“Son, this is a Washington, D.C., kind of lie. It’s when the other person knows you’re lying, and also knows you know he knows.” This from Allen Drury’s novel “Advise and Consent.” The 1959 account of conniving and blood sport in a high-profile Senate confirmation won the Pulitzer…
DetailsThey cheated. They got caught. They’re gone. If only our nation were governed like Major League Baseball. If it were, Donald Trump would take the same exit as Houston Astros manager A.J. Hinch and Boston Red Sox manager Joey Cora, confirmed cheaters and rule-breakers. They’re out, in baseball’s…
DetailsTwo views this week stand as a haunting portrait of planetary distress. From the ground: Frantic kangaroos bound in silhouetted stampede against advancing hellfire. From the sky: Flames and smoke literally ring the Australian continent, its outer reaches charred like unattended toast. No wonder right-wing politicians…
DetailsAs relates to telling truth, Donald Trump has assumed the status of pin-striped legend. The Bambino of BS. The Sultan of Squat. Or as historian Douglas Brinkley dubs him, “the Babe Ruth of lies.” This title, every bit in keeping with the superlatives Trump assigns himself,…
DetailsIn time for New Year’s Eve, a big lie on a big Colorado billboard: “A Coloradan is killed every three days in a marijuana-related traffic crash,” it shouts. Republican-dominated Weld County has deployed this demonstrable falsehood and other reefer-maddening roadside claims in a taxpayer-funded anti-pot campaign. It’s…
Details“If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” That was Ebenezer Scrooge’s response to gentlemen soliciting a sliver of silver to help those whose meager fates were at the bitter mercy of the Gilded Age. Say what one might about…
DetailsWhen the Senate tries Donald Trump on slam-dunk charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress, Senate Republicans will recite after Mitch McConnell: “I swear to ignore any and all evidence, and serve the leader of our party. Truth be damned.” That’s not the actual oath they will…
DetailsI’ve seen that blank look from someone who doesn’t know football. “I don’t follow it. Don’t understand the rules — just teams in different uniforms.” I see the same look these days from some about impeachment. “I don’t follow it. Don’t understand it. Just two parties going…
DetailsSoon-to-be-outta-here Energy Secretary Rick Perry has certainly changed his take. A couple of years ago he labeled Donald Trump a “cancer on conservatism” and called on fellow conservatives to “excise” it. Now that cancer is divine. All praise. He says he’s told Trump: “Absorb…
DetailsI’ll take my shoes off to that. Whatever the Transportation Security Administration wishes to do. Done. Strip search. Check. Mouth scraping. Check. Hair sample. While it lasts. I’ll surrender all fluids. Body scan? I’ll stretch out on the conveyor and slide along with the tennis rackets.…
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