From the Left
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The Biggest Contrast in the Upcoming Election (Other Than Democracy vs. "Blood in the Streets" Fascism)
One of my goals in this column is to give you the facts and analysis you need to make informed decisions, especially political ones — and equip you to spread the word to others. So here goes on social security.
During a typically rambling and incoherent interview last week, Trump admitted he would cut Social Security and Medicare if reelected...Read more
On 'From the Edges of a Broken World'
The essay was published by Guernica, which until this week I would have described as a highly regarded literary journal. (It can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240305095742/https:/www.guernicamag.com/from-the-edges-of-a-broken-world/.) This week, they retracted the essay, saying they regretted publishing it. Why? Because it ...Read more
What's Left 7: Health Care Is a Human Right
Liberals believe a compromise that gets us closer to a goal is better than no progress at all. But compromise can lead to the dead end of dilution and a false sense of resolution.
The early 20th-century progressive and presidential candidate Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette argued that politics played into different a psychological dynamic. "...Read more
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Farce -- And Our Tragedy
When a neophyte named Edward Moore Kennedy first ran for the Senate in 1962 at barely 30 years old, his primary opponent delivered a debate quip that still echoes.
"If your name were Edward Moore," cracked Ed McCormack, then Massachusetts attorney general, "your candidacy would be a joke." Ted Kennedy won that primary, ascended to the Senate,...Read more
My Garden Is Still a Mess, and Yours Should Be Too
I still have dry flower stalks and leaf litter across my yard. The weather is warming with the start of spring and it has me itching to get out in the garden. I've watched as some of my neighbors raked and bagged leftover leaves, but I'm resisting. I might be ready, but the Earth is not.
If I started cleaning up now, I'd disturb the ecosystem ...Read more
Toora Loora Loora
Sure, and it's a little St. Paddy's Day story from my grandmother.
She was Irish American herself, and in her childhood, there were a great many people in her life who had come from Ireland.
"If you said Ireland was a bad country, they'd fight you in the street," she said of the Irish immigrants. "But if you got a bunch of them together, no ...Read more
Rep. Ken Buck’s Sudden Retirement Yet Another Setback for a Reeling GOP House Leadership
Ken Buck is fed up.
The Republican lawmaker from eastern Colorado already announced (last November) that he would retire from Congress at the end of his term. But now that apparently is not soon enough.
On Tuesday, he abruptly surprised many on Capitol Hill — particularly fellow Republicans — by speeding up his timetable. Now he’s ...Read more
Bill Press: Blame Robert Hur – but blame the media, too
Maybe we need a new law: Ban the Justice Department from meddling in presidential politics!
That law should have been passed in 2016, when FBI Director James Comey blew up the presidential election – twice! – with his ridiculous investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. First, on July 5, when clearing Clinton of any legal wrongdoing, ...Read more
Build Anything Anywhere Threatens Communities
YIMBY sounds nice. YIMBY stands for "Yes in My Backyard." It's a positive-sounding rejoinder to NIMBY, "Not in My Backyard." The NIMBY label is being used to stigmatize defenders of zoning laws, with the goal of bulldozing the rules.
Needless to say, real estate developers are all for YIMBY -- though not necessarily where they themselves live...Read more
In His Own Words
The man can't control himself.
In a nearly two-hour speech at a rally in Georgia this weekend, he told the audience: "I just posted a $91 million bond -- $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story. Ninety-one million based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn't know, never heard of. I know ...Read more
Haiti, Honduras, and US Hegemony
Haiti and Honduras have made headlines in the last few weeks. Honduras' former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, was just convicted in a U.S. court of drug trafficking. He faces life in prison. Haiti is a nation without a government, as armed groups have united against the U.S.-backed, unelected prime minister installed after the assassination...Read more
Illustrating Paths Toward Peace in Times of War
Accepting the Best Actor Academy Award for his role as Robert Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy dedicated his Oscar to "the peacemakers" in our post-atomic bomb world.
That struck a chord close to home. My mother wrote the book on women peacemakers.
An Austrian aristocratic novelist. A Guatemalan indigenous peasant. A Pakistani girl. The Chicago ...Read more
Tom Paine: What a Guy!
In my view, the greatest of America's "Founding Fathers" was not George Washington or Thomas Jefferson -- nor, technically, he wasn't even an American. Rather, he was a British immigrant and itinerate agitator for real democracy, enlightenment and universal human rights.
He was Thomas Paine, a prolific, profound, persuasive and widely popular...Read more
Hate Rape: The Kids Say It's OK
The United Nations has long been so uniformly corrupt on the subject of Israel that anytime it ekes out an acknowledgement of attacks on the Jewish state -- however reluctantly, belatedly and perfunctorily it does so -- it's a man-bite-dog story. Last week, a U.N. official who had clearly drawn the bureaucratic short straw issued a "report" of ...Read more
Iris Apfel Was a Peacock Among the Swans
Iris Apfel was that 102-year-old lady with those big round glasses and that big red smile. She'd wear plastic bangles found on street carts with vintage couturier jackets and pile on clouds of feathers. Her socks might be blue, her pants perforated red leather and her handbag made of tin.
And it all seemed to work for her. Fresh-faced "...Read more
For One Night, Biden was the Media Master While Trump was Fumbling
Ah, such embarrassment.
Presidential campaigns will always surprise you, but I didn’t expect Donald Trump, a tireless master of media, to be tripped up by his own social media platform.
Trump had announced before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address began that he would supply his own special commentary in real time on “Truth ...Read more
Despair and Resignation Are Not a Strategy: How To Fight Back in a Second Trump Term
Many polls suggest if the presidential election were held today, Donald Trump could return to the White House. Fears of irreparable threats to our democracy and freedoms are neither abstract nor hyperbolic.
We must believe Trump when he reveals his authoritarian plans for a second term and take these threats seriously. He has made clear he ...Read more
The Case for Nauseous Optimism
I chose the word nauseous over cautious because my stomach is churning at the very possibility Trump could get a second term. But I don’t believe that will happen. The progressive forces in America are overtaking the regressive.
I’m not paying attention to polls. It’s way too early to worry about them. Most of the public hasn’t even ...Read more
The State of the Union
The Republicans should be mortified. In fact, by all accounts, they are. Rolling Stone featured an entire article quoting their reactions to Alabama Sen. Katie Britt's embarrassing response to the president's State of the Union speech. Describing the speech as "feeling more like a rejected audition tape for a supporting role on 'Grey's Anatomy...Read more
What's Left 6: Abolish Homelessness Now
Homelessness is the single most powerful indictment of capitalism, the embodiment of human disposability, the ultimate expression of callous cruelty. In this nation where one out of 16 rental homes is vacant at any given time, one in 600 Americans (550,000) sleeps outside. An additional 3.7 million people, the so-called hidden homeless -- one ...Read more