In the hyperbolic chariot race waged by Republican presidential candidates, we can report the first breastplated contestant to have thrown a spoke. That would be the supposed moral standard-bearer of the field (of mankind?), the estimably sainted Ben Carson. Carson can talk the talk of the GOP base, like saying the Affordable Care Act is…
DetailsDonald Trump is a misogynist. If not, he’s determined to win the title. This guy is gunning for the finals of American Chauvinist Ninja Warrior. The last obstacle will melt before him and his bare chest, and that obstacle will be a “she.” On the morning after his coming-out debate performance, Trump didn’t just double-down…
DetailsOne would say that the good outweighed the bad for Ted Cruz last week, and the bad was horrid. In the Senate, he was openly scorned by fellow Republicans for his routine and rash showboating. That included calling Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar. Cruz. blazing a culinary trail this week with "machine-gun bacon," was…
DetailsWar is hell. Post-Civil War, Reconstruction was hellish. In a beauty contest, however, Reconstruction was in a dead heat with the Redemption for ugliness. The difference had to do with the losers in both. In the former it was Dixie. In the latter, it was people with black skin. I invested a very large chunk…
DetailsDog days. Dog days. Nothing to write about. Nothing at all. Caitlyn Jenner’s evening wear? The latest Cosby atrocity? The freshest offering of Trump idiocy? What to write about? Hmm. How about something that has affected every family of every child in every public school for over a decade? With so many people dramatically affected…
DetailsWe now know that racist trigger man Dylan Roof should not have been able to purchase a firearm. The FBI’s background check system should have blocked it based on felony drug charges. To this, a Facebook post announced, “Proof positive that making it harder to purchase guns will not make it harder for criminals to…
DetailsMost Americans don’t know how long it took for a notion “conceived in liberty” in 1776 to gestate. For a notion to become a nation, that is. Eleven years is how long it took: seven years of war, four years of legal flux, before the Constitution was signed. When that was done, outside the Constitutional…
DetailsFugitives from the law. Desperate. Defiant. Hiding out in plain sight. Won’t go down without a fight. We thought the two New York prison fugitives were a tough case. Now come the fugitives from the historic U.S. Supreme Court pronunciations on marriage equality and the Affordable Care Act. Where to flee? Canada…
DetailsHow could someone hate a person simply because of dark pigment? Based on our history of racial progress and regress, it’s simple. Racism mostly is about entitlement, about power, about privilege. And this key point: In our country it’s about a victimhood that never really happened. Racism is nine-tenths possession. The remaining one-tenth…
DetailsWhat makes a conservative conservative? Aversion to reality, that’s what. Don’t jump on me for that assertion. Blame University of California-Berkeley researchers. A few years ago they did an analysis of the conservative psyche. Among other things, they deduced that what underlies the conservative mindset is “intolerance of ambiguity,” otherwise known as being…
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