From the Left
/Politics
Republicans are getting stripped of money
With much of corporate America vowing to withhold donations to Republican insurrectionists, party leaders have a choice to make. The Trump cult or the money? The money or the Trump cult?
One hoped that love of country and its democratic institutions would have been reason enough to strongly condemn fellow Republicans who tried to overturn the ...Read more
Media have every right to cancel Trump
So, President Donald Trump has been booted off Twitter, as of now forever. Facebook also gave him the heave-ho. Apple and Google, meanwhile, have tossed the riot-friendly Parler app out of their stores.
Parler became a social media cave for the Trump-inspired looters, vandals, cop killers and other social misfits who rampaged through the ...Read more
The Republican Party must split
As Donald Trump's Republican Party descends into madness, dragged down by the president's lies, threats and possible mental illness, it's become hard to imagine democracy-loving conservatives continuing to live in the same house. They're in a marriage that can't be saved.
The framework for a new party is already up, thanks to the seasoned ...Read more
Why isn't Gohmert the face of the Republican party?
I'm no big fan of AOC. Some of her ideas aren't bad, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez burdens the progressive cause by waving the socialist label like it's some kind of fashion brand. That has enabled Republicans to make her the face of the Democratic Party in a country where the S-word can scare off even moderates.
At least AOC believes in ...Read more
Elitist critics find WW84 not to their taste; ignore them
It is the job of the film critic to sniff at new movies. And so, it was expected that reviewers would drag "Wonder Woman 1984" onto the operating table.
With other movies at other times, I might welcome their take on cinematography, character development and narrative drive. But with the fun pretty much wrung out of our current existence, I'm ...Read more
Time to cultivate gardens was both a gift of and cure for 2020
Very soon, a year of a deadly pandemic, social isolation, job loss and political chaos will come to an end. The coronavirus will continue its rampage but seems destined to hit a wall around late spring. Life will return to normal, we are told.
But do we want to return to normal as normal was? For many, the slowdown had a sweet side. All that ...Read more
Tax probes need to happen
Hunter Biden says his tax affairs are under investigation. The president-elect's son says he is "confident" the probe by the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware will find no wrongdoing.
Fine. We shall see.
A few things to unpack here. First, inquiries into possible tax fraud should be welcome. When some people cheat on their taxes, those who ...Read more
Trump always hurt the ones who loved him
If all goes according to plan, someone will have the honor of blowing up the crumbling remains of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. It could be you. Atlantic City, which loves Trump not, is taking bids on who may push the button.
"This will be done remotely and can be done anywhere in the world as well as close to the Plaza as ...Read more
The miracle on 80th Street
I've spent the week in New York, and no visit happens without a trip to Zabar's, a specialty food store on Broadway and 80th Street. A destination for tourists as well as locals, Zabar's was less frenetic than you'd expect around the holidays, but still, there were people.
Anyhow, when I unloaded my basket at one of the cramped checkout ...Read more
With the vaccine, get ready for a new world
What a relief that at least a few of us are getting the coronavirus vaccine. I would have liked my arm to have been among the select few. I'll wait patiently, however, comforted in knowing that with every passing week, the list of Americans threatened by this nasty, deadly virus will shrink and life will return to normal.
But the interim should...Read more
COVID concentrates minds on obesity
Obesity is a major risk factor for those dying from the coronavirus.
So strong is that fear among the very overweight that bariatric surgeries have seen a significant jump in demand. Bariatric surgery is a procedure performed on the stomach or intestines that causes weight loss.
What's odd about this is that obesity is tied to many other ...Read more
The Democrats need to drop identity politics
The days right after an election are an ideal time for political parties to work on fixing bad habits. For Democrats, that would mean kicking the increasingly dated custom of declaring race, ethnicity and gender factors in filling leadership positions. Demands on President-elect Joe Biden to put these considerations front and center show a ...Read more
It will be up to today's youth to explain how strange 2020 was
Decades from now, today's young will be sharing vivid memories of the pandemic of 2020. They will tell grandchildren what it was like seeing grown-ups go about their daily business in face masks. They may recall closed schools and teachers reaching them through a videoconferencing application then known as Zoom.
Some storytellers may marvel at ...Read more
Good times are coming
The Dow crossed 30,000 for the first time, and three promising vaccines are on the way. These are not unrelated events. Also boosting investor optimism was Trump world's decision to finally start the transition to a Joe Biden presidency and Biden's naming of Janet Yellen as his treasury secretary.
And the good news keeps coming -- if you look ...Read more
The next culture war is off to a slow start
Like horses at the starting gate, the better conservative pundits are galloping off to the next thing, which is really an old thing: the culture wars. But what a nice change from having to negotiate between traditional conservative doctrine and Donald Trumpian mobs threatening them for frowning in the president's direction.
The culture war is a...Read more
It's the never-Trump Republicans versus the left
The Democrats' most interesting conflict isn't moderates versus the left. It's the never-Trump Republicans versus the left.
The never-Trumpers, best embodied by The Lincoln Project, romped through the last campaign with verve and wit. They lasered in on crushing Donald Trump.
The Democratic left, by contrast, is deep into grievance. Yes, its ...Read more
Biden voters should also know: It's over
It came as no surprise that Donald Trump's supporters would hold a protest in Washington, D.C., claiming their hero won an election that he lost badly. More curious were the foes of the president who bothered with a counterprotest after Joe Biden triumphed in, by some counting, a historic margin. Did they think there were two sides to the story?...Read more
Was gun waving the worst part?
Some of the sickest images to come out of our recent turmoil have featured Americans waving guns at other Americans -- not in self-defense but to provoke fear. The worst showed armed thugs threatening Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on the state capitol steps over her anti-COVID regulations. (This was separate from an alleged plot by a different ...Read more
Trumpism deflates into history
When Pennsylvania was called, the world heard a quick boom, followed by the pffffffffft of a deflating presidency. Suddenly, the angry, paranoiac tweets that used to scare so many because, after all, Donald Trump was president, lost their menace.
The air was escaping even before Joe Biden was declared winner. Come Thursday evening, ABC, CBS and...Read more
It should have been easy to knock off Trump
As I write this, we don't know the winner of the 2020 presidential race. By the time you read it, we still may not know. There are votes to be counted.
What seems very apparent, though, is that Democrats did not enjoy the romp that they and some political prognosticators had expected. They were running against the much-disliked President Donald...Read more