ArcaMax

Hollywood! Glamour! Riches!

Yet, people who make a living writing movies, TV shows and streaming programs are on strike! Most people find it hard to relate to complaints about working on projects with multimillion-dollar budgets, A-list stars and famous studio moguls. So, what's wrong with this picture?

It's a faded picture taken in the long...Read more

It's an odd marketing strategy for an industry to assail its own consumers.

Yet that's what the monopolistic meatpacking industry (led by such huge conglomerates as Tyson, Smithfield, JBS and Hormel that control nearly 70% of America's pork market) is doing. "Just shut up and eat your bacon," the industry shrieks! The target of their ...Read more

There's a common political refrain among Texas progressives: "Thank God for Mississippi."

Our own state government, run by corporate lobbyists and right-wing nutballs, is a notorious hellhole for efforts to provide even a little more fairness for the poor, the working class and the environment. So, Lone Star progressives need some straw to ...Read more

I'm a child of privilege. Not the privilege of money (I come from a family of small-town working people). But it was my privilege to grow up in the public schools of Denison, Texas.

There I received the rich blessings of dedicated classroom teachers, a diverse student body, playground socialization, librarians, coaches, cafeteria and ...Read more

When public officials get themselves mired in the muck of corruption, they can always count on Sen. Ted Cruz to issue a moral judgement: If the offender is a Democrat, he pronounces the corruption inexcusably grotesque; if it's a Republican, he wails that the offender is the victim.

For example, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was ...Read more

Way to go, Wisconsin!

In a momentous progressive win, voters there elected County Judge Janet Protasiewicz to their state supreme court. She thumped a mega-MAGA-Republican by 11 points in a pivotal race, ending a dark decade of unbridled right-wing partisan extremism by that court's GOP majority.

But the vote has profound implications ...Read more

It's always instructive to hear powerful political officials declare that in the name of democracy, they must usurp the people's democratic authority.

This has become all too common, as even so-called democratic regimes in France and Israel have infuriated their people by trying to ram vastly unpopular, anti-democratic schemes into law by ...Read more

I have to concede one point: Today's far-right Republican party does not discriminate against women. In fact, the GOP is giving its female political buffoons a higher profile than its male bozos.

Consider Sarah Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas, who became a star in the new Republican crusade to bring back child labor abuse. Pushed by ...Read more

Until recently, kids were thrilled when their parents said: "We're going to Disney World!" But that was in the before times, before Florida's autocratic governor put Disney World under the control of his state's thought police, turning it into "DeSantis World."

Having made kid-friendly Disney kowtow to his own magic kingdom of right-wing ...Read more

Exciting news, people: Utopia is on the rise!

Space Commander Elon Musk has announced that His Magnificence (i.e., him) intends to construct his very own private town on 3,500 acres of farmland near his new Tesla plant southeast of Austin, Texas. More than a town, Musk explains that he will create utopia in Texas, promising an "...Read more

Not so long ago, book burnings were considered a festive group activity by assorted right-wing zealots. Today, though, burning seems so old-fashioned and, well... crude.

Yet, the concept is burning hotter than ever among a gaggle of testosterone-driven Republican leaders eager to show voters that they will go to extremes to incinerate ...Read more

Many of today's right-wing governors and state legislators have a problem. By constantly pushing an extremist ideological agenda of nonsense about nutty conspiracy theories -- while imposing autocratic laws to ban everything from voting to library books -- they've become widely ridiculed as some combo of kooky, clownish and embarrassingly ...Read more