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Ted Rall, a political cartoonist, is the author of "The Anti-American Manifesto." He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1963, raised in Kettering, Ohio and graduated from Fairmont West High School in 1981. His first cartoons were published in the Kettering-Oakwood (OH) Times.
He majored in physics at Columbia University's School of Engineering from 1981 until 1984, where he drew cartoons for the Columbia Daily Spectator, Barnard Bulletin and The Jester humor magazine. He was expelled in 1984, between his junior and senior years, for academic and disciplinary reasons. Ted Rall is the author of "Bernie," a biography written with the cooperation of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. "Bernie" is now on sale online and at all good bookstores.
(27 comments) SHARE Monday, May 18, 2020 If Trump Wins, Don't Blame Progressives. This Is on You, Centrists.
The corporate conservatives who control the Democratic Party are suffering from cheaters' remorse. Sorry, right wingers. Biden is on you. You made him the presumptive nominee. If Trump wins again, it's your fault.
Just as it was last time.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 14, 2011 The Revolution Will Not Be Deactualized
October 6th has lit up the leftie blogosphere. If things come together, it could be The Big One: the major event that marks the beginning of the end of the two-party trap and a political system that extracts wealth from the poor and middle-class for the benefit of the wealthy.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 8, 2013 Coverage of the anti-NSA Protest is an Example of a New Way to Disseminate Government BS
Categorizing strong political views of swaths of Americans as weaker, more moderate and watered down than they really are is a relatively new tactic for American media gatekeepers. The message of the marchers was unambiguous: they demanded that the NSA stop spying on Americans, or be shut down. If the things marchers said weren't clear -- "this isn't about right and left -- it's about right and wrong."
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 22, 2017 Why Trump is Doomed (It's Not the Nazi Thing)
Trump is too tacky, high-strung and unpredictable for the business class. America's ruling elites like their racism served up quietly in a well-tailored suit, under a tight helmet of elder-statesman hair, delivered calmly and slowly, so bland that no one pays attention. This is where Mike Pence comes in.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, July 8, 2019 The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists
Liberals and leftists want many of the same things: reduced income inequality, better working conditions, more affordable housing and healthcare. There are differences of degrees. They're very different when it comes to foreign policy: liberals support some wars of choice whereas leftists would only turn to the military for self-defense.
(54 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 24, 2016 Now, A Postmortem By Someone Who Actually Saw Trump's Win Coming
Trump's "surprise" win wasn't shocking to people who were paying attention. Throughout the primary and general election, the DNC brushed off head-to-head tracking polls that showed that Hillary Clinton never enjoyed a commanding lead over, and sometimes fell behind, Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, consistently held a double-digit lead, sometimes as high as 20 percent, over Trump.
(13 comments) SHARE Monday, July 4, 2016 Hillary Cheated
To most people, "cheating" means breaking the rules of a contest. By this standard definition, there's no doubt that the Clinton campaign, its political allies and the Democratic National Committee cheated in favor of Clinton and against Sanders. They broke the law. They disenfranchised voters. If the rules had been followed, Bernie Sanders would be the nominee.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 5, 2012 Our Suicidal Ruling Class: Why Won't the Rich and Powerful Try to Save Themselves?
America's corporate rulers and their pet politicians know that people are furious. They understand that their actions and policies are accelerating the pace of income inequality and creating a growing, permanently alienated underclass. They know history. Sooner or later, the downtrodden rise up, overthrow and kill their oppressors.
(33 comments) SHARE Friday, February 10, 2017 How I'll Know It's Time To Flee Trump's America
Trump's relentless beating up on the press makes me incredibly nervous. What will this guy do when the new Left gears up with big-ass protests later this year? Isolated from the rallies from whence he drew his strength, Boy Trump in the Beltway Bubble spells trouble. If you're not scared, you're not paying attention.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, January 8, 2018 Voters Drafted a Reluctant Trump Because They Hated Hillary That Much
Trump may be America's first certifiably insane president. He is probably the most ignorant -- and we've had some doozies. He is certainly the first without any political or high-level military experience whatsoever. What we now know is at least as remarkable as those bulletpoints: Trump is effectively the first president drafted into the position.
(37 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 1, 2017 Military Spending is the Biggest Scam in American Politics
Military spending is the biggest waste of federal tax dollars ever. Both political parties are equally complicit.
The militarism scam is the best-kept secret in American politics.
When you think about it -- but no one in the halls of Congress ever does -- it's hard to think of a country that has less to fear than the United States.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 23, 2018 Who Will Do Something About the Looming Retirement Crisis?
We're looking at a problem as big as deindustrialization. If one of the two major parties is able to get ahead of the coming retirement crisis by putting forth some meaningful solutions now, before dystopia arrives, they will reap the benefits at the polls. Or we can do nothing as we marvel at the sight of our grandparents fighting over Dumpster scraps.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 28, 2019 The Articles of Impeachment Should Have These Instead
Here is a list of articles of impeachment that might have had a chance of attracting bipartisan support and thus resulting in Trump's conviction in the Senate.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, July 25, 2016 Hillary's Strategy: Snub Liberal Democrats, Move Right to Nab Anti-Trump Republicans
To those of us who have been paying attention, Clinton's post-primary migration toward conservatism comes as no surprise. There's a reason her campaign appealed to progressives primarily by referencing her work for the Children's Defense Fund in the 1970s, when David Bowie was an up-and-coming glam rocker. Team Clinton had to go that far back to find evidence of her supposed liberalism.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 5, 2011 How the US media marginalizes dissent
If the only alternative to endless war and occupation and oppression by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan is civil war and Taliban domination, wouldn't it be better to leave the carnage to the Afghans?
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 18, 2017 How I Found Out That the Courts Are Off-Limits to the 99%
Deep-pocketed defendants like the Times -- owned by a corporation with the weird name Tronc and a market capitalization in excess of $400 million -- are taking advantage of America's collapsing court system to turn justice on its head. In worn-out Trump-era America, the corruption and confusion that used to be associated with the developing world has been normalized.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 1, 2015 Germanwings Mass Murder-Suicide Caused by Punitive Rules, Coldhearted Capitalism
At first glance, an incident like the Germanwings disaster seems to call for increased physical and mental monitoring. But leaning harder on pilots would only fix half the problem. The current system is punitive -- thus, it encourages lying.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 1, 2018 The Blame is Bipartisan: How the Democrats Ruined Central America and Worsened the Mess at the Border
There is no excuse for the way the Trump Administration is treating applicants for asylum as they enter the U.S. from Mexico. But it's worth noting that both major political parties are to blame here. Many of the children showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border are there in the first place because of the mayhem to which Obama and Clinton contributed.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, August 26, 2019 Freedom of the Press? Not in the U.S.
No consideration of freedom of the press in the U.S. is complete without a hard look at the case of Julian Assange. The founder and publisher of WikiLeaks is rotting in an English prison, awaiting extradition to the United States for possession and dissemination of classified information -- exactly what The New York Times did when it published the Pentagon Papers and the Edward Snowden revelations.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 6, 2017 Obama Screwed the DACA Dreamers Before Trump Did
First Obama came to deport the children who knew no home other than the United States, but we said nothing because they had criminal records (even if they weren't a big deal). Then Trump came for the kids with no criminal record at all, but we said jack because they didn't happen to have the right immigration documents.
By the time they come for U.S. citizens -- you know the rest...
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 11, 2018 Why Do the Democrats Take Trump's Trolling Lying Down?
Democratic leaders obviously believe that they risk debasing themselves if they lower themselves to Trump's rhetorical level. What they don't get is that Trump is a bully. The only way to deal with a bully is with shock-and-awe brutality.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 20, 2019 As Long as Enemies of the State Keep Dying Before Trial, No One Should Trust the State
No matter what, Epstein died because the government let it happen. He was a ward of the state, the highest of high-profile prisoners, a man whose trial stood to expose extreme wrongdoing at the expense of numerous horribly violated victims, yet no one in charge took steps to make certain that he appeared at every hearing happy, healthy and alive.
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 3, 2018 America is one of the Few Cultures with Insults for Smart People
When you think about it -- which, being American, we rarely do -- it should come as little surprise to realize that few insults sting the French more effectively than being called stupid. Europeans make fun of dumb people. Americans elect them to high office.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, September 5, 2011 We Learned Nothing From 9/11
Maybe if it stopped spending so much time and money killing foreigners the American government could protect Americans. A lot changed on 9/11, but not everything. We're still governed by corrupt idiots. And we're still putting up with them. What does that say about us?
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 4, 2017 Why Useless Impotent Democrats Will Not Lift a Finger to Fight Trump
Democratic impotence is nothing new; since the 1970s leaders have pushed the party's ideology to the right while abandoning every pretense of resistance to the expansion of the corporate gangster capitalism that grinds up working and middle-class people's hopes and aspirations. Screw the Dems. You are your only salvation.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 30, 2019 Campaign 2020: Why Joe Biden is the Least Electable Democrat
As one of the few pundits who correctly called the 2016 election for Donald Trump, it would be wise to rest on my laurels rather than risk another prediction, one that might turn out wrong. But how would that be fun? Let the 2020 political prognostications begin!
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 27, 2016 FBI v. Apple Is Really About Edward Snowden
Apple, says the Obama Administration, is siding with "its business model and public brand marketing strategy" ahead of public safety. That's not it, says Apple CEO Tim Cook. He says his company is "a staunch advocate for our customers' privacy and personal safety."
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 26, 2015 Americans Are Stupid
What makes stupidity in America stand out is that most Americans -- the dumb ones -- don't think it's bad to be dumb. Far from being ashamed, they're dumb and proud. To the contrary -- the dumb ones make fun of the small-and-constantly-shrinking population of intelligent ones: the "nerds."
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 4, 2019 Hacking Dirty Government Secrets Is Not a Crime
Even if Assange were "guilty" of the hacking charges, so what? The "crime" of which he stands accused pales next to the wrongdoing he helped to expose. It has become fashionable to observe that people who engage in civil disobedience must be prepared to face legal punishment. This is a belief grounded in practicality: individuals who confront the state need to understand that theirs will be a difficult struggle.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 9, 2018 "The Post"? No Way Would Jeff Bezos Publish the Pentagon Papers
Steven Spielberg's new movie "The Post" depicts a newspaper's decision to defy the government, risk its financial health and imprisonment of its editors in order to report a hard truth and defend the press' First Amendment rights by publishing the Pentagon Papers.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 22, 2019 Progressives to Democrats: We Are Watching the Way You Mistreat "the Squad"
Led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the four Congressional freshmen known as the Squad are, by Beltway standards, relatively powerless -- just four votes, as the speaker said. They chair no committees and head no broad coalitions that can be counted upon to cast yeas and nays at their command. Yet they are important -- and not merely due to their formidable social media following.
(15 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 28, 2016 Please Stop the Fear and Loathing of 2017
Trump was born in Queens. But it helps to think of him as an invader. His mish-mash protofascism, ferocious gracelessness and aversion to linear thinking or consistency are foreign to American politics and culture. He doesn't belong here. He's un- and anti-American. He's got to go. We must stop staring down the barrel of 2017 with fear and loathing. It's time to start planning.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 3, 2019 Political Cartooning Was Murdered: Here's the Autopsy
A century ago newspapers employed more than 2,000 full-time editorial cartoonists. Today there are fewer than 25. In the United States, political cartooning as we know it is dead. If you draw editorial cartoons for a living and you have any brains you're working in a different field or looking for an exit. You can still find them online so political cartoons aren't yet extinct. But they are doomed.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 9, 2022 Want Abortion Back? First, Women Have to Die
A 2021 study estimates that 140 additional women will die each year in the U.S. due to complications from pregnancies that otherwise would have been terminated in abortions.
(17 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 19, 2017 Why Won't Democrats Kick Trump While He's Down?
Pushing for Trump's impeachment now would position Democrats as forward-looking thinkers who had it right before anyone else. Moral authority matters.
Oh, and if you don't do it, the Republicans will steal the moral high ground by doing it themselves. Ryan 2020!
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, November 4, 2016 Win or Lose, Hillary is Finished
Even if she wins next Tuesday, a second Clinton Administration will begin with zero mandate other than to be Not Trump. And there's a serious risk Republicans will begin impeachment proceedings within her first year. And she could easily lose -- which would put American democracy in grave peril. Heckuva job, Hillary!
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, June 3, 2016 Trump or Clinton, Screwed Either Way
On Tuesday night, the news media should refrain from declaring Hillary the victor. She won't be. She can't be. It's not over until July, so that's what they should report.
Between now and July, Democratic superdelegates should search their hearts, read the head-to-head matchups, and consider switching to Sanders who, for whatever flaws he has, is a real liberal -- he's not a Democrat, but he's more of a Democrat than she is.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 24, 2018 Hiring John Bolton is Donald Trump's Most Dangerous Decision So Far
Bolton is touting "regime change" against Iran. Evoking the same arguments he used to justify the invasion of Iraq, he paints dark portraits of North Korea selling or giving nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda or some other terrorist organization despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that there are any links for common ideology between the two.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 11, 2019 Once Again in Afghanistan, the U.S. Proves It Can't Be Trusted
Hours before representatives of the Taliban which controls about half of Afghanistan were set to board a plane to Washington where they were scheduled to meet with Trump at Camp David, the president canceled their visit and scuttled years of progress toward ending America's longest war, which has killed more than 2,300 U.S. servicemen and at least 30,000 Afghans.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 28, 2017 The Pledge of Allegiance is anti-American
The U.S. and Canada are the only countries on earth where national anthems are played at the start of sporting events. Even in many authoritarian states, the requirement that children (and athletes) swear fealty to the nation (or, as here, its flag) would be considered too creepy to contemplate.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 7, 2019 Trump Gets Away with Stuff Because He Does
Trump never admits fault or defeat. He lies his failures into fake successes, re-framing history into a narrative that he prefers. It's all attitude: because I am me, I can do no wrong.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 23, 2017 Sexual Harassment and the End of Team Politics
Until the 1990s, American electoral politics were divided ideologically, between the opposing ideas of liberalism and conservatism. Now we have Team Politics: Democrat versus Republican, my party right or wrong. Americans back their party the same way they back their favorite sports team -- with automatic, stupid loyalty.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 15, 2017 After Charlottesville: If You Fire a Fascist, You Are a Fascist
The upsides of free expression are intangible while the downside risks are terrifyingly brutal. A 2016 Harris poll found that 33% of U.S. employees are afraid to talk about politics at work. Increasingly workers have to worry about losing their jobs as the result of talking about politics outside of work too.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, March 16, 2018 Democrats Should Run on Impeachment
Everyone already knows that November is all about impeaching Trump. If the Democrats really want to win, the first promise in their national platform for the 2018 midterms ought to be a clear, unequivocal pledge to get rid of the president.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 4, 2016 Hey, Clintonoids, Stop Bullying Me About My Vote
I'm not going to vote for Donald Trump. I agree with the mainstream liberal consensus that he should never hold political power, much less control over nuclear launch codes. He's dangerous and scary. But that doesn't mean I have to vote for Hillary Clinton. So I won't.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 1, 2020 A Grim New Definition of Generation X
We can't stop global warming. An increase of four degrees Celsius over the baseline set at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution means game over. We're well on our way there. It doesn't make sense to think that we can avoid extinction.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 21, 2017 Democrats Want to Lose the 2020 Election
espite leading the party to defeat, the centrist-Third-Way-DLC-Hillary Clinton wing of the party still runs the DNC and the state apparatuses. They've never made nice with Bernie Sanders or his leftist-progressives -- the party's base and its most committed ideologues -- after repeatedly insulting and marginalizing them during the campaign.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 5, 2017 Hugh Hefner Said His Critics Were Prudes and Puritans. The Negative Obits Prove Him Right.
Hugh Hefner's death didn't move me. Penthouse was my print media stimulus of choice. I only read Playboy after the magazine's late delightful cartoons director Michelle Urry commissioned some samples during her campaign to update the magazine's hoary cartoon section with edgier, more political work. (Alas, those weird Marxist sex cartoons are lost to history.)
(13 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 12, 2019 Here is the Progressive Agenda
Progressives should demand that U.S. troops come home from any country that did not attack the United States -- i.e., all of them. They should put an end to the disgusting drone wars. The bloated nearly-$1 trillion Pentagon budget should be shredded; let's see what they can do with $100 billion (which would still be far more than Russia's defense spending).
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 3, 2020 So Far, There Is No Reason Not to Believe Tara Reade
Tara Reade has the right to be fully heard, Joe Biden has the right to a vigorous defense, and voters have the right to decide whether or not we believe her.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 30, 2020 The Speech Trump Must but Cannot Give
The ruling classes will not meet the minimum standard to which we are entitled. I want our rulers' failures to be placed in the sharpest possible relief so we can judge them accordingly and take the next logical step, getting rid of them.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 1, 2019 Democrats Aren't Doing Impeachment Right
The impeachment of Donald Trump should have been based on issues that nobody could deny and that everybody, regardless of which party they belonged to, could see was a major problem.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 25, 2018 The Left Will Never Thrive Without Its Own Smart, Entertaining and Well-Funded Media Organization
Apathy and laziness aren't the main causes of low attendance at real, bona-fide Left protests and demonstrations (as opposed to co-opted-by-the-Democratic Party marches like the annual January 20th Women's Marches against Trump). Our real problem is that there isn't a real, bona-fide Left journalism outlet in the United States.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 18, 2015 Hillary Clinton Runs First, Thinks Last
Hillary's lameness towers above the rest if for no other reason than the fact that she's had at least 20 years to think about what she'd do as president. If this is all she can think up after all this time, how slowly will she react when she gets that hotline phone call at 3 a.m.?
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 25, 2020 Don't Worry, Everything Will Get Back to "Normal"
The economic lockdown prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a mass unemployment shock, forced countless businesses into bankruptcy and is driving many Americans crazy. But this shall pass. The good old days will be back.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 18, 2016 The 4 Things Hillary Could Do To Close the Deal Against Trump
Hillary Clinton, probably like you and definitely like me, can't do anything about her personality. At 68, that stuff is baked in. Still, there's a lot she could do to close the deal against Donald Trump -- to widen her within-the-margin-of-statistical-error lead to a chasm, the insurmountable landslide that her institutional and other advantages would have guaranteed a better candidate.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 14, 2016 Donald Trump Can Easily Win in November
The liberal base of the Democratic Party, which mostly supports Bernie Sanders, is not at all Ready for Hillary. If the Bernie or Bust movement convinces even a few percentage points worth of Dems to stay home, write in Bernie's name or vote for Jill Stein, that shortfall of support could be enough to throw the race The Donald's way.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 24, 2016 Why I Am #NeverHillary
There is no way I'll vote for Hillary. I won't vote for her if she stops shaking down rich right-wing Republicans for donations. I won't vote for her if she adopts Bernie's platform. I won't vote for her if she names Bernie her vice president. I won't even vote for her if Bernie invites me to spend the summer with him and Jane in Vermont.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 9, 2016 Violent, Racist Cops Protect a Violent, Racist System
One possible place to start is the reaction of many people to the Dallas sniper attack. Like 9/11, it was shocking. Like 9/11, it also wasn't surprising. You can't go on acting like a bully forever. The powers that be can't pressure their victims forever. Eventually the prey strike back. No, it isn't justified. Nor is it right. But it is chickens coming home to roost.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 19, 2020 If This is a Democracy, Why Don't We Vote for the Vice President Too?
It is strange -- nay, it is insane -- that a self-declared democracy allows, effectively, 40% of its future leaders to be elected not by the voters but by one person, the presidential nominee of one party or, at most, by a half-dozen of his or her confidants.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 14, 2017 Democrats' Obsession with Russian Election Hacking Makes Them Look Dumb
As the Dems deRp around deep in the weeds of their confused and confusing Russia hacking narrative, they're neglecting the much tastier, low-hanging impeachment fruit they could easily use to hasten the day when D.C. Metro cops frogmarch The Donald out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: straightforward corruption.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 4, 2017 NYC Attack: Another Reason to Protect Bicycle and Pedestrian Paths
The biggest issue raised by the New York attack is the one we're not talking about: the need to protect bicyclists from cars and trucks on public roadways. You can't protect everyone. You can't anticipate every nefarious plot. But disasters that are predictable, easy to avoid or mitigate, and relatively inexpensive are a no-brainer.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 8, 2017 Our Obsession with Trump Shows Authoritarianism Has Arrived
There are indeed reasons to worry that civilian and constitutional rule are giving way to institutional post-democracy. Trump's cabinet and top White House staff contain enough military generals to give Pakistan a run for its money. Trump's party controls both the House and Senate yet the president prefers to dash off executive orders rather than making the necessary effort to shepherd legislation through Congress.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 19, 2016 How to Fix the Broken Relationship Between the People and the Police
When the police are charged with wrongdoing against civilians, the odds are that they will get away with it. In fact, the odds are that they will never face an indictment. In 2015, 85% of police shootings were handled by DAs who work closely with the officer's own department.
SHARE Wednesday, March 11, 2020 A Premature Postmortem of the Bernie Sanders Campaign
Bernie Sanders has an underlying vulnerability and warmth that his tendency to bellow often covered up. The media had a field day portraying him as a guy who likes to yell a lot. The biggest mistake Sanders made may not have been a mistake at all. He ran inside the Democratic Party. They were never going to let him have the nomination.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 21, 2016 Trump Isn't Bluffing, He'll Deport 11 Million People
Donald Trump isn't bluffing when he threatens to deport the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Do not take comfort in the fact that Trump flip-flops on all sorts of issues. But there's no way he'll back away from mass deportations. This promise to deport illegal immigrants, every single one of them, defined his campaign from the start. It's why he's here. It's why he won.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 4, 2018 Here's a Constitutional Amendment We Need Now
If the United States insists on spending tax dollars on blowing up brown people in Muslim countries rather than caring for its own sick people, that's a political priority this nation is free to select. But it's insane to charge people a fee for not buying something they can't afford. Punishment is immoral if there was no intent or desire to disobey the law.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 2, 2016 Khizr Khan and The Triumph of Democratic Militarism
Corporate media gatekeepers managed to transform the Democratic National Committee internal emails released by WikiLeaks from what it really was -- scandalous proof that Bernie Sanders and his supporters were right when they said the Democratic leadership was biased and had rigged the primaries against them, and that the system is corrupt.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 10, 2017 Call H.R.? Why Not the Cops? The Weird Politics of Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassers and assaulters should face prison time. So should false accusers. But bosses need to mind their own business -- at their own business. As far as Spacey goes, is it ethical to take money out of his pocket over an accusation that has never been tried, much less proven, by a judge or jury?
(13 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 12, 2017 Want Real Political Change? Hit the Streets -- And Don't Promise to be Nonviolent
Doing something effective requires you to become a clear and present danger to the system and the people who run it. Doing something that might change the fundamental nature of the system requires you to risk prison, injury and death. Doing something demands that you operate outside the system. It means taking it to the streets. Power never yields unless it's scared.
(13 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 3, 2021 9/11 Had Nothing to Do with Afghanistan
Better late than never: most Americans now believe that invading Afghanistan was a mistake. But what good does it do to recognize a screw-up unless you learn from it?
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, June 3, 2022 Our Culture of Violence Comes from the White House
Political leaders who normalize violence, especially extrajudicial violence, as acceptable, entertaining and amusing shouldn't be surprised when impressionable young men follow their example and resort to violence themselves.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 22, 2018 Whatever Happened to Resigning on Principle?
No one, not even Trump, needs anyone to tell them that the winner of a presidential election doesn't prosecute the loser. They do that kind of thing in Pakistan, not the U.S. If Trump didn't know that already, he's too stupid to serve and should be removed under the 25th Amendment. If he did know, he's a tyrant in the making and should be impeached at once.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 27, 2020 Don't Worry, Centrists. Bernie Isn't Radical.
Centrist/moderate/Third Way Dems are afraid of Bernie, not because he would lose to Trump or inverse-coattail down-ballot candidates, but because they would lose their longstanding minority control of the party apparatus.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 9, 2016 How Bernie Can Pay For His Ambitious Agenda? Slash the Military
The Sanders campaign hasn't issued a detailed plan explaining how President Sanders would cover the costs of free college tuition and Medicare for All. Maybe they're worried about getting attacked as weak on national security by the hawkish Secretary Clinton and, in the general election, by the Republican nominee (probably Trump or Cruz).
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 3, 2015 Do Not Be Impressed by Mark Zuckerberg's Phony Generosity
If Zuck wants a "gives 99% of his stock to charity" headline, he ought to earn it -- by giving 99% of his stock to actual charities. Charities that aren't named after him. Charities he doesn't control.
"Zuckerberg To Maybe Eventually Do Things He Deems Good With Some Of His Fortune" would be more accurate. The vagueness of the Zuckerberg's announcement highlights how little anyone should be impressed.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 17, 2018 On the One Hand, Gun Violence. On the Other Hand, Gun Control. It Never Ends.
if anyone deserves to die, it's Nikolas Cruz. But what kind of society executes a "broken child," possibly autistic, almost certainly emotionally damaged, absolutely wrecked by the recent death of his mother, his last surviving parent? How does killing a killer send the message that killing is wrong?
SHARE Friday, June 21, 2019 At Harvard, Thoughtcrime on Crack
Harvard is extremely unforgiving of its prospective freshmen. They previously rescinded admissions from 10 kids who shared dirty memes about the college on Facebook, and also famously from a woman who served time in prison for murder, because she didn't reveal her record on her application. Why should she have to? She did her time. Let her study up and move on.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 8, 2016 Ameri-Splaining
The United States has always been corrupt, savage and brutal. It has always been wildly dysfunctional and hypocritical. But now, thanks to a president-elect who is loudly ignorant and utterly devoid of impulse control, the mask is off. The horrible truth about the United States can no longer be denied. Trump epitomizes truth in advertising. We're a nasty, crappy country.
SHARE Tuesday, July 30, 2019 Bernie's Plan to Address the Retirement Crisis: It's Good That It Exists. But Not Nearly Enough to Solve the Problem
Bernie Sanders deserves credit for trying to turn the looming retirement crisis into a 2020 campaign issue. It's long overdue. His plan is detailed, plausible and stands head and shoulders above his rivals merely for existing. But it's weak tea. Even if it were enacted in its entirety it would still leave millions of Americans in coming years homeless and living in abject poverty.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 15, 2019 The Media Is down in the Gutter with Trump
Trump's attacks on journalists -- "fake news," mocking a disabled reporter's body movements -- are contemptible. They undermine citizens' trust in news media, a serious menace to democracy and civil society.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 7, 2016 What Obama Doesn't Want You to Know About Uzbekistan
It would be nice to hope that the flowers of democracy will sprout in the soil of the dictator's grave. But years of suppression have destroyed the opposition groups that might have been able to step into power as part of a post-Karimov transition. Acting Uzbek president Nigmatulla Yuldashev will no doubt call for another of the country's sham elections, which a hand-selected member of the ruling elite is predestined to win.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 18, 2019 In Defense of Purity Tests
Voters have every right to demand certain standards of behavior and policy positions in exchange for their support. Lefties have not asked for much: $15-an-hour minimum wage, Medicare For All, free college tuition, eschew donations by corporations. Yet even these modest attempts to nudge the needle to the left go too far for the Third Way/Democratic Leadership Council/moderates clinging to control over the Democratic Party.
SHARE Saturday, November 17, 2018 By Law the President Should Have to Give Daily Press Conferences
Whatever CNN paid Jim Acosta to transcribe Donald Trump's BS was too much. Even so, we owe Acosta for pushing the president so far that he yanked his reporter's press pass in a fit of pique. With a brusque instruction to his despicable minister of propaganda Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump simultaneously exposed his authoritarian personality so that none could deny it. Even Fox News was alarmed.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, March 9, 2018 Why Does the U.S. Hate Peace?
Iran is the emerging hegemon in the Middle East. The U.S. undermines Iran with trade sanctions, props up rivals like Saudi Arabia with aid, and deploys U.S. troops next door in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Similarly the U.S. keeps China off-balance by propping up Taiwan and setting up new U.S. bases in the region. We play India against Pakistan, Europe against Russia.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 1, 2017 The Case for Left Nationalism
t's good for Americans, and for decency, when wages of workers in other nations increase -- there are fewer wars and more consumers. As things stand today, however, nation-states are here to stay. In fact, there are more of them than ever before. A left unable to appeal to nationalism has no future.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 20, 2020 Think, Don't Hoard: How to Survive the End Times
It feels like the end times. A mysterious invisible killer stalks the land. Wild rumors abound. The government is useless. There's no sense that anyone knows anything, much less is in charge. Could America become a failed state?
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 22, 2016 It's Political Malpractice, Stupid
Democrats are wallowing in the Anger stage of the Kubler-Ross model of grief. How on earth, they howl on op-ed pages and cable-news talking-head shows, can this be? Why doesn't the electorate--that useless "basket of deplorables"--not see what is plain for all to see, that Hillary possesses more qualifications for the nation's highest political office in her tiniest pinkie toe than The Donald has in his whole 267-pound body.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 9, 2017 Donald Trump's Other Lies: His Campaign Promises
Trump has governed to the far right. In fact, on just about every issue you can think of, Donald Trump has governed as the most extreme far-right politician of our lifetimes, and possibly in the history of the Republican Party.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, August 10, 2018 Would Corporate Democrats Rather Lose Than Include Progressives?
What the DNC and the centrist-corporatists who control it still refuse to accept is that anti-Republicanism -- even anti-Trumpism -- is not now, nor will it ever be, enough to lure the progressive populist left to the polls. Against history, against the 2016 election results, they assume that the default mode of a left-leaning voter is Democratic.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 3, 2022 Supreme Court To Progressives - Wake U
Whether or not the right-wing majority of the Supreme Court is mean and stupid is less important than the fundamental truth that has been revealed - the separation of powers is broken.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 26, 2017 Republicans May Impeach Trump
Trump-haters want Democrats to push for impeachment. Setting aside the Dems' congenital cowardice and the arithmetic -- a minority party can't impeach anyone -- the real danger to Trump is his nominal Republican allies. The Donald struts the marbled corridors of the capital, his head held high like Caesar. Beneath their togas, the senators' sharp knives await.
(11 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 16, 2016 What Hillary Must Do to Win Over Bernie Voters
Question of the month: how can the Hillary Clinton campaign convince progressive supporters of Bernie Sanders -- whose race was largely based on the assumption that Clinton is so far to the right that she might as well be a Republican -- to vote for her?
SHARE Saturday, June 20, 2020 NFL, Biden, Harris: Call for Cultural, Political Atonement
Atonement doesn't play a frequent role in American politics. Yet it works. After JFK accepted responsibility for the attempted overthrow of the Cuban government at the Bay of Pigs -- his popularity soared.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 29, 2021 Who Lost Afghanistan? H.R.
We spent 20 years fighting people who meant us no harm and couldn't have hurt us even if they had wanted to. What Pentagon leaders don't seem to understand, is why.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 30, 2017 Progressive, Heal Thyself
Trump wasn't a surprise. He wasn't an anomaly. American politics won't get nicer or smarter after he's gone. He's crazy and mean and dangerous -- but he's not a bizarre departure from the American norm.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 24, 2018 Ban Drones
No one has sat down to consider, in a careful measured way, the pros and cons of unmanned aerial vehicles. Where, as our skies are about to turn into the Wild West, are the Congressional hearings and expert opinions? A drone ban doesn't have to be forever. But it should last long enough for us to figure out, as Donald Trump used to say on the campaign trail, what the hell is going on.
(12 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 31, 2017 Democrats Will Fix It
Donald Trump is pushing through radical right policies, including a tax revamp and a crackdown against immigrants. But Democrats could reverse all that if and when they retake power. So everything will be just fine. Right?
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 6, 2018 Here's How Democrats Could Win This Fall and the One After That and the One After That
Based on their record of inaction and subservience to corporate interests, I don't expect Democrats to roll up their sleeves and take on the pocketbook issues progressives -- and many swing voters -- care about. But if I'm wrong, and they get serious about the stuff that matters most, they'll win.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 14, 2017 What Would the U.S. Look Like If We Built It From Scratch?
It's time to shed the illusion of the U.S. as some cute wet-behind-the-ears nation-come-lately. The frontier has been conquered. Even though 97% of Puerto Ricans want in, there will be no new states. In spirit and by chronology we are old, old as the hills, old like Old Europe, and we've gotten stuck in our ways.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 1, 2020 Did I or Didn't I Have Covid-19? Blundering through Unknowable Truths
Though the experts remain officially uncertain whether someone can be reinfected by COVID-19, the evidence appears to say that COVID-19 survivors probably cannot get reinfected to a significant extent.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 9, 2017 NYC Attack Highlights Need to Protect Cyclists
Bike paths running adjacent to traffic should be separated by solid concrete or metal barriers between intersections. At intersections, a series of metal bars wide enough to allow bikes to pass through but too narrow for cars, and solid enough to stop one traveling fast, should be installed.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 8, 2021 What You Do after Work Shouldn't Cost You Your Job
The viral video was viewed more than 45 million times. Cooper was internationally shamed as an emblematic wielder of white privilege used to oppress people of color. She was charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor.
SHARE Monday, May 28, 2018 Austin Beutner: L.A.'s Creepy New School Superintendent Keeps Failing Up, Leaving Destruction in His Wake
Beutner is a wannabe political animal who recognizes his biggest political problem: no one knows who he is. Being perceived as having turned around the schools might be leveraged into a mayoral or even gubernatorial run. Beutner is a proponent of charter schools, but he faces a dilemma there: every student who transfers to a charter school takes away more revenue from the traditional institutions.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 19, 2022 Only Biden Can Stop This Political Dumpster Fire Redux
Even as Biden goes from a Democratic House and Senate to a Republican House and Democratic Senate, he is upgrading his report card like a kid using a pencil to change a D to a B.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 14, 2017 Life Under Trump -- What Happens Now?
At this point, probably the only thing that would save the system would be for the Republican-controlled Congress to impeach Trump. (This would also have the effect of saving the Republican Party.) This would have to happen in relatively short order, no longer than in a year or two.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, May 17, 2021 End Military Aid to Israel
The only way we can hold Israel accountable for repeated escalations, land grabs, and ongoing brutality is to stop sending the gravy train.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 2, 2016 At the Clinton Foundation, Access Equals Corruption
Access should be, has to be in a democracy, determined solely by meritocratic criteria. Political leaders like Hillary Clinton need to be meeting with people who can offer them the best advice and who need the most help -- not those who bought their way in. Anyone who doesn't understand that access always equals corruption, even when access doesn't result in favors, doesn't deserve to hold political office.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 5, 2022 Here's What a Progressive Platform Looks Like
We're not the world's policeman. We're its deranged serial killer. The U.S. squanders $800 billion a year to invade, occupy, assassinate, intimidate, and bomb people, who mean us no harm, and destroy their infrastructure.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 24, 2016 Trump vs. Clinton: It's All About the Debates
Trump knows all the tricks: how to deploy comical facial expressions as well as Jim Carrey, how to dominate others using body language, a laser-like ability to identify an opponent's weaknesses and reduce them to rubble via ridicule ("Little Marco"). In an American presidential debate, 15-point white papers don't count for jack. The best entertainer always wins.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 19, 2018 On Gun Violence and Control, a Political Gordian Knot
On the one hand, if anyone deserves to die, it's Nikolas Cruz. On the other hand, what kind of society executes a "broken child," possibly autistic, almost certainly emotionally damaged, absolutely wrecked by the recent death of his mother, his last surviving parent? How does killing a killer send the message that killing is wrong?
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 18, 2016 Trump's Fascism Picks Up Where Obama's Left Off
From what we know of Trump's likely cabinet appointments, the next few years promise to devolve into a dystopian nightmare of authoritarian repression the likes of which few Americans ever imagined possible. Fascism under Trump will merely continue Obama's fascism with a smiley face -- a fascism that we let him get away with for far too long.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 15, 2017 The 3 Rules of Resistance to Donald Trump
We Americans may not be familiar with them, but there are standards. Everything does not go. There are clear rights and wrongs. Now, as we plunge into the moral abyss, it is important to learn, spread and enforce the Rules of Resistance for people who want to be able to hold their heads high when their children ask "what did you do during the war, daddy/mommy?"
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 27, 2020 Three Things Government Must Do to Avoid Total Collapse
Americans don't expect much from their government. But even by the standards of a nation with one of the flimsiest social safety nets in the Western world, the inability and unwillingness of both major political parties to manage and solve the crisis caused by the Corona virus pandemic is shocking.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 19, 2017 Why Girls in the Boy Scouts Feels Weird
The idea of girl Boy Scouts is novel -- and it required a smooth rollout preceded by careful explanation of the pros and cons for all kids and for both organizations. Instead, a big change was dropped on our laps without any preparation or the cooperation of the girls' organization. The end result comes off as unwarranted, motivated by ill will and just plain silly.
SHARE Saturday, May 1, 2021 Biden's Left Feint
If you don't dig deep Joe Biden appears to be governing as the most liberal president since LBJ. But conservatives needn't worry. Biden is no progressive in centrist's clothing.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 26, 2022 Ukraine War Lies Debunked
It is entirely reasonable to look at the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and decide that it's simply not our business, that neither side is worthy of support.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 18, 2021 Democrats Share the Blame for Afghanistan
The 'Democrats - political leaders and voters alike - went far beyond tacit consent. They were actively complicit with the Republicans' war at the time of the invasion and throughout the decades-long occupation of Afghanistan'.
(15 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 24, 2016 Trump is Positioned to Win the Presidency
Trump, used to getting his way all the time, is a bully. A president convinces. An authoritarian orders you. Do what he says, or else. This November, nothing less than the American political system is at stake. So it's time to get real. The establishment types are still in denial. Wake up, idiots!
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 12, 2020 Like Trump, Would Biden Be a Right-Wing President?
Biden supporters say he'd be progressive. Yet his "unity platform" doesn't include a single major policy position endorsed by Bernie Sanders.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 23, 2022 When It Cares - the US Government Is Extremely Efficient
Those who criticize the United States government as inefficient couldn't possibly be more mistaken. Congress and the White House are lightning quick and incredibly generous when it matters.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 23, 2022 What's Worse Than Inflation? - Fighting Inflation
It is, of course impossible to brush away the cynical conclusion that crushing workers and their economic power was and remains a feature of the capitalist system and its stewards in government and finance.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 28, 2020 Save America, Throw the Landlords Under the Bus
26.5 million Americans have lost their jobs to the national lock-down necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Added to those who were unemployed before the coronavirus crisis, we will soon face jobless numbers equivalent to or greater than those at the height of the Great Depression. What's going to happen to them? More specifically, where will they live?
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 9, 2018 Why Blended Primaries Are an Assault on Democracy
We still have a two-party system. Representative democracy would be better served by a more inclusive regime, whether it's rank-choice voting or moving to a European-style parliamentary system or something else entirely. Until we think things through and have a new system to replace it, the current two-party system ought not to be insipidly sabotaged as though nibbled to death by feckless ducks.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 11, 2016 Trump's Guerilla Politics Are Here To Stay
Hillary Clinton delivers a cut-and-paste stump speech at every appearance. Trump, meanwhile, performs jazz. He extemporizes. No one, including him, knows what he's going to say. So every rally gets covered live. How can she compete? No matter what happens in November, the guerilla politics pioneered by Trump are here to stay.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 22, 2018 Distractor-in-Chief Trump Is Gaslighting Us Into Forgetting America's Real Issues
The problem is a lack of focus -- because we're all too busy focusing on the Lunatic-in-Chief. It's time to stop being reactive. This is our country. This is our time. These are our lives. It's up to us to ignore the twitterstorms and the random rants and demand what is our birthright as Americans: the best possible lives we can afford.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 26, 2018 This Is What Happens When a Court Decides Whether You Get Justice or Get Destroyed
My attorney asked why the court's tentative ruling ignored our most important anti-SLAPP case law precedent, Wilson v. CNN. There was no clear answer. Whether it was intentional or they forgot, people have been fired from far less prestigious jobs for considerably less shoddy work.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 18, 2018 The Outlook for Democrats in 2020 Currently Looks Bleak
The Democrats are a 50-50 party divided between progressives and liberals. Three serious liberals -- Harris, Warren, Booker and whoever else pops up between now and then -- divvy up the liberal half. Bernie Sanders has the progressive half all to himself. So he wins the nomination --if he wants it.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 4, 2021 When Will Politicians Start Caring about People's Actual Problems?
What are the two major political parties doing about healthcare costs? Not much. Democrats think we should be grateful for the crappy system we have now. Not that the Republicans are any better.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 1, 2020 December Will Be Very Dangerous
Liberal voters are counting on Biden's corporatist cabinet picks. But we still don't know for sure that Trump will let them hatch. There's still a significant chance I would put it at 50-50 that the "outgoing" president will engineer a coup d'e'tat in order to remain in power.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 22, 2017 Sue the Bastards? It's Harder Than You Think
Are you one of those Americans who say it's too easy to file a lawsuit? As I can tell you from personal experience, it's anything but. The canard that U.S. courts are jammed up by litigious jerks is based on anecdotes spread by corporate propaganda. We do need "tort reform" -- but we should make it easier to sue, not harder.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 16, 2018 Pulling Out of Iran Nuke Deal Makes US Look Awful
When a nation as powerful as the United States, which has done more to shape the postwar international order then any other country -- there's a reason that the United Nations is in New York -- behaves dishonorably, it establishes a precedent whose repercussions will reverberate long after the crisis at hand is a distant memory.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 12, 2012 Republican Socialists, Democratic Capitalists
Forget 9/11 -- everything changed on 9/14/08, when Lehman Brothers hit the skids. Millions lost their jobs. Millions more lost their jobs. And the government refused to help them. To the contrary, the powers that be are calling for austerity, for gutting what's left of the safety net.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 10, 2018 The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance
Producers laboring through cable news' 24-7 news cycle ought to take a step back and consider the effect of their editorial decisions. They've created a relentless culture of ultraviolence, a debate without diversity between those who want bombs and those who want even more wars, to the point that not going to war isn't even something we get to consider as a legitimate option.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 23, 2018 Never Mind Millennial Apathy, Here's Generation Z
As Gen Z heads into their twenties in the 2020s, the "Generations" authors predicted they'll be challenged to respond to some major American crisis. If the young Floridians who stood up to establishmentarian right-wingers Senator Marco Rubio and President Trump are any indication, they've just begun to fight -- and we'll be in good hands.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 21, 2021 Afghanistan Under the Taliban: It Won't Be Like Last Time
We've been in Afghanistan 20 years, Joe Biden's generals told him. All we need is a little more time. The president overruled them, ordering a complete withdrawal of American troops by September 11th.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 21, 2016 Mass Shootings Are The New Normal. Get Over It.
This ship sailed back in 2004 when Congress allowed the federal ban on assault weapons to expire without being renewed. Congress's failure to act over the last 12 years has transformed the United States into a nation awash in military hardware. Mass shootings are the new normal. Get over it. Let's stop focusing on problems we can't do anything about and work on those we still can.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, December 23, 2016 Russian Hacking: Where's the Evidence?
As if this "Russia hacked the election" episode wasn't enough to showcase the intellectual bankruptcy of America's state-controlled news media, the stenographers are ignoring a far more credible explanation for how WikiLeaks got the Podesta/DNC emails: they were leaked, not hacked. The moral midgets of American corporate media don't have the slightest interest in uncovering the truth.
SHARE Tuesday, September 15, 2015 There Is No "Flood" of Syrian Immigrants
Were the U.S. to accept Syrians in the same proportion to its population as it took in Southeast Asians in the 1970s, we could absorb 1.2 million -- close to the total who have fled to Europe since the crisis began last year. If one or two million Syrians want to come here, the U.S. should welcome them with open arms.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 28, 2016 The Thrilla at Hofstra: How Trump Won the Debate
All things being equal, I would agree with the corporate media consensus that Hillary won. But that's the thing -- things are far from equal. Hillary Clinton is a pro. She should have wiped the floor with Trump. Instead, she delivered a performance on the line between a B+ and an A-. Trump gets closer to a C-. That's much closer than it ought to have been.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 19, 2017 No Man is Above the Law -- Except on College Campuses
The weird alternative universe of law on campus is in the headlines again due to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' announcement that the Trump Administration plans to rewrite Obama-era Title IX rules to give male students accused of rape on college campuses more rights to defend themselves.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 5, 2019 Death to the D.I.Y. Society
Since the 1970s corporate efficiency experts have burdened American consumers with a constantly expanding galaxy of tasks that businesses used to perform for them. Craig Lambert calls it "shadow work" -- labor imposed on you that you're not conscious of.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 17, 2018 Why Trump is Right About Newspaper Libel Laws
California is one of 28 states to have an "anti-SLAPP" law. According to proponents, there are wealthy individuals and companies who file nuisance lawsuits against defendants, not to win but to tie the poor defendants up in court and force them to hire expensive lawyers to defend themselves.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 11, 2020 We Need a Centralized Medical System Too
We can't pretend to be a first world country until we join the rest of the world by abolishing corporate for-profit healthcare and decouple insurance benefits from employment. But reform without centralization would be incomplete.
SHARE Friday, November 11, 2016 Here Comes the Rise of the Anti-Trump Left
The devastating defeat of Hillary Clinton, the ultimate candidate of the neo-conservative Democratic center-right, has discredited her patrons, the pro-globalization elites. The election of Donald Trump sets the stage for a civil war within the party in which its liberal progressive wing is likely to emerge victorious, dominating electoral politics within the mainstream left for the foreseeable future.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 7, 2020 President Trump Neither Needs Nor Deserves Our Thoughts and Prayers
Republicans, members of the self-proclaimed Party of Personal Responsibility, ought to acknowledge that this man has been asking for this. I'm not talking about karmic retribution for the 200,000+ Americans who died on his watch while he plainly didn't much care. Trump has been cruising for COVID-19 spring, summer and fall. Trump wanted this virus and he got it.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, June 15, 2018 Suicide? No. Society Is Murdering Us. But There Is a Way Out.
Life in the United States has become vicious and brutal, too much to take even for this nation founded upon the individualistic principles of rugged libertarian pioneers. Children are pressured to exhibit fake joy and success on social media. Young adults are burdened with gigantic student loans they strongly suspect they will never be able to repay. We don't have to live this way. It's a choice.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 12, 2020 Trump Tees Up a New Type of Coup: In Plain Sight
Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for a coup attempt in plain sight. Defying tradition, Trump is still refusing to concede the election since the Associated Press and other media organizations called the race in favor of Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 19, 2019 Journalists Had Better Hope I Win My Case Against the Billionaire-Owned L.A. Times
There is a $330,000 judgment against me for having the gall to defend my reputation in court. Unless the California Supreme Court overrules it, that judgment will be final and will grow bigger. Journalists and pundits aren't covering my case; they're afraid, as they ought to be but they are watching. If the judgment stands, who will be stupid enough to take on the LAPD or similar institution?
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, August 3, 2020 Immunity From Prosecution or Sentenced to Death
How would you feel if getting fired would mean that you would spend the rest of your life in prison? You would do anything to keep working. That's the position in which Donald Trump finds himself.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 17, 2017 How Society Makes Victimhood a No-Win Proposition
Society doesn't like victims. Victims make us uncomfortable. It's probably a vestige of our Darwinian instinct for survival: the monkey clan prospers when its members are healthy and lucky, but finds life perilous around those who are sick and unfortunate. We turn away from the unlucky, the homeless man, the woman whose face bears burn scars, the black guy getting choked to death by cops -- not our problem.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, May 6, 2022 Better a Pretend Fight Than None at All
There's only one way to campaign, tell people that you get it, you understand their pain, and you're going to fight like hell to make them feel better.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 15, 2017 The Splitting Up of the Democratic Party: Why It's Probably Coming Sooner Than You Think
Given the escalating rage of the party's progressive base in the Age of Trump and the absolute refusal of the DNC leadership to grant them concessions, it's hard to imagine this restive crowd staying calm and keeping Democratic. The tsunami is coming. Lefties have a choice: get washed away, or grab a surfboard.
SHARE Wednesday, April 15, 2020 Ruling Classes and Covid-19
The ruling classes will not meet the minimum standard to which we are entitled. Our rulers' failures should be placed in the sharpest possible relief so we can judge them accordingly and take the next logical step, getting rid of them.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 8, 2018 The "Thin Grey Line" -- The Media's Conspiracy of Silence on Defamation and Libel
Based on the coverage of the Gawker-Hogan coverage I've read since the 2016 verdict, most media outlets are still pushing the Thin Grey Line narrative that Hogan had no grounds to complain. I say that Hogan has the right not to have his sex acts posted to the Internet without his permission.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 20, 2021 Colin Powell, Moral Weakling
When you join a gang you're required to prove your loyalty. "You've got high poll ratings," Vice President Dick Cheney told Powell as he ordered him to support the push for war. "You can afford to lose a few points."
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 9, 2018 Remember When? The Border Wall Used to be a Left-Wing Thing
We need less illegal immigration and more legal immigration. As we reduce unauthorized land crossings and overstayed visas, we ought to increase opportunities for foreigners to apply for legal visas with a clear path to a green card and citizenship. Unlike undocumented workers preyed upon by rapacious employers because they live in the shadows, legal immigrants can insist upon fair legal wages.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 5, 2018 The Amazing GWHB Hagiography
This was an insane historical benchmark when a major network interrupted its coverage of the G-20 summit with the BREAKING NEWS that George W. Bush had issued a statement about his dead dad: "George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for." Stop the presses!
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 28, 2017 Five Things the Democrats Could Do to Save Their Party (But Probably Won't)
Democrats need to stop disappearing between elections. Campaigns are exhausting and it's natural to want to catch one's breath and conduct a postmortem to determine what went well and wrong. But it's gotten to the point that the only time left-of-center voters hear from the Democratic Party is the year of a major election, for the most part only a few months before November and then only to ask for money.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 18, 2018 What Do the NY Times and LA Times Have in Common with the National Enquirer? They All Love anti-SLAPP Laws
The most outrageous California example of abuse I've read recently is former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen's anti-SLAPP motion against Stormy Daniels. Cohen said Daniels lied about having an affair with Trump -- which is plainly false. Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison for arranging hush-money payoffs to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 24, 2015 Where Are the Passionate Editors?
Editors are wimps. Journalists say that all the time. That was probably always true -- but there were fewer wimps and more heroes in the past. Years of budget cuts and downsizing have made editors who still have their jobs terrified of rocking the boat. All they want to do is coast to retirement before getting fired.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 17, 2020 If Biden Loses, This Will Be Why
Two crazy old white men with bad hair are in a dead heat in key battleground states like Florida. As one would expect during a normal year -- when the president had not just killed a bunch of voters and made a bunch of others jobless -- the race is tightening.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 29, 2016 Who's Really To Blame for Brexit (and Trump)
Nativism and racism played a role in the Brexit vote. England is an island nation with an island mentality. Though only a few thousand Syrians entered the UK last year, with nary a passport check, images of refugees riding the roof of trains from France through the Chunnel felt like an invasion to some Britons.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, January 4, 2016 Cops Are Too Crazy To Be Trusted with Guns
Sometimes a jury verdict relies on so many false assumptions, baseless assignments of privilege and twisted logic that you have to call it out. The decision of a Cleveland grand jury not to indict the cop who shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice to death is one such time. Officer Timothy Loehmann blew Tamir away between 1.5 and 2.0 seconds after arriving at the scene.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 23, 2016 What's Up with Black Voters?
Sanders has consistently championed racial equality and fought poverty and income disparity, two economic scourges that hurt blacks worse than anyone else. As First Lady, Clinton pushed her husband's 1994 crime bill, which accelerated mass incarceration of blacks. Hillary is essentially a Republican. Since when do blacks vote Republican?
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 7, 2017 Will President Trump Last Another Year?
Trump is more likely to give away his fortune to charity than slink away in a Nixonian resignation. His ego is too big; he's too pugnacious. He'd rather get dragged out kicking and screaming -- unless it's part of a deal with Mueller or other feds to avoid prosecution. So impeachment it would need to be.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, February 8, 2016 Hillary Clinton: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
When Hillary criticizes Bernie Sanders for advocating changes that would be hard to get through Congress and expensive to pay for -- free college tuition, Medicare for everybody -- she projects a radical pessimism that makes many ask, why not? Why can't the country that invades everyone, that sent a man to the moon, provide the same social benefits as most other nations?
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 24, 2021 What Will the Taliban Do? It's Up to Us.
The question now is: which Taliban will we and far more importantly, the people of Afghanistan, be dealing with?
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, April 12, 2019 Meritocracy is Stupid and Evil and Must Die
As game theory experiments show, unfair incentive structures are ineffective because not everyone is optimistic. In a system with winners and losers some people reach for the brass ring because they think they might get win. Pessimists do not. They weigh the cost of effort and decide not to bother for their mere chance at success.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2021 Biden Offers Moderate Solutions to Radical Problems
"Radical solutions require radical solutions," a polemic that calls upon us to save ourselves from imminent social, economic and political collapse by overthrowing the system and rebuilding society from the ground up.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 7, 2021 Abandon Afghanistan and Don't Look Back
The invasion was a mistake, the occupation was a mistake and so was our propping up of our corrupt puppet regime. We never should have been there in the first place and it has taken 20 years too long to get out.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 14, 2014 Obama Trolled by ISIS
After the videos, a war-weary American public's apathetic stance toward the civil war in Syria flipped toward strong support in favor of the bombing campaign announced by Obama (who paradoxically continues to poll poorly on foreign policy). Clearly ISIS' top brass believe they stand more to gain than to lose from the coming onslaught by U.S. drones and fighter jets. This should frighten us.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, January 11, 2016 Liberal Democrats and the Depersonalization of Evil
The lower your status in society, the more harshly you will be treated by the justice system. The darker your skin, the longer your prison sentence. The poorer you are, the higher the fine. The fewer resources you have to get through life -- like, if you suffer from mental illness -- the more brutality you will experience at the hands and fists of police and prison guards.
SHARE Tuesday, May 22, 2018 #MeToo: A Cultural Workaround to a Legal Failure
#MeToo is not, nor does it seek to be, a legal process. It is a cultural reaction to a legal system that fails women accusers. It is a workaround. It is a drive to change what constitutes acceptable behavior on a date, at the office, in the bedroom. It has nothing to do with due process -- because due process hasn't worked for women victims.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 13, 2019 8 Ways to Fix America's Messed-Up Presidential Elections
Presidential campaigns could be improved -- streamlined, made more relevant to more voters and their worries, and likelier to result in better outcomes -- and it wouldn't require revolutionary change, just common-sense reforms. The ideal politician is responsive and accountable to the citizenry. Otherwise people look at politics and think "what a load of crap, it makes no difference to me."
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 30, 2016 Hillary Lost. Should We Care?
Hillary fans can credibly argue that she would not have made things worse, or at least not as bad as they will be under Trump. By objective standards, however, it defies reason to claim that she would have presided over a halcyon era of progress. At best, President Clinton II would have held the line against Republican attacks. As we know, however, voters are not in the mood for more of the same.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 25, 2014 End the Death Penalty. Allow Vigilantism.
Given the finality of capital punishment, proof that one innocent person has ever been executed is enough for me to find the practice abhorrent. The fact, is numerous innocents have died in American death chambers. Most of the world agrees. Only 21 out of the world's 195 nations carried out any executions last year.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 25, 2020 When a Country Reeling from Crisis Turns to an Aging Father Figure
If the American people rise up and overthrow this corrupt and moribund government and replace it with one that serves our needs, and we somehow manage to avoid the despotism that often follows revolution, we might emerge better than ever.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 10, 2016 Clinton Proves Best PR in the World Can't Sell a Terrible Product
Hillary looks presidenty. She talks presidentish. A lot of voters don't know how badly she screwed them, especially by pushing NAFTA and free trade. So she is favored to win the Democratic nomination. But she's a terrible candidate. Tracking polls show that she has lower odds than Bernie of defeating Trump in November.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 7, 2019 The Secret Campaign for 2020: Where the Democratic Candidates Stand on Foreign Policy
Except for Biden, the Democratic presidential field is dominated by progressives and progressives-come-lately on domestic issues. When it comes to foreign policy, there isn't as much difference as progressive voters would like between the Democratic and Republican parties.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 30, 2018 Who's to Blame for Political Violence? The Terror Starts at the Top, Trickles Down
Tone, morale, what's acceptable vs. what's unacceptable: social norms come from the top and trickle down to us peasants. Trump's rhetoric is toxic. But the message that violence is effective and acceptable didn't begin with Trump. And it's hardly unique to his presidency.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 20, 2016 Bernie Sanders Could Win. America Could Become Socialist. Are We Witnessing the Failure of Propaganda?
The ruling elite's old tricks are indeed failing them. But it's too early to declare propaganda dead and gone. Propaganda works. That's why those in power keep using it.
Here's what I think is really going on: old institutions have been discredited. Sanders' growing support and Iowa's surprisingly socialist hordes reflect public contempt for everyone in charge.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 29, 2020 Trump is Still Plotting a Possible Coup
Trump is a desperate cornered rat. Once he leaves office, he becomes vulnerable to several criminal investigations. By far, the one he has to worry about the most is being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney into his corrupt business practices, charges that could not be discharged by a presidential pardon if Joe Biden were to issue one.
SHARE Wednesday, March 31, 2021 Cancel Culture: Another Victim of Republican Tactics
The debate over "cancel culture" centers around activists and politically-correct "social justice warriors" expel people from social acceptability or force them into joblessness because something they said or did provoked an online mob.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2016 For Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, Politics is Personal
Clinton and Sanders represent two worldviews: one for whom wealth and privilege have long been assumed as her due, the other whose sympathies lie with those who suffer and die simply because they had the bad luck to be born into the vast majority of Americans, who are broke.
SHARE Wednesday, August 10, 2011 Down and Out at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: What I Would Do If I Were Obama
Jobs, jobs, jobs. Throughout the presidency of Barack Obama, Americans have been preoccupied with jobs. Unemployed people need work. The underemployed need more work. The employed want salaries that go up instead of down.
SHARE Thursday, May 9, 2019 Death to the Stump Speech
Radio, television and the Internet have revolutionized communication. The last presidential election, in which ad lib shockingly defeated inevitability, demonstrated the obsolescence of the stump speech. Yet this boring tradition endures.
SHARE Wednesday, December 9, 2020 Why Didn't the Xenophobe-in-Chief Close the Borders?
The COVID-19 pandemic was a crisis tailormade for a xenophobe like Donald Trump. On a rare occasion when America needed an isolationist leader, it instead got a globalist.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 1, 2016 Working for the U.S. Government Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
One telltale sign that the government is engaged in a cover-up is timing: when it releases a report just before the weekend news blackout, you know something nasty is afoot. Obama's latest whitewash, dumped online Friday, is the Administration's attempt to drown its responsibility for one of the most heinous acts of mass murder in years in 3,000 pages of spin, dissembling and circular logic.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 18, 2019 For Journalists, Self-Censorship Is Credibility Suicide
Respecting the public's right to know is hard. Good people can die as a result. Wars may be lost. But for someone dedicated to journalism it's an easy call. Either you're a journalist or you're nothing more than a low-rent liar and propagandist for the government.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 30, 2015 Carly Fiorina, Identity Politics and the Death of Feminism
Feminists -- most of whom are, by definition, politically liberal or progressive -- are confused by the disconnect between Carly Fiorina's projection of strong, competent womanness, and her retrograde right-wing politics. For this generation of image feminists, Fiorina is seductive because cuts a fine figure in a high-end corporate outfit and refuses to absorb Donald Trump's cheap shots at her looks.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, November 27, 2020 Joe Biden, Here's What We Want
Because there isn't a political party or other formation that can credibly speak for a broad base of the American left, and because the left is divided between work-from-inside AOC-Bernie types and street-level activists, no one has defined a clear metric to judge the Biden Administration's personnel, policy and legislative actions.
SHARE Thursday, April 5, 2018 To Do Next for the #NeverAgain Movement: Settle on a Clear Demand
There is a century-old tradition of large groups of Americans gathering in Washington, carrying signs, chanting slogans and being ignored by Congress and the president after they go home. To those shattered dreams you can add 2011's Occupy Wall Street, another leaderless protest that came together and fizzled.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 19, 2016 Inside the Media Bubble, No One Can Hear Us Scream
You may be tempted to join the media when they dismiss Trump as a whiner. In business, Trump is the consummate insider. But he's a political naïf. When someone as sleazy and unprincipled as Donald Trump is shocked by how dirty politics are, you have to take note. And if they can steal elections from someone as rich as Donald Trump, there is nothing left of American democracy.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 3, 2013 How to Save Obamacare
An intelligent, pro-human solution is not in the cards. Not in bankster-owned America. Not now, anyway. Both the Democrats and Republicans are owned by the big corporate insurers that stand to make billions from the Affordable Care Act. Before the country, and eventually its political class, get real and get serious, we'll have to waste a few years on attempts at reform.
SHARE Wednesday, March 8, 2017 Why Trump Continues to Beat the Democrats
Asking the media to throw shade on PhoneTapGate is insane. Interest in our wild and crazy president is Making the Media Great Again! Newspaper circulation is up for the first time in decades! So are broadcast ratings -- because TV cable news covers stuff like this. There's only one way to beat crazy: with more crazy.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 24, 2019 Democrats' Refusal to Impeach Trump Could Be the Death of Them in 2020
Like a dog who caught a car (like Trump caught a presidency he reportedly didn't want), Democrats captured the House. But they don't want to impeach. Nancy Pelosi and other party leaders say impeachment would divide the country, turn off swing voters and risk the kind of backlash Republicans suffered in 2000 after they voted to impeach Bill Clinton. Refusal to impeach is a serious tactical error.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 25, 2021 Don't Hate Rush Limbaugh. Copy Him.
Limbaugh first made his mark as a conservative who criticized the GOP for failing to live up to the right-wing values he articulated, and held them to account
SHARE Friday, April 1, 2016 Everyone But the Media Saw Trumpism Coming
There are scores -- maybe hundreds -- of opinion writers who do know what's going on in their own country. Who write well. Who get stories right. Pundits who saw the Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders populist phenomena coming. But you won't find any of them in the print pages of major newspapers like the Times, or even in the low-pay ghettos of their web-only content.
SHARE Friday, May 3, 2013 Why Closing Guantanamo Is Easy: Obama Doesn't Need Congress -- He Needs Travelocity
All detainees--every last one of them, the schlubs who have been officially cleared by the Pentagon and, yes, even the scary dudes the government insists are "the worst of the worst"--can, should and--if the US Constitution means anything at all--must be released. Obama should stop blaming Congress. He signed their legislation into law. He owns this mess.
SHARE Friday, April 8, 2016 It Happened Here
Seeing opportunity amid the armies of the alienated and dispossessed, the perennial almost-candidate of the nationalist, nativist far-right began campaigning in earnest. Breaking all the rules of conventional campaigning, he drew huge crowds with a simple message: Believe me. Trust me, he assured his audiences, and I will make the country great again.