On the vote

There are many ways that Americans are choosing to resist the potential excesses and dangers of the impending Trump regime, among them organizing protests, trying to hold our current officials accountable, contributing time and money to various organizations that will work to protect those most vulnerable among us, tracking and working to prevent hate crimes, […]

Demonstrations: inspiring and necessary, but not sufficient

Over the past couple of days, we’ve already seen a lot of protests and demonstrations. The ones that are getting the most attention are those in Los Angeles and Portland, big coastal cities where the violence has been most intense. There have been many, many other, more peaceful protests, more fearful and contemplative, like the […]

Half-right, in a bad way: David Brooks and the founders’ ugly racial legacy

In his Feb. 26 column, “The Governing Cancer of Our Time,” New York Times columnist David Brooks praised the founding fathers in contrast to today’s tea partiers and other zealots for favoring politics over brute force, and compromise over intransigence. He’s partly right in that solving social conflict through politics and compromise is one of […]

Founding fathers did [fill in the blank], so it must be OK! That’s the logic senate candidate uses to defend… cockfighting

This is absurd, of course, but in a way very telling.  Matt Bevin, who is challenging Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky Republican senatorial primary, here defends his appearance at a rally promoting, I kid you not dear readers, cockfighting. when you look at cockfighting and dogfighting as well…This isn’t something new, it wasn’t invented in […]

The Ryan budget: dumping access to art, humanities, and higher education in favor of plutocracy

There are several breathtaking elements here.  One is the level of double-speak, the use of euphemism to claim that Ryan intends the exact opposite of what the budget actually does.  He’s long been a budgetary charlatan in terms of the overall numbers, and this budget is no exception.  The other thing is what, in fact, […]