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...
Love
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...
Either the political acumen of the voter is in dire need of reeducation, or Democrats need lessons in exploiting a golden opportunity. Republicans publicly pull off political tricks without recrimination. They manipulate the public with chicanery, walk away, and brag about it later. At the beginning of the Biden administration,...
Asking a rhetorical question; Is there an ongoing social experiment in this country that has continually pigeon-holed Black people and left the cage open for white men? If you ask a black man or woman—of mature age, we can point out the historical and verbal gymnastics that subtly brainwash our...
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...
Women and people of color had a unique experience that ended yesterday in Tokyo, Japan. The controversial Summer Olympics closed with America at the top of the medal leader board despite some members of the team having barbs and sticks hurled at them from the right-wing. Lots of conservatives and...
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...
Former President Trump ordered the Pentagon to release all of its information on “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP) within 18 days in his last coronavirus relief bill in December 2020. More inexplicable sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) will be released for public scrutiny in June — including a UFO that broke...
If I had to watch this, you do, too. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, who sounds like Mr. Haney and looks like Arnold Ziffel, shot a video that made the NRA—which is dissolving faster than an Adderall suppository in the pulpy crevasses of Donald John Trump’s bottomless backside—bray about “triggering” the libs....
I’ve spent some time in newsrooms, so I feel like I’m a savvier news consumer than most. While watching the local news, I’ve occasionally said to my wife, in reference to a particularly fawning segment about a product, “Yeah, that’s an ad.” (Yes, I’m married. What, do you think I spend...
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...
Donald John Ignatius Caligulard Trump has had a lot of coffee boys for someone who only drinks Diet Coke. If you’re in the Trump orbit and that orbit begins to decay, well, you might as well be green cruciferous vegetables as far as DJT is concerned. He sure as shit...
MFP is neologisms that get sticky. Cheugy is the latest, being a term that Generation Z calls Millennials, perhaps it’s the revival of more postmodernism. Generation Z consumer-brand attacks on Millennials consumption habits may be all that Gheugy is about. Proud Boys and their golf polos may be Cheugy, if only...
It’s one of the crimes that the victim is held immediately responsible for the crime. I am talking about la décharge sauvage [English: Fly-tipping, American: Fly dumping]. We have been at our small farm [our retirement plan] for fifteen years now and every year it gets worse. Every day, we...
Meet Michigan House member Matt Maddock. He’s a Republican who bought into the fiction that a gurgling bucket of Twinkie filling and circus peanut goo couldn’t have possibly lost to that nice man with the infectious smile and conspicuous lack of boat parades. He also thinks fact checkers need to...
Look, this is popcorn time. Orange man thinks he is so big and bad with a mouth that runs 90 miles a minute and filled with conspiracy and lies. Personally, I was always a bit leary of a quiet, soft spoken person. You never know what they are thinking and...
I’m always gobsmacked whenever anyone gets in bed with Donald Trump—either literally or figuratively—because, for one, he never shows love or loyalty to anyone and, for another … ew, gross. Last week, we discovered that glitching espresso machine cum coffee boy Rudy Giuliani wants Trump to pay him for his legal...
Whenever I feel compelled to freak myself out about the GOP’s seemingly ineluctable march toward cult-of-personality authoritarianism, I have to remind myself that Republicans might not be Hitler boof stormtroopers so much as they’re just lemmings. For the most part, rank-and-file Republicans still love the guy who tried to geld our democracy...
Time after time, Melania Trump slapped her husband’s hand away faster than a hummingbird could flap its wings. Assuming fusion power fails to pan out, it’s nice to know that her phalanges-flickin’ wrist is an untapped source of renewable energy that will last us at least until her death—or until...
A new book suggests now the necessity of reexamining the historical materialist project of Walter Benjamin recognizing those moments of historical contact as acts of recognizing the constructed historical object. “Historicism tends to be hermeneutic because it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized interpretation of information; or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental...
Received this e-mail today from Governor Jared Polis’ (D. CO) re-election campaign: Almost 70% of Colorado’s most vulnerable population, those aged 60 and older, are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. That’s fantastic news, but now that we’ve protected so many of our most vulnerable, our focus moves to protecting everyone...
Received this e-mail today from badass Rep. Katie Porter (D. CA-45) in support of appointed U.S. Senator Alex Padilla’s (D. CA) re-election campaign: Sen. Alex Padilla (D. CA) Hi — It’s Katie Porter. I’m not one to beat around the bush. So let me get right to it: I’m asking you...
“Today, a jury did the right thing. But true justice requires much more.“ x Opinion | Caught on camera Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is found guilty of all three counts of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.https://t.co/Wi66rRx6iO pic.twitter.com/alUPrS7W4u— Ann Telnaes (@AnnTelnaes) April 20, 2021 The...
Received this e-mail today from former presidential candidate, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D. TX), and his organization, Powered By People: I'm personally inviting you to join Beto and Powered by People volunteers next Tuesday, April 27, at a virtual phone bank to call voters in Webb County. I've joined Beto on...
Apparently the spree killer in Indianapolis was also a “Brony”, a follower of My Little Pony as reported by the Wall Street Journal. We are in our pandemic (l)anguish, even more confused by a sad shape for online culture. Not unlike the infantile imagery used by Boogaloo Boys, racism and sexism filter into...
Yesterday I was so depressed. Could not figure out why. Vet came and sat out on the patio and said, “You know, I am depressed really bad”. I shook my head and said, “Not a good sign you know if we both are”. I felt like a cloud was hanging...
Structural change needs to happen, because in community policing, community should precede policing. The paramilitary trend should not be seen as a burgeoning conflict between armed militias, one more official than the other. We need a de-escalation whose goal is the diametric opposite of the 1/6 insurrection. The problem isn't...
Received this e-mail today from former presidential candidate, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D. TX), and his organization, Powered By People: This week, HB 6, an egregious voter suppression bill, took a huge step toward becoming law in Texas. This bill along with SB 7 – which passed the State Senate last...
As much as I would like to take credit for the fitting title of this piece, I cannot. I heard it for the first time yesterday afternoon (April 8th) on the Randi Rhodes radio broadcast. A caller from Philadelphia used the two-word descriptor, and I found it apropos to the...
So I woke up this morning to discover Prince Philip had died. In the span of a few vertiginous moments, my emotions swung widely from indifference to mild interest and back to indifference. I went through the five stages of grieving 99-year-old men I didn’t know pretty quickly. I got to acceptance...
Is US progressive politics, especially in cultural issues, incapable of attracting majority support. Not so much in terms of the usual self-fulfilling marginalization, but there are absolute limits to the mutability of moderate ideologies in order to build working majorities. In these conditions, it seems almost certain that tit-for-tat will...
Remember Infrastructure Week? It’s coming back—this time without an infrastructure weakling deflating the promise of a newly rebuilt America. Joe Biden is set to unveil his sweeping $3 trillion infrastructure plan, and according to Axios, top economists are simply “giddy” about its prospects. Of course, Republicans understand Keynesian economics as...
He’s now posing as his own Walmart greeter. Trump regularly crashed random wedding receptions at his Bedminster NJ golf club, because he simply likes that opening-the-car-dealership shtick, and copping a feel from the bride seems more acceptable as perv-adjacent. Try the attention-seeking veal, and tip your cow. Unfortunately Facebook may allow him back by next...
Received this e-mail from former presidential candidate, Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s (D. TX) organization, Powered By People: Just this week, our team found out that there were two voter suppression bills — HB6 in the Texas State House, SB7 in the Texas State Senate — that were going to be introduced....
Yesterday the state of Georgia defined election integrity as—black people not voting. Republicans love to throw around the image of liberal politicians in hemp-filled rooms manipulating the lives of “real Americans.” Well last night, in a guarded room, Georgia governor Brian Kemp, flanked by a clique of hoodless, conveniently masked...
Rye Development is proposing a massive pumped storage power plant uphill from the site of the closed Goldendale smelter, next to the Columbia River. This facility will take over a closed pumped storage plant. Native American tribes, including tribes from Asia, originally migrated to this vicinity as a group with common languages and...
It always seemed absurd to me that hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have no effective representation in Congress. And I’m not just talking about Alabamans. But to hear some conservatives tell it, that’s as it should be because, you know, D.C. doesn’t have a car dealership. And they already make their...