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...
elections
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...
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...
A part of the nationalistic, anti-immigrant, and rising anti-Semitic hunger in America is the refusal to examine the U.S. side of the border. The last presidential administration wanted to build walls and accused immigrants crossing our southern borders of being rapists and murderers. In 2018 over 30,000 murders were reported...
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...
For over a year, teachers and school boards have fought the myth of Critical Race Theory (CRT) being a bludgeon to batter white kids’ delicate psyche(s). Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has long been an advocate of school choice and privatization and glommed...
The video of the grinning, cackling devotees of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ deliberate cruelty is what we should fear. No signs of empathy or concern, just scornful sarcasm and laughter. The hypocritical enclaves of self-professed Florida and Texas Christians who want to force victims of rape and incest to bear...
Recently, and not the first or last time, issues involving the black community have been workshopped without input from one of the groups it affects most. On August 4, University of Virginia historian Allida Black, Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz, journalist Anne Applebaum, presidential historian Michael Beschloss, Vinay Reddy,...
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...
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...
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...
I am not counting my trees before they are hugged, but with the help of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, Joe Biden is one Democratic party vote away from passing a historic climate bill. The former Build Back Better legislation is now called the Inflation Reduction Act. There are still...
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...
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...
The panic over 9/11 that led to the Patriot Act is almost understandable. We had seen thousands of our fellow Americans incinerated, and our military and financial invincibility symbols were toppled. So, limiting a few freedoms for revenge seemed reasonable amid anger and fear (at the time). I am baffled...
Since around age sixteen, I have had friends and adults in my life who have said to me more than once, ‘no, no, I don’t do politics.’ Well, to those who angrily rebuffed me—I say—you may not do politics, but politics is doing you. From local legislatures and school boards...
Being a black man, I have a perspective that I am sure will match the experience of other races. People of color in America spend a lot of time apologetic to racists. Massa, we sick. I am sure he did not mean it that way, he has never said anything...
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...
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...
Yesterday was the LVI (56th) Super Bowl. Some “over-officious jerk(s)” (thank you, Marv Levy) spoiled a spirited game at the end, but for me, the real action took place before the kickoff and at halftime. A lot of black America is still reeling from the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick. The...
When Donald Trump repeatedly asked Russia [Vladimir Putin] to find thirty-thousand emails of his opponent Hillary Clinton, The press ate it up like a bowl of gazpacho. “Russia, if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably...
Remember when the Trump administration was telling Americans that an “invasion” of migrants was going to threaten our very existence in mere days. Yes, a caravan of mostly women and children was going to take your freedom in the fall of 2019. A year earlier, Mr. Trump told us to...
In full football withdrawal (Pro Bowl, yuck), I spent the weekend rewatching a few of my favorite movies. One of which was Birds of Prey And the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Politics has become such a national obsession; even a fantasy starring the beautiful Margot Robbie reminded me...
Going backward benefits few; America has rid itself of a world of bustles, petticoats, and counting jellybeans in a jar. Ill-informed parents are invading school libraries, intimidating school boards, and physically carting off books to take back their country. America has devolved into a country where the slogan, ‘I want...
Could Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin be plotting their version of saving the world? No, I do not believe in lizard people, or that Hillary Clinton orders baby toppings on her pepperoni pizza? It is not far-fetched to think that the Russian autocrat and murderer was so comfortable with his...
Republicans who threw a truth tampering tantrum that manifested into an insurrection are destroying this country. A famous and heated argument between Archie Bunker and Edith’s cousin Maude Findlay is a prophetic example. The discussion led to a disagreement over the wives of President(s) Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Richard “E”(sic)...
[Poor white men] “ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate Jim Crow.” ~Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King wanted the crowd to understand...
When one speaks of the far-right-left, the obvious target for progressives would be Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Although they both are low-hanging fruit, the harvest is bountiful. Voices of the left, like comedic satirist Bill Maher, longtime Democratic strategist James Carville, and...
The freshly defeated Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, is a lousy politician. Let me preface the past statement with the admission that if I lived in Virginia, I would have wholeheartedly voted for Mr. McAuliffe over the new incoming Governor Glenn Youngkin. While McAuliffe lived in the past,...
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...
Hours and hours of television was dedicated to a sermon delivered by former Obama preacher Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The public was subjected to months and months, of the media’s fixation on Hillary Clinton’s emails. The revealing upshot of which was that she loved her grandchild and that John Podesta has...
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...
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...
Once Senator Mitch McConnell staked out the politically uncompromising GOP opposition to ‘everything’ Democrats proffered, during the Obama administration, the redline was drawn. Slowly but surely, the so-called moderate Republicans like; Susan Collins, Rob Portman, and John Thune have repeatedly torn their knickers on the fence. Collins, for example, agreed...
The simplest explanation for lawyer Michael Godwin’s law is that the longer a debate or disagreement extends, it will eventually devolve into an unfounded comparison to Hitler and the Nazis. Godwin’s Law is a current topic because of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Marjorie Taylor Greene may have decisively proved...
Meandering nonsense highlighted by searches for bamboo fibers, and official lies issued from Mar-a Lago, are exactly what Donald Trump expected to be doing in 2016. The 2020 election with Joe Biden as his opponent was what he expected the first time around with Hillary Clinton; a loss. I am...
Insurrection part Deux may be coming, but it’s a distraction from an emerging Raw Story report about Russian mobsters and Trump that includes money laundering in Kazakhstan. This doesn’t even touch the tax fraud prosecution. Thank jeebus CPAC is over and that concentrated hate and stupidity is over for another year. Even...
I’m liking this: U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Native Americans played a significant role in the recent election, including his win in Arizona. Now that he is elected, Kelly said he will continue to work with tribes to address problems with the pandemic, which remains, by far, a top...
Received this e-mail today from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of his organization, All On The Line: Rev. Raphael Warnock (D GA) & Jon Ossoff (D. GA) The 2021 redistricting process will be the first-ever with a nationwide grassroots movement to hold map manipulators accountable. But the truth is,...
There’s been a lot of talk here about refusing to seat the 126 GOP Congresspersons who signed that amicus brief to the Texas petition to SCOTUS. The claim is that the XIV Amendment blocks them from office. I don’t think that’s going to get anywhere; it’s too nebulous and has...
Biden has enough electors. Now all Trump has to do besides trying to compel GOP governors to overturn their elections is bribe some “faithless electors”. …the hidden mechanics of electing a U.S. president have drawn new scrutiny this year as President Donald Trump continues to deny Biden’s victory and pursues...
In the midst of increased voting plurality is this also true: “Trump appears to also have increased strength among rural Black voters across the ‘Black Belt.’” Will that then also reveal itself in the Georgia special US Senate election on 5 January. x REUTERS/IPSOS POLL: About 80% of Americans, including...
insideelections.com/… Inside Elections is the latest political organization to shift its election ratings toward the Democratic candidate. In the Presidential race, it now rates the states of Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin as “Tilt Democrat” as well as shifting Michigan and Pennsylvania to “Lean Democrat”. Georgia is a “Tossup” and Texas is “Tilt...
He may or may not be a savior during this coronavirus pandemic, but Democratic Kentucky Govenor Andy Beshear is so much better than the anti-vaccine, chickenpox loving, and anti-science former Governor Matt Bevin. As Josepth Gerth of the Louisville Courier-Journal reminds us, Bevin posted this on his Twitter account on...