation of being called teabaggers. Hence the Tea Party. As it...
Yesterday was the LVI (56th) Super Bowl. Some “over-officious jerk(s)” (thank you, Marv Levy) spoiled a spirited game at the end, but for me, the real action took place before the kickoff and at halftime. A lot of black America is still reeling from the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick. The...
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...
Remember when the Trump administration was telling Americans that an “invasion” of migrants was going to threaten our very existence in mere days. Yes, a caravan of mostly women and children was going to take your freedom in the fall of 2019. A year earlier, Mr. Trump told us to...
Even with all the evidence of voter suppression, flouting of the laws, and a failed coup, why the reluctance to use the word Fascism? The Republican party is openly advancing Fascism, and America is quietly going along. Ignoring the warnings, we accepted the USA/Patriot Act, which unfettered can trample...
It was predictable that the Republicans would drive down racist-trope avenue to disparage a mythical black woman. President Biden pledged to pick a black woman for the Supreme Court, and the GOP is using familiar adjectives. What seems to be most at odds with Senator(s)Ted Cruz, Roger Wicker, and Susan Collins, to name...
I may be a little late to the Covid-Party but for the past several days, pundits, activists, and healthcare workers have condemned the words of award-winning author/columnist Bari Weiss, in effect giving them more credence than deserved. Since Weiss escaped the bowels of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, she...
I had a couple of conversations over the holidays, the first with Superlib and next Conserva-wing. Superlib was introspective, offered me half his plant-based burger, and suggested I wash it down with a Kale smoothie. Me: What do you think of the Biden presidency so far? Superlib: Well, except for...
My great-grandmother, we called her Ma, died at the age of 79, about eleven years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She was a broad-chested woman with hips just as complete, and I remember her broad smile and big hugs. She was most relaxed in loose-fitting clothing...
In the seventies, one of my best childhood friends and I decided to see a movie one evening. My friend Keith was a big guy, over six feet tall and well over 200 lbs. He was not a football player like many inner-city kids his size, but he was a...
There is a funny and oft-repeated line from the standup comedy act of Chris Rock— for some (expletive) they supposed to do! Rock’s punchline was a rebuff to one wanting congratulations for accomplishing their fundamental responsibility. Republican representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are surfing the liberal wave because they chose...
With the news media lapping at the toes of the former Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, save for a few like MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, no wonder the GOP bar for redemption is set so low. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is fighting the headwinds of oversized media expectations, conservative propaganda, ridicule...
I had a spirited discussion a little over a week ago with a family member about getting vaccinated and the idea of a vaccine mandate. Both of us and our families are vaccinated. We agreed on the science and the necessity. The problem came when I ferociously stated I had...
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...
When one speaks of the far-right-left, the obvious target for progressives would be Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Although they both are low-hanging fruit, the harvest is bountiful. Voices of the left, like comedic satirist Bill Maher, longtime Democratic strategist James Carville, and...
I wonder what happens this coming February; you know, Black History Month. Will the contingent of book banners and people who fear the delicate little psyches of white children will be permanently marred by black history prevail. Since the first enslaved Africans stepped out of the bowels of slave ships...
The Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races are going to be decided on Tuesday, November 2. Although Republicans Glenn Youngkin and Jack Ciattarrelli are playing hide the Trump, Democrats Terry McAuliffe and Phil Murphy lead in the polls; McAuliffe narrowly and Murphy, reportedly, with a lead from six to twenty-nine...
In nineteen seventy-four, I reached three milestones in my life. In March of that year, I turned eighteen; ten days later, I registered with selective service—conscription ended in 1973, and naively I registered as an independent voter. I remember the sense of power I felt. I could join the military...
The 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP-26), scheduled to open on 10/31/21 in Glasgow, Scotland. COP brings wealthy and developing nations together to discuss fighting climate change as one entity. The conference for this year will attempt to finish the rules for the carbon market, not completed at...
It seems Joe Manchin does not know where he belongs. Progressives know well what Manchin’s values represent. Joe Manchin should know Watch Politics Done Right TV here. The moderator at The Economic Club asked Joe Manchin if it would be easier being a Republican or if he has been approached...
I was recently asked; what do you think about the Dave Chappelle controversy? Without explanation, I knew the questioner was referring to his recent Netflix comedy special “The Closer.” I must first confess that I am a big fan of Mr. Chappelle. His now-defunct late-night sketch comedy show, his stand-up,...
