Three young men and football players at the University of Virginia lost their lives in a mass shooting that wounded two others returning from a class excursion. The three young men, Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D’Sean Perry, “These were incredible young men with huge aspirations and extremely bright...
Xenophobia
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...
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,...
Have you ever asked yourself, why are so many GOP political theories race and gender-based? The latest is that voter ballots in Arizona were smuggled in from China. The GOP has decided the best way to expose this absurd idea is to exploit a silly stereotype and check the ballots...
Much like with the election of Barack Obama, after the Derek Chauvin conviction, America was quick to congratulate itself. The fallacy of a post-racial America turned out to be as foolish as the idea of a post-racial justice system. I can still see the self-congratulatory smiles from my white colleagues...
I could spend a lot of time making statistical comparisons about the influx of immigrants at the border starting with the George W. Bush administration through the Trump administration. If that were the real issue, Joe Biden’s current border dilemma numbers would compare favorably. Now that human decency has become solely...
Ron Johnson and a core number of GOP senators does the bidding of Russia for what seems to be the reasons that Kevin McCarthy attributed to Dana Rohrabacher and Donald Trump: Putin pays them. Russia seemed to be on Riley Williams’s mind when she indicated that she wanted to sell...
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...
This post-election period has been like no other, for reasons I don’t need to restate. While every outgoing president and presidential challenger in my lifetime—even Nixon, FFS!—left the White House and/or relinquished claims to power more or less gracefully, putting country far above self and party, Donald Trump is a...
It is indeed a tough way to make a living, but our lived experience tells us that we can survive Trumpism. Even if he steals the election he will get removed. Like the Las Vegas show The Act, and the Steele report of golden showers in the Russian hotel, it...
This week I attended (remotely) the Rethinking Economics Festival and encountered challenging pluralist discourses like a platform economy (noting that most of such work is populated by women), decolonizing the Eurocentric position in disciplines, or “fully-automated luxury communism”. I thought I’d share some resource items and make a few observations....
I used to avoid Jennifer Rubin back in the Obama days, when she could find nothing good to say about the President and nothing bad to say about Romney, as well as the way she insisted that everything conservative was better. Since the Great Orange Slug slithered down the escalator,...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D. RI) in support of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign: Watching President Trump flounder through the largest crisis America has faced in decades has been painful and embarrassing – it’s clear we need change at the top. That’s why I’m proud to join...
I was running down my usual checklist of reminders as to why I cannot vote for a Republican and the list grows daily. Bill Barr destroying the Department of Justice by subverting the rule of law, Mike Pompeo turning State Department employees into gophers and insisting on the firing of...
I’ve always suspected Donald Trump would be far more upset if someone screwed up his McDonald’s lunch order than if, say, millions of promised (and necessary) coronavirus tests failed to materialize by a self-imposed deadline. After all, Trump can lie about the tests, but he can’t pretend he has an invisible...
Escape (to) Wisconsin (and Michigan and Pennsylvania): Trump campaign hypes sinophobic anti-Biden ads because that’s what 2020 in the swing states will be about. Because a squinting Biden with this hands together doesn’t seem at all stereotypical. And isn’t the border of China at Chinatown. Trump's Super PAC just bought...
LIVE BLOG below (presser likely will start 30-45 minutes late*) 5:00* 6:15 PM EDT Members of the Coronavirus Task Force Hold a Press Briefing at The White House (in the Rose Garden) What fresh psychodrama is this? Will anyone ask Trump why his propaganda video clip from yesterday omitted February from the...
This past Friday on HBO’s television program Real Time with Bill Maher, I was reminded why I am a proud Democrat. Maher makes me laugh, cringe, grind my teeth and belly laugh all in the span of one hour. I watched Maher last week, as is my wont on Friday...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D. NY) in support of former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign: Donald Trump is a coward, a pathological liar, and an existential threat to this country. If you agree, I’m going to ask you to make a contribution of $25, $50,...
FUBAR’s definition is – thoroughly confused, disordered, damaged or ruined x America First is the Trump campaign slogan pic.twitter.com/KwGTOnWoDm — Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) March 29, 2020 x All these right-wingers kept saying that socialism would kill us and now their cult leader is literally telling people to go out during a...
The study of national effects is also about subnational regions as comparing NYC to California and Washington shows the relative effectiveness but also some of the problems of density. 2020-2021 will be about subnational, regional recessions. The question will be how largely blue state urban concentrations recover from the pandemic(s)....
Maybe we should just build a giant dome over the country. Would that have prevented this? x THIS IS WHY WE NEED BORDERS!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020 Donald Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. He never has, of course, but the reality of it has never been...
Whatever you might think of David Frum, he does seem to have the number of the phenomenon called Trumpism especially as it is now trying to save itself before the retreat to the bunker. Like Trump’s tweets, diversion and distraction are the gonads in his bag of tricks. Diametric opposites and misdirection...
Remember that it’s a feature of the Trump regime that other opportunism will operate in the background such as his attempts to personally profit from vaccine production. Remember lower Fed rates (now at 0%) also help his personal debt load. He now is defaulting to nativism and xenophobia. As we begin...
Who pays $20,000 for a plane ticket, or a Final Four ticket, or an Inaugural ticket, and should you blame some other country for your own incompetence. And Pence and Trump will still have rallies in Wisconsin next week. x Trump misstated his own policy in an Oval Office address...
Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller, the Sam Johnson and Jimmy Boswell of the Trump regime wrote a ten-minute Trump address worth diagramming. Unfortunately Trump mumbled his way through it on Wednesday Night. WaPo decided to color-code its content. x Kushner has been working with Stephen Miller on drafting the speech,...
Lowest Common Denominator Disinformation continues at Fox News, as they report on official attempts by Mike Pompeo and others calling COVID-19 a “Chinese Covid” or “Wuhan Virus” The media framing at Fox News seems to have been now directed as sinophobic tropes, with an accompanying CT that COVID-19 is a...
Six-year-old Juan de León Gutiérrez; 8-year-old Felipe Gómez Alonzo; 6-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin; two additional children a 10-year-old and a 2-year-old, both from Guatemala, have died in the past two years as a result of the Trump administration’s Border Policy. Add to that this week, the confirmation of the May...
Long before Trump, today’s GOP lost any ability to be constructive on just about anything. If something is good, they reflexively oppose it. People having healthcare? Oppose. People going to college? Oppose. Stopping gun massacres? Oppose. Renewable energy? Oppose. Their entire policy on immigration is bigotry and hate. Their policy...
The late columnist and tv personality Charles Krauthammer railed against the Obama administration’s, ‘The Obama Doctrine: leading from behind’ in a column written in 2011 based on an interview of Obama staffers conducted by Ryan Lizza. Krauthammer’s piece was one of many political hit pieces that ignored nuance and sought...
Received this e-mail today from CREDO Action: While Donald Trump attempts to use the El Paso and Dayton massacres to supercharge his anti-immigrant agenda, Republicans are breaking Senate rules to institutionalize xenophobia and hate.1 Sen. Lindsay Graham just abused his power as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to jam through a...
< p style=”text-align:justify”>The first two lines of the opening stanza of my favorite poem read, “If you can keep your head when all about you, Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…” –Rudyard Kipling. One of the gifts of literature and poetry is confirming that you are not alone...
“When I am president, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally, and protected equally,” Donald Trump declared on July 22, 2016, as he accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president. “Every action I take, I will ask myself: does this make life better for...
President Obama rarely comments on the puerile antics of Donald J. Trump. Let’s hope that changes when election season gets into full swing and he hits the campaign trail on behalf of our nominee. But for the most part, he’s faithfully observed tradition and held his tongue, despite the dopey...
Received this e-mail yesterday from Teresa Tomlinson’s (D. GA) U.S. Senate campaign: This is a dangerous time for our democracy. Robert Mueller’s testimony today confirms what the House should already know: It’s time to begin impeachment proceedings against the president. The president’s claims of a “witch hunt” are his way...
Apparently people don’t. Nor do they remember that his actual response was half hearted, strangely worded, and McCain and his campaign immediately backtracked to excuse McCain’s supporters for their flagrant bigotry. So let’s back up a bit to give some context. The news cycle in recent days has been dominated by stories...
That is the title of this Washington Post op-ed, up now for tomorrow’s print edition. Conway’s wife might now live in DC and work for the occupant of the Oval, but he is listed as a New York Lawyer and has been increasingly critical of the Donald, especially on Twitter,...
< p class=”is-empty-p” style=”text-align:justify”> Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to be careful not to throw shade at the millennials she accused of being Twitter creations this past weekend. I believe that Ms. Pelosi is trying to head off the Democrats mimicking the Tea Party. The Republican faction, now known as the...
Here’s yet another reason to love our women’s soccer team. When asked if she was excited about visiting the White House should the U.S. win the World Cup, team co-captain Megan Rapinoe didn’t mince words: RAPINOE: Pfft. I’m not going to the fucking White House. No, I’m not going to...
Yours for democracy, Mike Hersh for Kimberly, Deb, Janis, Shayna, Alan, Mike F, Dan, Dr. Bill, and Bryan—your PDA National Team Please Pitch In Now ToHelp Elect Progressives Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is both troubled and also galvanized by recent events. We will always stand up for those oppressed...
Please Pitch In Now To Help End The War On WomenBy Electing Progressives To Reverse Trump’s Agenda Yours for democracy, Mike Hersh for Kimberly, Deb, Janis, Shayna, Alan, Mike F, Dan, Dr. Bill, and Bryan—your PDA National Team Pitch In To End The War On Women As a man, I...
Sadly, an Air Force buddy I had served with over 20 years ago is, today, a huge Trump fan. He’s the complete package, down to the stupid red hat and wacky conspiracy theories. His immigrant attacks must have made things particularly awkward with his lovely wife, who immigrated from Mexico. (I actually...
Sadly, an Air Force buddy I served with over 20 years ago is a huge Donald Trump fan today. He’s the complete package, down to the stupid red hat and wacky conspiracy theories. His immigrant attacks must have made things particularly awkward with his lovely wife, who immigrated from Mexico. (I actually...
By Mike Hersh for Alan, Dan, Deb, Mike F, Janis, Dr. Bill, Kimberly, Bryan, and Shayna—your PDA National Team Tell Congress Not to Fund the Border Wall theREAL Emergency is Massive Human Suffering! As Trumpublicans indulge their will to punish, fanning the flames of xenophobia and bigotry, Progressive Democrats of...