If nothing more than for the brilliant musical score, many of us have watched the biographical movie about the life of Ray Charles more than once. If you are like me, you are familiar with a line uttered by Jamie Foxx, portraying Charles early in the film. When Ray Charles...
democrats
Writer, activist, philosopher, and teacher Angela Davis said, “ I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept. Her twist on the 12-step recovery mantra would be good advice for the would-be Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy has...
There is an old saw that goes; there is your side, my side, and the truth is in the middle. The liberal perspective advocates a humanitarian view, finding a way to feed, house, and clothe people fleeing inevitable death by gang violence, drought, and starvation. The more conservative view is...
Yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee’s ranking member tried to pull off a well-worn Republican tactic to hide malfeasance and misdeeds. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) wrapped himself in the skirts of MAGA America, defending the former President of the United States. Brady asserted that all Americans should be on...
I am a black man living in an urban city. Being in this skin, one must think about chance encounters with police going horribly wrong and street crime. To my chagrin, it is not unusual to hear gunshots at least once a month, but things are getting better. Homicides are...
On the heels of the former President authoring a Twump on his fledgling social media site, that the Constitution may be obsolete, [“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,”] the Supreme Court weighs...
I grew up in the 1960s, and verbal memes were significant in my black experience. Conversational shorthand was prevalent, with words like solid, psych’, and even rap having a different meaning then than now. Solid could take on multiple meanings depending on context; it could mean I understand, you are...
Most of us have heard the tale of the frog in boiling water. If you try to put a frog in boiling water, it will hop out, but if you place it in the water and heat it slowly, it will sit and cook to death. The Republican party has...
Yet another mass shooting happened overnight near my sister’s home in Virginia. After the body counts, the gnashing of teeth, and the solemn looks of talking heads interviewing the survivors and grieving family members, the right-wingers will step in and victim blame. The Alex Jones(s), Marjorie Taylor Greene(s), and Lauren...
The last piece I contributed to this forum was last Wednesday, November 16, 2022. It was entitled Mass Shootings: An American Institution. Admittedly it was a retelling—in part—of the mass shooting at the University of Virginia. Their football coach Tony Elliot said about the three young men who died in...
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...
In last night’s midterm results, deep red states remained blood red, and gerrymandered Democratic districts in Florida and New York turned purple or outright red, like Miami-Dade County in Florida. Now that the red wave has been dashed against the shore, I must write another of the millions of rehashes...
I was surprised this weekend when I looked out my window and did not see masked marauders carrying clubs, knives, or guns. My neighbors were not cowering in fear, trying to reach their cars or go to the mailbox. Teens were not armed to the teeth, and adults were not...
In the last days of campaigning, Republicans are narrowing their election focus to the so-called independent voter and conservative Democrats. Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz told his supporters their job is to talk to independent and conservative Democrat(sic) friends. They are to emphasize only three issues, economy, crime,...
A conservative justice on the Supreme Court asserted after the overturning of Roe v. Wade that other rights were safe, including LGBTQIA rights, birth control, and interracial marriage. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has long had a bee in his racial bonnet, started his quest in 2013 by eliminating section...
One can only live in fear if one listens to Republicans and watches their campaign ads. Republicans consistently decouple gun control from crime. Criminality is a real problem, but Willie Horton is not waiting around every corner. I have lived in Philadelphia for over 16 years and have not been...
While hyperventilating over imagined affronts such as kitty litter in schools to accommodate kids who believe they are animals or teaching courses that may offend little white kids with history, the hope of the greatest generation is now clouded in fear. When Franklin Roosevelt told America, “We have nothing to...
I may be a little late to the party, but I have just gotten through the first two episodes of Inventing Anna on Netflix. Anna is a self-absorbed faux socialite bent on using her friends, the press, and anyone with a Centurion Amex card for power. Early in their interview...
In less than thirty hours, we saw and heard decisions to fine broadcaster Alex Jones nearly 1 billion dollars in actual damages, with punitive damages to follow soon. A member of Congress (Marjorie Taylor Greene) defended his vile exploitation of the parents and spouses of murdered children and educators, asserting,...
Saturday, October 8, 2022, not 1952, Alabama Senator and former football coach Tommy Tuberville tossed the hood of racism into the fray with cynical jabs at people he described with the pronoun “they.” According to Tuberville, “They are not soft on crime. They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime...
As a practicing Democrat, I have endured the slings and arrows of the conservative-Christian community for years. I have heard that caring about the poor, taking the stewardship of the planet seriously, and leaving the decision to have a baby to God and the mother were spawns of the devil....
Before I turn many of you off thinking this is some bible-thumping tirade, far from it. Sure biblical scholars and theologians will point out that misquoting the bible is a devilish trick. The often repeated bible verse “money is the root of all evil” is rightfully corrected to “ the...
In the White House Rose Garden yesterday, President Joe Biden read from a twelve-page pamphlet labeled by its author Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) as the “12 Point Plan to Rescue America.” The Republican party’s most fervent dreams are in it, getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Just as...
The split in America is less about politics than—it is—politics becoming our lives. It is more about party alliances and tribal wars. It has reached such a crescendo that in January of 2021, it morphed into an armed insurrection at the nation’s citadel. Many seem incapable of allowing common sense...
Now that Hunter’s laptop has replaced Hillary’s emails as the distraction topic déjouer, I need someone from the right wing to tell me how their transgressions make Donald Trump innocent. Reports of the younger Biden being videoed snorting cocaine or Hillary Clinton bleaching emails are now a part of the...
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...
I have been a registered Democrat since 1976. Over the years, I have had many verbal—but respectable—battles with Republicans, Libertarians, and the Green Party. Throughout all those sometimes contentious disagreements, the only group that consistently and derisively refers to me as a socialist has been Republicans. I bring that point...
Most of us have lived next door to a man or woman who opens the backdoor to their home, welcomes the morning sun, and tosses out breadcrumbs for the birds. Generally, it is not a piece of freshly baked bread or a slice of that ciabatta one craves dipped in...
The last time we buried a President was George Herbert Walker Bush in 2018. The five living Presidents—all—attended his funeral. At Mr. Bush’s funeral, all the pomp and circumstance had been afforded him as it had been for all former presidents, even Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace. As per...
In 2007 when former President Barack Obama announced for the presidency, Republicans immediately labeled him a celebrity candidate. Juxtaposed against shots of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears sauntering through crowds, a 2008 campaign ad for his opponent, John McCain, says of Barack Obama, “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world,”...
When the good ship Cheney sank into the Green River last night, and for a moment, I regretted someone of flexible integrity losing a primary, at the same time, I grinned broadly. Undeniably, history will call Rep. Elizabeth Cheney a patriot. I hope that history and Democrats also do not...
Trumpites were fond of saying promises made, promises kept at the end of his disastrous administration. They could not say that the promises made to the middle class and the poor were kept. The public is still awaiting his secret health care plan—promised a week into his presidency. Infrastructure became...
Democrats have an opportunity to simplify the treacherous and near treasonous behavior of Donald Trump. Plain talk is required. I attended a neighborhood improvement meeting, and the local councilman started his address by saying he was there as the “validation marketer.” After a few quizzical looks, he finally said, ‘I...
Since the legal FBI search—not a raid—was revealed to have taken place at the Trump property in Mar-a-Lago, my phone has rung off the hook; what do you think, what did they get, who ratted him out? Since the punditry’s heart-pumping nonreporting began, leaning on former members of Trump’s inner...
Democrats have wanted to invest in climate control for twenty years and, at the least, take the issue seriously. After weeks of turning their backs on soldiers exposed to human, chemical, and toxic waste from burn pits, GOP politicians finished their ruthlessness by voting, by a majority, to deny children,...
Arizona’s Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema vowed to constituents she would help to lower the cost of prescription drugs. “We need to make health care more affordable, lower prescription drug prices, and fix the problems in the system – not go back to letting insurance companies call all the shots,” she...
On August 8, 1974, a reflective and less defiant Richard Nixon became the first American President to resign his office. As a member of the black community who had seen friends and fathers of friends leave for Vietnam and never return, most of us were thrilled. The Watergate Hearings continued...
To begin with, the Constitution makes no allowance for the arrest of a lawless current or former President. If that presidential exception existed, a sitting president could stand on Fifth Ave and shoot someone; Oh, wait! Despite the mountain of evidence, Donald Trump is not in jail for inciting a...
With over 250,000 adults living in the United States who routinely use the word “yesterday,” Donald Trump, who once said, “I know words,” apparently wants to eliminate its usage because it is hard for him. x YouTube Video Watching his mind sputter over the innocuous word “yesterday’ in the outtakes...
The GOP keeps dropping their theocratic pants, and America gets mooned. Despite having no platform beyond trolling the Democratic party, and self-serving religious attacks disguised as culture clashes, America is sliding to the bottom of that shining city on the hill Republicans are so fond of talking about. Democrats have...
Anyone who has read my column, stories, blogs, and meanderings is well aware that I am an avowed liberal. I am so anti-gun in the hands of civilians—banning assault rifles would be the beginning for me. Despite the recent assassination of their former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, I am a...
They can at least keep up. The industrial world has moved past the days of child brides, concubines, and selling our female children as brood chattels. The case of a victimized, brutalized, and impregnated ten-year-old in Ohio is a perfect example. The conservative media is losing their minds over a...
As a black American, I can understand the tumult over First Lady Jill Biden associating Latin culture with “bogades”(sic) and ‘breakfast tacos.” Talking in part before the UnidosUS annual conference, she said “ —as distinct as the bogades [bodegas] of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and...
At the turn of the century, horse racing was the number one sport in America. By the time Babe Ruth overtook Seabiscuit amidst the Great Depression, baseball had become America’s pastime. There are various iterations of what symbols mean the most to America, but the one I am most familiar...
Senator(s) Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Tom Cotton wasted well over an hour of the public’s time yesterday. Instead of legitimate questions aimed at advancing the conversation about conservative and liberal legal philosophy, they spent more than an hour trying to punch holes into the fabric of judicial integrity. As...
President Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union Address last night, and the GOP performed human-pet tricks. The popping up and down like a Whack-A-Mole game may be great exercise for the knees but is more distracting to the rhythm of a speech than helpful. Republicans turned away from...
This past week reminded me of how soothing and vital literature, art, and music are to the world. All of us have spent more than two years exhausted from Covid-19. We are ironically distracted by war, which has overshadowed the banning of books in school. When I was twelve years...
Since anti-Obama protesters donned three corner hats adorned with dangling tea bags, the Republicans have proven, over and over, they are followers, not leaders. After some consultation, the so-called “grassroots” group removed the tea bags because of the sexual connotation of being called teabaggers. Hence the Tea Party. As it...
Even with all the evidence of voter suppression, flouting of the laws, and a failed coup, why the reluctance to use the word Fascism? The Republican party is openly advancing Fascism, and America is quietly going along. Ignoring the warnings, we accepted the USA/Patriot Act, which unfettered can trample...