The parents of Republican politicians must have taught their kids not to make the bed, sweep the dirt under the carpet, and that a little dried egg on the corner of the plate is okay. In the intervening days, since the Republican party was literally at each other’s throats on...
Democracy
Yet another mass shooting happened overnight near my sister’s home in Virginia. After the body counts, the gnashing of teeth, and the solemn looks of talking heads interviewing the survivors and grieving family members, the right-wingers will step in and victim blame. The Alex Jones(s), Marjorie Taylor Greene(s), and Lauren...
When the good ship Cheney sank into the Green River last night, and for a moment, I regretted someone of flexible integrity losing a primary, at the same time, I grinned broadly. Undeniably, history will call Rep. Elizabeth Cheney a patriot. I hope that history and Democrats also do not...
“Slammer Time” may be on the horizon. It won’t be about the DoJ looking backward or forward, but looking inward to do something historical to maintain democracy. Because a malign GOP is going to try it again. The blueprint was there for a while before it was committed to paper...
Here’s the latest news out of Pennsylvania: The TV ad is no-holds-barred. It bluntly attacks a decision of the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Supreme Court. And on Saturday, the state Bar Association said the spot went too far. The ad says the Democratic contender, Superior Court Judge Maria McLaughlin, “chose...
The Rotten Core of the Republican Party -Binyamin Appelbaum -NYT Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, recently took to social media to warn that Democrats have hatched a dastardly plot. “Democrats,” he said, “want to track every penny you earn so they can then tax you and...
CNN’s David Gergen: The Only Thing That Can Stop Donald Trump From Running in 2024 is a Prison Sentence From the Insurrection, we know that conspiring to commit felonies is also a felony. We know with greater certainty that Trump knew what was going to happen, despite Pence’s resistance and...
If U.S. democracy falls this century, it will likely be at the hands of a stubby-fingered sack of extra-piquant donkey farts who likely never bothered to read the Constitution he swore to uphold—and certainly didn’t understand it if he did bother. In other words, we’re at the stage in the...
With roughly a third of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans, the party bombards us with the term American People at every utterance. With almost 60% of the country fully vaccinated, Republicans say the American People have doubts. Yesterday, Mitch McConnell, in response to questions about the insurrection, said the...
Republicans have proved to be masters at soundbite manipulation. The GOP has gotten, mainly, poor white people in the Red States to oppose Medicare expansion, happily believing that rich people trickling on them will eventually improve their lot. Truth in schools is being portrayed as a threat to whiteness, and...
There is a saying in playground basketball games, no harm, no foul. That may be fine for Sidney Deane and Billy Hoyle, but the United States’ sanctity is a different story. Saying that democracy is at stake seems to elicit two feelings, one, that Democrats are hyperbolic or Republicans are...
“Today's sentencing of human rights lawyer Steven Donziger should be front-page news ringing alarm bells anywhere people are concerned about democracy, abuses of corporate power, and the rule of law. The real crime here is the death and disease resulting from Chevron's poisoning of the drinking water of thousands of Indigenous...
As she walked through Ronald Reagan airport, Senator Krysten Sinema of Arizona confronted climate activists and others over her ongoing obstruction of the 3.5 trillion dollars build-back better plan. The former Green Party activist who campaigned for Ralph Nader in 2000 (which helped Goerge W Bush win the presidential election...
As she walked through Ronald Reagan airport, Senator Krysten Sinema of Arizona was confronted by climate activists over her ongoing obstruction of the 3.5 trillion dollars build-back better plan. The 3.5 plan is where the majority of climate provisions can be found. It is strongly opposed by the fossil fuel interests that...
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 tens of tens who showed up in Washington, DC Saturday had a face, former Trump staffer Matt Braynard. Braynard, who presents himself as one of the many “voter fraud experts,” investigating the presidential election, was front and center Saturday afternoon in the Justice for J6 huddle. Braynard, who once...
“He's crazy. You know he's crazy,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “He's crazy and what he did yesterday [Jan. 6] is further evidence of his craziness,” Her words were reportedly transcribed from a phone call between her and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (JC) of Staff General Mark Milley....
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...
The misplaced displays of so-called love for the U.S. by Republicans will eventually strangle her to death. We heard evidence of that in the opening testimony from one of four officers present at the Capitol insurrection on January 6. Faced with a frothing mob of white supremacists, fascists, and riotous...
After being assailed by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, strictly for political trolling points, Dr. Anthony Fauci made it a point to praise the new attitudes of some Republicans endorsing the Covid-19 vaccines. Republican congressman Steve Scalise who has worked as hard as any conservative to destroy anything with the word...
Now that Texas, Georgia, and Florida Republicans have left America by subverting the right of every American to vote, let us look at the rest of the southern Republicans, 66% of which favor secession. According to several polls, the phantom confederacy overwhelmingly favors leaving the Union. To be fair, five...
I was born in the 1950s when it was not illegal for black people in the south to vote—it was suicide. Pseudo-laws, tests, intimidation, hoods, ropes, and guns were the anti-democracy tactics of the day. Southern state officials could not legitimately ban black people from voting, so the strategy was...
Burned out at the end of the Joy-Ann Reid hour on MSNBC, I am ready for mindless tv. By that time, my intellectual palette is dulled by the talk of the continuous meal foisted on me of tasteless conservative ambrosia. A nice, seared steak of the NBA playoffs or a good...
Just broke by the New York Times and picked up by Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow: Hunting Leaks, Trump Officials Focused on Democrats in Congress As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed...
Why isn’t this guy in prison yet? Is it because he’s rich and white? Or because he behaves like a drug-addled mob boss? Getting to Donald Trump has always seemed a bit like nailing orange Jell-O to a wall. (Yes, I know that simile brutally defames orange Jell-O, which is...
So now that we have a president who doesn’t pose an existential threat to NATO, respects climate change accords, takes worldwide pandemics seriously and won’t flatter dictators, threaten to nuke hurricanes, or otherwise make the world’s foremost democracy look like King Kong on a four-year Jägermeister-and-bath-salts bender, the rest of the...
I don’t know if this statement has been diarized, my apologies, but it bears repeating often, so if anyone missed it. The Threats to American Democracy and the Need for National Voting and Election Administration Standards The Bolding is mine Introduction We, the undersigned, are scholars of democracy who have...
Some day, when Donald Trump is made king of the MAGA States of America—a commonwealth of the kingdom of the mole people, where he will reign over the primeval subterranean realms for a millennium, or until a hunk of Cool Ranch snackin’ lard gets lodged in his aorta, whichever comes first—people...
Arizona still is a paradigm case in attempts to overthrow governments. Apparently elections are now auctions and any idiot with money and a legislature in their pocket can demand election audits. Lawfare will ensue as democracy and information will become more rather than less opaque. The politicized “audit” of Maricopa County, Arizona’s...
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 addition of the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act was a turning point in terms of minority representation. Redistricting is the process of drawing electoral district lines every ten years intended to bring about racially proportional representation. While its purpose was to give weight to minority votes, it...
Voter rights legislation is winding its way through Congress with the foregone conclusion that Senate Republicans will scuttle it. Equitable voting rights legislation for blacks in America has been a 400-year exercise in hypocrisy. One man, one vote has been turned on its head so often, Ringling Bros. should have...
I’ve always wanted to slap the red Trump hats off all the Trumpy oafs’ heads, but that would be 1) illegal, 2) unduly disrespectful in a liberal democracy that prides itself on preserving, protecting, and nurturing diverse viewpoints and a healthy spirit of bipartisan bonhomie, and 3) a really bad idea...
It does seem clear that in the name of “bipartisanship, there may be pro-Trumpists chosen who will attempt to sabotage such a commission, because some will accept the same false premises manufactured in both Trump impeachments. Perhaps the most important thing is that it focuses the scope of the commission on “the...
Once upon a time a long time ago Republicans stood for obstructing Democrats no matter what the cost by claiming capitalist conservatism or other such nonsense. They were then engulfed in a miasma of tangerine bile. In a resurgence of democracy their tinted demagogue was deposed. Hallelujah! One would have...
The Republican members of the House of Representatives convened their star chamber this morning and ousted the most conservative member of their caucus. GOP House conference chair Liz Cheney is under fire for breaking one of their sacred tenets—not embracing duplicity and hypocrisy. The vote was held in secret because...
As Liz Cheney faces the near certain guillotine, she gave a defiant speech today (with all the points you would expect). What I noticed was this bit of reporting: As Cheney spoke, the Republican lawmakers mostly cleared out of the chamber, with Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado the sole...
Who could believe that Republicans would actually use a provable voter fraud fallacy to distract from institutional interventions that suppress votes. Why would they divert attention to voter suppression efforts and conspiracy theories as absurd as ballots shipped from abroad. And there’s no shortage of cynical extremists in the GOP. But...