The interminable negotiations over Joe Biden’s Build Back Better human infrastructure plan make me feel a little like I did at this time last year, when I was still wondering if Joe Biden would see his shadow on the White House lawn or we’d get four more years of nuclear winter. It...
Time
It’s safe to say that Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisconsin) is not the brightest bulb on the marquee. While a member of the Wisconsin state Senate, Grothman proposed putting an end to weekends, said sex education could turn kids gay, once issued a press release titled “Why Must We Still Hear About...
“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...
This is the sixth set of notes for a reading group on Marx’s Capital, and includes a Volume I refresher for further reading of Volume II. There are links to earlier posts and texts that may be useful. Marx is probably too taken with a kind of scientism by proposing...
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...
Voting for the current crop of Republicans is like brushing your teeth with the water running. It is a waste of resources, has no purpose, but all your friends do it. Nothing was more symbolic than the displays of blubbering pique by Congressmen Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan. The House...
There’s no time to lose. The new research led by the French team confirms that whether we like it or not, human civilisation is in the midst of the most rapid transformation of the global energy system we’ve ever experienced. And hanging on for dear life to the old, dying...
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...
Apparently, Rudy Giuliani just discovered video filters. Specifically, he found the Planet of the Apes Cornelius filter and added a stovepipe hat. Or maybe it’s Abraham Lincoln. I don’t know. The last thing I want to do is try to get into Rudy’s head. I imagine it’s a little like visiting a...
Somewhere along the line I got the impression that humans were smart. You know, tool use and written communication and reduced fat Corn Nuts and all that. Unfortunately, just because Grandma can open a can of Chef Boyardee without throwing it against a big tree like an ape or Donald...
Somewhere along the line I got the impression that humans were smart. You know, tool use and written communication and reduced fat Corn Nuts and all that. Unfortunately, just because Grandma can open a can of Chef Boyardee without throwing it against a big tree like an ape or Donald...
If you haven’t seen Netflix’s Squid Game yet—well, what are you waiting for? If anything is a parable for our time, this is it. Too often meteoric cultural phenomena that purport to capture the zeitgeist fail to capture my interest, but this one is different. If you believe, as I...
Nothing is more sacred to right-wing Christian conservatives than their guns. You could tell most conservatives that Jesus was crucified in gold lamé Hammer pants and sang like a Big Mouth Billy Bass the entire time he hung on the cross, and they wouldn’t be nearly as offended as if you casually...
What? Forty thousand Brazilian fashionistas are keen to move to Connecticut, and Republicans want to stop them? Why? That’s the best news I’ve heard in months! Where, exactly, are they crossing? I’d like to meet them. Maybe they can help me get into some of the A-list clubs I’d normally have no chance of...
I share an important date with former basketball coach the late Don Haskins, March 14, our birthday. Haskins led the then Texas Western Basketball team to the 1966 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball championship against the vaunted and famed Kentucky Wildcats, led by legendary coach Adolph Rupp. Coach Rupp...
You could say Ted Cruz is about as funny as a debilitating brain parasite, but that would be imprecise. He’s as funny as a brain parasite attempting to do prop comedy at 1 a.m on a Wednesday at a Sioux Falls Holiday Inn. In other words, much less funny than your workaday...
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,...
“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...
If you have seen the movie Birds of Prey (And the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), you know the underlying theme was her discovering her power amidst a world of insanity, crime, and social degradation; hence her emancipation. That brings me to the current impasse in the Senate, with...
Yet, another heat dome has settled over the United States and Canada, this time in the region that grows our cereals. Temperature records were smashed in North Dakota. The state has experienced the highest temperature recorded this far north for late summer and early Fall. It was the result of...
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 debt limit suspension] ensures our federal government will not approach any kind of short-term debt crisis in the coming weeks or months. It secures our nation’s full faith and credit and ensures that Congress will not throw this kind of unnecessary wrench into the gears of our job growth...
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....
If you were old enough and curious enough, most of us can remember where we were when tragedy struck. Historically sad events have a way of freezing that point in time like it is suspended in dry ice; only thawed by the heat of another heartbreak. Again, if you are...
Paraphrasing Pvt. Sam Watkins, 1st Tennessee, Co. H. ‘America has no north, no south, no east, no west,’ those words could apply to the pandemic. Watkins was lamenting brother against brother killing each other in the American Civil War. All of America is watching the unvaccinated kill each other and...
Civilized societies dictate that every opinion counts: but is that true? Put another way, yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion but the real question is; should every opinion count? Oh sure, there is value in hearing everyone out, but what happens once that opinion is given is what separates...
The media should set an example for public discourse. No, I do not mean shaping a monolith of Democratic or Republican philosophy, we have that now. Two questions need to be asked of a guest before any interview with a public official or passing the sweet potatoes at the Thanksgiving...
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...
When I was a boy and strayed way, way past the rules of behavior set by my great-grandmother, she would say, “ enough is enough, and too much (sic) stinks.” Well, we reached that point in Afghanistan on Sunday. From the time then-National Security Director Zbigniew Brzezinski convinced then-President Carter,...
“…wearing a mask while playing was no different from wearing a parachute while skydiving.” The above quote is purportedly from the late Jacques Plante, former goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens Hockey club when his bravery was questioned for wearing a mask. As absurd as it seems now, there was a...
From that moment in November of 1969, when former President Richard Nixon asked for a “silent majority” to support his ‘Vietnamization’ effort, utilizing the peace with honor strategy; America’s shotgun wedding to the GOP marriage of silent loyalty and moral obedience was consummated. Between the Nixon and Reagan administrations, Republicans...
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...
As the grandfather of 12 grandchildren, I worry about their safety, health, and lives in this time of excessive gun violence, denial of history, and the life-destroying spread of the virus. Despite their vulnerability, the children of America who frighten me most are the so-called responsible adults who have decided...
Most of us saw or heard the campaign ads for the gubernatorial race for Florida. Ron DeSantis, dressing his infant daughter in MAGA motif pajamas, helping her with border wall building blocks, and reading her a faux bedtime story about the fanciful mind of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the internal xenophobic...
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....
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...
Reminiscent of the unfounded fears spread around by conservatives about the Affordable Care Act and “death panels,” President Biden’s call for a door-to-door educational program about the coronavirus vaccine sent the GOP and conservatives into a paranoid tizzy. Republican members of Congress, fake news stations, and right-wing bloggers went into...
Layaway, on-time, and paying-something-down-on-it have been very familiar phrases in black, brown, and poor neighborhoods for generations; credit was for the people who did not need it. Financial freedom because of race, religion, and status was prohibitive for countless numbers of Americans and immigrants. The constant pressure of having to...
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...