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...
Housing
Rising seas that inundate coastal properties cause billions of dollars in damage and essentially have bankrupted FEMA. You and I ( the country's taxpayers) fund the National Flood Insurance Program, and the program heavily subsidizes waterfront homeowner's flood insurance most of whom are extremely wealthy. But starting October 1 of this year, those subsidies...
I have rolled a question around in my head for months; why are Republicans so mean? I have concluded that it is not meanness, it is fear. The fear of betraying the religion of Trump and fear of being called stupid. Having a point and blind devotion to a point...
Republicans swing the word freedom over the heads of their voters like the Sword of Damocles. It has become a meaningless mantra, cutting away real freedoms like affordable housing, healthcare, pay equity, and a clean environment. Freedom for a majority of Republicans has translated into the freedom to kill their...
Democrats, since the time of Franklin Roosevelt, have fought the accusation of wanting a Nanny State; equal access to housing, healthcare, fair wages, and education have been guiding tenets of the Democrats since the New Deal, the War on Poverty through the Covid Recovery Act—not always successful—but good principles, nonetheless....
A few years ago, I wrote the piece titled “Boomers Must Take Some Blame And Help Fix Generation Y Unhappy Problem” without any malintent. I was raked over the coals by my boomer friends who accused me of agism and much more. Some said I was pitting generations against each...
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...
Here’s the latest news today out of Pennsylvania: Lou Barletta, the Republican Party’s Donald Trump-endorsed nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018, is running for governor of Pennsylvania. Barletta, 65, becomes the most prominent figure to enter a 2022 governor’s race that Republicans have won every time in the past half-century...
Prior warning doesn’t excuse the destruction of media headquarters for Al Jazeera and the AP. An Israeli airstrike destroyed the Al Jazeera office in Gaza. The Israeli military warned they would hit the building that houses media organizations including the AP. Journalists who worked there had been reporting on the...
I’m not normally very taken with the “gotcha”” questions to politicians of “how much is a dozen eggs?” or “what is the price of milk?” Or (in the right locale) “what is the current price of soybeans?” I’m not surprised or upset that HW Bush didn’t know what a supermarket scanner was,...
Here’s the big news today out of California: The campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom has failed to gain momentum in recent months as significantly more California voters favor keeping him in office, and only anemic support has surfaced for reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner while other Republican candidates hoping...
Shedding Facebook becomes more necessary as awareness of disinformation and propaganda effects forces editorial action by Facebook. The problem is that ad revenue can and has come from malign forces beyond the usual influence operations of capitalism. This comes as its Oversight Board asks more questions about Facebook’s role in...
The New York Times Editorial Board officially made their endorsement today for the next Mayor of New York City and it’s a very compelling endorsement: All of the candidates in the June 22 Democratic primary are concerned with the welfare of their city and have thoughtful ideas about how to...
Generally, Martha Raddatz and other hosts allow Republicans to appear on their shows and lie without challenge. Sen. Barrasso failed this time. Raddatz stop the lie-in-progress See full episodes here. Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso is one of the GOP’s more competent liars. Recently, a few hosts have been calling him out....
Whether it’s soccer teams or sandwich shops, financialization was there before the pandemic, only making some of its supply-chain hijacking yet another example of an impending capitalist disaster. Re-regulation must remain important as crises loom in the post-pandemic recovery. A 2017 interview with UMass’s Gerald Epstein points to the need to...
Minnesota law enforcement, at its based level exhibits some intersectional issues often represented in fictional culture products like Fargo. Their police forces haven’t learned very much since the death of George Floyd. So many examples of bad faith below:
The sponsors of campus speakers like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos, Young America’s Foundation took on Pete Buttigieg, thinking that they were delivering trenchant criticism. Instead, they’ve revived the critical history of urban planning and design, now articulated by the Trump-jungend. Anyone who’s encountered urban elevated highways has experienced the social divisions...
Truly a tool, as the Inspector General reports are coming and Previous Guy’s going to be in the barrel. Donald Trump was a tool in a long-running Russian campaign to weaken the United States. That’s been documented in Republican-led investigative reports, and now it has been updated with new evidence, thanks to the U.S....
Received this e-mail today from former presidential candidate, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D. TX), on behalf of his organization, Powered By People: An update on our recent work: – For the last six weeks we’ve been knocking on doors in 17 of the lowest-income zip codes in Texas to help register...
Received this e-mail from U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth’s (D. IL) re-election campaign: In the United States, Black women are at least three times more likely than white women to die as a result of pregnancy. Here in Illinois, that number is even higher. That is a tragedy and simply not acceptable in...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D. OH) in support of U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock’s (D. GA) re-election campaign: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D. GA) It wasn’t all that long ago I asked you to pitch in toward Senator Raphael Warnock’s runoff election in Georgia. Well, I need...
Many Progressives are excited about the upcoming prospective “Green New Deal” which is already taking shape, even before formal Green New Deal legislation. Multi-billion dollar manufacturing plants for electrical vehicle batteries, providing 2000 jobs per plant, are already rising in Michigan and Georgia. Fossil fuel pipelines, already partly built like...
Mike Pence is homeless after leaving office and 'couch-surfing' with Indiana politicians, report says. Perhaps the however grateful Trump can put him up somewhere. Apparently Pence didn’t have a plan B for the November election, or maybe he’s hoping to borrow Clarence Thomas’s RV. x 📍Trump Hotel, DC – Looks like they drained the...
From the Human Rights Campaign, “Biden’s Executive Order is the most substantive, wide-ranging executive order concerning sexual orientation and gender identity ever issued by a United States president. Today, millions of Americans can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their President and their government believe discrimination based on sexual...
Almost immediately after the siege on the Capitol ended, people started both-sidesing the event. You know, liberals didn’t care about the violence and property destruction that arose in the wake of the racial justice protests over the summer (erm, false), so why do we care about this? In other words, the...
Some big news today out of Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman says he is taking “a serious look” at another run for the U.S. Senate in 2022, an ambition he plans to share with supporters on Friday. “The 2022 cycle in Pennsylvania is going to be one of the...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator-Elect John Hickenlooper (D. CO) in support of Jon Ossoff (D. GA) and Rev. Raphael Warnock’s (D. GA) U.S. Senate campaigns: Rev. Raphael Warnock (D. GA) & Jon Ossoff (D. GA) We can’t forget, folks — the Senate majority is still up for grabs!...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
All his life, Donald Trump has managed to avoid responsibility for the damage he’s done to others: his racial discrimination in his housing (not to mention his neglect of that same housing), his stiffing of contractors, driving many of them into bankruptcy, his exploitation of undocumented immigrants, his misogynistic treatment...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D. OH) in support of Jon Ossoff (D. GA) & Rev. Raphael Warnock’s (D. GA) U.S. Senate campaigns: Jon Ossoff (D. GA) & Raphael Warnock (D. GA) Jon Ossoff and Rev. Warnock’s runoff races in Georgia are our last chance to...
The crises facing the country are severe — from a pandemic to an economic recession, climate change to racial injustice — and the transition team will continue preparing at full speed so that the Biden-Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One. Biden Transition Team As I write...
We are fifteen days from electing the next President of the United States. Honestly, if you are still one of the undecideds, I would love to hear your reasons. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was widely criticized for saying if you do not vote for him “you ain’t black.” Other...
From The Houston Chronicle: “This is a state that perhaps better than any other understands the costs and consequences of Donald Trump,” O’Rourke said during a pre-debate press call hosted by the Texas Democratic Party. “And it’s a state by the way — not unrelated to that — that is...
Black people get that question put to us a lot more often than you would think. It is generally followed by the statement, ‘well…I don’t see color’ or ‘things have changed’ accompanied by a raised eyebrow of incredulity. Unlike the police or people who believe in witchcraft, people of color...
Received this e-mail today from former presidential candidate, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I. VT): This election, and possibly the future of the Supreme Court, will likely be won or lost with voters in battleground states. That's why we're asking you to support five grassroots organizations in key battleground states who...
Trump’s doing more law and order bafflegab among other idiocy, as Trump is whining about not getting credit for stuff. We’ll see whether he takes questions (and flees when the questions get too tough). He’s scared, especially if you compare his presser to Biden’s earlier today, replete with complete sentences. x...
Like the fantasy airline flights filled with numerous thugs, the delusional election stunts continue. The riff here is on “autonomous zones”. x This is the latest attempt to distract from the fact that COVID-19 has infected over 6 million Americans, killed 185,000 people, and destroyed the American economy. The only anarchy...
Crime was at a 50 year low when Trump took office. Remember that Trump is all about declaring non-trump supporters (and voters) as “un-American”. x Hours after a man wearing a far-right group's hat was shot and killed during clashes in Portland, Oregon, President Trump used his Twitter account to...
“I’m the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos.” Trump at the Council for National Policy Recalling that Mark Burnett wanted once to have Trump arrive at an event like Hitler at the Nuremburg rallies, next week’s GOP convention should have bombast to compensate...
Stop by and comment if you’re watching. There’s a diary on the DK front page. x YouTube Video x August 20: Last wk we got several national polls that suggested tightening & state polls that suggested stability. Today we got the opposite! Biden up 13 natly from Echelon and tied,...
I’m Red Woodman, Senior Investigator for what we call the “Frog Court.” If I can just get through today, I can retire with a pension. But a whole bunch of new cases just hit my in-basket and I came to work to find a guy sobbing over a couple of baby...