Reflection

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,...

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  • October 25, 2021

We’re seeing more and more stories that Liz Cheney is about to be tossed under the bus, that the Republican “leadership” is so in thrall to Trump and his base, so dedicated to the service of Trump’s ego and his lies, that they are preparing to cast Cheney into the...

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  • May 4, 2021

I step back to reflect on many things, including this strangest year of my more than 2 ½ decades as a classroom teacher.  It is also as I approach what I suppose is a milestone of sorts, my 75th birthday on May 23. And of course since my major course...

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  • May 2, 2021

Here’s the latest news today out of California: At a time when transgender rights have become the new culture war in American politics, Republican Olympian-turned-celebrity Caitlyn Jenner announced a historic campaign Friday to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election. “As Californians, we face a now-or-never opportunity to fundamentally...

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  • April 23, 2021

Recently, Conservative Radio Host Charlie Sykes has been defining the Republican Party for who they are for a change. He says the GOP has lost its mind. Republican Party has lost its mind See full episodes here. When you have lost Conservative Charlie Sykes, not only on individual politicians but on...

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  • March 23, 2021

Lost relevance continues with more of the same Trump delusions up-chucking soon, signaled by the latest Big Lie interview with Fox News, likely leading to more revisionism. Unfortunately Trump’s memoirs would be regurgitating the propaganda with little insight or reflection. His Secret Service detail would be useful witnesses as a 1/6...

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  • March 18, 2021

There’s really only one Ted that’s applicable to an unconfirmed source trying to connect Greta Thunberg with the Unabomber and that’s Ted “Zodiac Killer” Cruz. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has mocked Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) after he criticized President Joe Biden‘s decision to rejoin the Paris climate agreement. “So happy that USA has finally...

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  • March 11, 2021

The Democratic Party is once again proving that integrity matters. In recent days, the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has had too very credible charges of sexual harassment levied against him. Couple that with the looming Covid-19 nursing home scandal involving the hiding of data on the numbers of deaths,...

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  • March 1, 2021

Greg Abbott searches for #TexasBlackoout blame in the state’s power utility but Texas deregulated its grid to avoid the very regulations that would have prevented this problem.  All in the name of profit. Greg Abbott now even blames the Green New Deal. 88% of Texas electricity is supplied by natural gas...

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  • February 17, 2021

Panelist Audie Cornish in her NPR-style pushed back when Chuck Todd seemed to create collective blame for future insurrections. Panelist Audie Cornish checks Chuck Todd See full episodes here. Americans are not used to real instability. They have never had a President like Donald Trump, one without morality, self-reflection, humanity,...

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  • February 14, 2021

Trumpies put their feet in their mouths on the regular (or should, anyway; I suppose doing so actually requires some measure of self-reflection and shame), but they’ve rarely promised to literally eat their own shoes. But one did. And he’s backing away from his promise. Because why would they change...

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  • January 28, 2021

More Charlie than Kevin, McCarthy now tries to polish a turd about the insurrection, tiptoeing a fine line between Trumpists and “post-trumpist” GOP constituencies. McCarthy is just not good with shiny objects to distract the media, as he defaults to the GOP’s more covert racial messaging. x Wherein @GOPLeader indignantly refuses...

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  • January 21, 2021

Donald Trump is ending his presidency the way he began it—as a squishy wad of id that just can’t get over how unfairly it’s been treated. Because he has the miasmic ego of a tyrant and the self-awareness of a prechewed legume, Trump is eschewing quiet reflection and self-recrimination in...

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  • January 10, 2021
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The neoliberals’ “free market” is not going to sequester enough carbon to save the environment. Even Warren Buffett isn’t willing to take a bet on surviving an impending climate crisis catastrophe, because “the rents are too high”. Existential threats have a critical reality, about which ruthless criticism is entailed. Even...

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  • December 27, 2020

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...

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  • December 5, 2020

Here’s the latest news today out of North Carolina courtesy of Meredith College’s latest poll: x NORTH CAROLINABiden 48% (+4)Trump 44%Jorgensen 1%Hawkins 1%Blankenship 0%.#NCsen:Cunningham (D) 43% (+5)Tillis (R-inc) 38%Bray (L) 4%Hayes (C) 1%.#NCgovCooper (D-inc) 52% (+18)Forest (R) 34%DiFiore (L) 2%Pisano (C) 1% Meredith College, LV, 10/16-19— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) October...

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  • October 23, 2020

I have the utmost respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and was beyond distraught at the news of her death yesterday. Nonetheless, the election is 44 days away and is the most consequential one ever for the soul of America. RBG would not want us to avoid thinking about how to...

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  • September 20, 2020

This is a true virtue-signal as Trump announces he’s now open for more griftable influence money not unlike the cash infusions he received in 2016. This is beyond the skimming that has now shown Trump to have blown through $800 million. x Trump doesn’t have anywhere near that amount in...

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  • September 8, 2020

DHS is drafting its annual threat assessment report, and Politico got hold of the draft: DHS draft document: White supremacists are greatest terror threat White supremacists present the gravest terror threat to the United States, according to a draft report from the Department of Homeland Security. Two later draft versions...

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  • September 8, 2020

“Oh yes Sapiens, you hungry little monkey, it's all about you” comment via Greenland Ice Sheet — Ice Sheet Melting Is Perfectly in Line With Our Worst-Case Scenario, Scientists Warn New research has found that 50-70% of Antarctica's glacier marine extensions are at risk of hydrofracture due to enormous meltwater lakes on the...

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  • September 3, 2020

“(T)erminating labour and share markets, along with the type of commercial banking taken for granted today, is a prerequisite for a post-capitalist society with functioning markets, authentic democracy and personal liberty.” Left accelerationism seems tempting in a time when markets, democracy, and liberty are in peril. but Yanis Varoufakis is hinting...

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  • August 30, 2020

Canada’s last fully intact ice caps have disappeared NASA satellites confirmed.  The two ice caps are in the Northeast of Ellesmere Island, near Greenland. The ice caps formed during the Little Ice Age, they have succumbed to the intense heat waves blanketing the Arctic over the past several years. From the...

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  • August 7, 2020

Oh, hi, Donald Trump! What’s on your mind today? Good God, what fresh hell is this? x So disgusting to watch Twitter’s so-called “Trending”, where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and...

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  • July 27, 2020

Part of my preparation for becoming a teacher, at my MAT program at Johns Hopkins, was to take time to reflect on what I was doing. Further, since my mid-teens, I have rarely been without a small pocket notebook in which to jot down observations and reflections.  In addition, I...

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  • July 25, 2020

A “virulently racist” Trump has made the nation seem like Stockholm Syndrome’s identifying with the terrorist, as Mary Trump doesn’t underestimate the Trump family’s vindictiveness. The last question by Rachel Maddow was concern for Mary Trump’s personal safety, now that the book is now generally available; she’s taken precautions. Denial is...

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  • July 17, 2020

From the New York Times: x YouTube Video Ady Barkan, the prominent liberal activist and advocate for “Medicare for all,” is endorsing Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president, in a sign that some progressives who opposed Mr. Biden in the Democratic primary race are increasingly willing to actively support him against President Trump. In the...

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  • July 8, 2020
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Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) can (but not will) save the US economy. What with the White House Council of Economic Advisors now reduced to one economist, it’s worth noting that one of their econometric models (Hassett) influenced the prediction that COVID-19 infections in the US would go to zero by...

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  • June 28, 2020

Up today in The New York Times Magazine.    It is titled Jon Stewart Is Back to Weigh In. It is well worth your time to read. It is too long to summarize, and I will not try. Let me offer a few selections to interest you further. For  example, when...

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  • June 15, 2020

I found Ali Velshi's standalone segment shockingly honest. That he was allowed to use those two minutes to say what he said proves the changing times. Ali Velshi gives America the necessary message on race x x YouTube Video Visit full episodes here. I participated in and covered a George Floyd...

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  • June 7, 2020

Host Katy Tur continues her objective no bars held reporting as she calls out police reports that do not reflect reality. They lie on reports even with video present. MSNBC host slams lying police reports Check out the full episodes here. “What happened with the police department that they thought...

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  • June 6, 2020

Allow me a moment of personal reflection as we watch the country once again get torn apart over race. I’m not Black; I’m Jewish. (There are very very few Black Jews.) I grew up on the history of 2000 years of persecution. I study the history of religion and I’ve...

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  • May 29, 2020

Breaking news in the Washington Post: Targeting Hunter Biden, Senate panel approves subpoena for lobbying firm over Democrats’ objections A Senate committee moved Wednesday to subpoena documents related to the son of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in an escalation of GOP congressional scrutiny into Biden’s time as vice...

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  • May 20, 2020
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From Salon: Women voters who propelled Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to wins in four consecutive Senate races have increasingly soured on the so-called “centrist” Republican as her record has drifted farther right since President Donald Trump's election. Maine is a uniquely women-dominated state. About 77% of women residents are registered to vote,...

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  • May 10, 2020

The Hill had a piece this week that goes into how U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R. SC) full embrace of Trump might be putting his re-election bid in danger: Graham’s alliance with Trump has helped him avoid a nasty primary fight, while fueling Democratic efforts to unseat him in November....

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  • May 10, 2020

Paul Krugman is always a pleasure to read, in that he is so often right, and so often cuts to the heart of the matter. This morning’s column is particularly insightful: Trump and His Infallible Advisers Trump and company didn’t make a one-time mistake. They grossly minimized the pandemic and...

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  • May 5, 2020

and that’s okay with me. Nevertheless I will take the time to write it.   Yesterday completed 5 weeks since I last was in school with my students (March 13).  That is 6 “school days” of Spring Break, 3 days of break for Easter (as a Catholic school, off for...

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  • April 18, 2020

Be safe, be well, be at peace Be safe, be well, be at peace, Your PDA National Staff Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) wishes you a safe,healthy holiday. Instead of our usual “Sustainer Sunday”fundraising email, we urge you to Tell Congress: We needadequate COVID-19 legislation that protects healthcareprofessionals and the...

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  • April 12, 2020

So in case you didn’t know: U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s financial portfolio saw heavy trading during the month of March, a period during which Congress passed three different spending bills to address the spread of COVID-19 and the markets took a turn for the worse. The report lists 112 transactions,...

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  • April 8, 2020

I’m liking this: Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden came out in support of a pair of Wisconsin school district referendums on Tuesday, a week before the state's presidential primary election. The highly unusual move of a presidential candidate weighing in on a local school referendum comes as Biden and other...

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  • March 31, 2020

I was sitting outside on the patio tonight and boy did I have a huge reflection hit me.   I hear a lot of young folks complain about boomers.  This is not a pie fight, just a little reminder of what we have been through.   You young folks have some real...

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  • March 21, 2020

If you need a break from the current American confusion, fear and loathing surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic, let me suggest as an antidote reading President Roosevelt’s December 9, 1941 “fireside chat” radio broadcast to the nation. At a time of far greater peril than we face today, FDR delivered a message...

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  • March 15, 2020

Perhaps we can see the difference between celebrity Tom Hanks and celebrity Donald Trump in our choice of salty breakfast spread that looks like axle grease. These spreads have much more inner story than IMPOTUS*. For example, Marx gets some of his ecological theories from Justus Freiherr von Liebig, the discoverer(sic) of...

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  • March 15, 2020

MSNBC commentator Zerlina Maxwell did not pull any punches as she admonished an unfair system biased against women. She was speaking about the breaking news that Elizabeth Warren had suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Zerlina Maxwell nails it. x x YouTube Video...

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  • March 5, 2020

Oh, what a difference 21 years and a million Fox News lies make. Here was President Bill Clinton following his acquittal on charges of fibbing about a blow job: x February 12, 1999 – President Bill Clinton following acquittal by the Senate: “I want to say again to the American...

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  • February 2, 2020

The holiday season is a special time of year for Americans of all faith traditions. The arrival of Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s brings good cheer and joy to family, friends, and even perfect strangers. Above all, it is for many a time of reflection on the miracles that define the...

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  • December 30, 2019

The Impeachment of Donald John Trump, 45th President of the United States has made me ponder the difference between leaders and leadership.  I have come to the conclusion that Republicans require leaders and Democrats want leadership. Following a leader means you have no trust in your ability to discern facts...

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  • December 23, 2019

Today is Sunday, which means tomorrow I report for pre-operative stuff at the hospital for the forthcoming operation on Wednesday to address the stenosis (blockage) in my left carotid artery that caused my recent stroke.   While I have no intimations of forthcoming disaster, I will be undergoing general anesthesia, so...

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  • December 15, 2019