Millions—perhaps billions—of social media users routinely post images of themselves online without thinking too much about it, most simply trusting in the fact that since so many others have done exactly the same thing, then it must be “okay.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is sounding increasingly pessimistic about securing enough votes to achieve the speakership he has been coveting since … well, since before gas prices plummeted.
Assuming they survive the new year with their razor-thin House majority intact, Republicans have promised to shut down the bipartisan investigation into the deadly insurrection incited by Donald Trump and enabled by several of their own colleagues at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Lots of good news out of Arizona Thursday night, further confirming the old adage “timing is everything.” And bad timing usually gets you nothing. Both Kari Lake and Mark Finchem jumped on the so-much-fun Trump train of baselessly claiming “election fraud,” but rather late in the game. And both are now experiencing the consequences of that bad timing.
It was nice last week to see those Mastriano signs stuffed in a trash can at the Bowmansville Service Plaza on the Pennsylvania turnpike, a little more than halfway between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of that, but I didn’t.
If Hunter Biden’s alleged substance abuse issues, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s COVID-19 strategy and alleged relationship to China, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ immigration policies are fair game for exploration in House Republicans’ planned, upcoming Benghazi-style show trials, then it only seems fair that Rep. Jim Jordan’s alleged enabling of sexual predators, the ties of Rep.
There is a reason, former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor explains, why Trump did nothing on Jan. 6 to stop the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The reason is simple: Trump gleefully watched the sordid events unfold on television while his aides panicked and pleaded with him fruitlessly to do something because he wanted people to die.
In just the two months since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the number of people with the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy has been reduced by a third. That figure will only increase dramatically as so-called “trigger laws” (laws enacted by Republican legislators to go into effect after Roe was overturned) fall into place.
The New York Times has published a column from a “guest essayist” named Damon Linker, described by the Times as a “former columnist at The Week.” Linker now authors a column called Eyes on the Right. The landing page for that column’s website describes Linker as a “former conservative” who aims to “dissect” the “current right-wing toxicity.
The events of this past week may have been the most instructive in America’s political history.
If that whiny sound emanating from so many elected Republican officials sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same high-pitched squeal a balloon emits when you carefully let its air out between compressed fingers. Republicans have been living in that balloon for so long, they’ve pretty much forgotten that the balloon existed in the first place.
Balloons are different than bubbles. You can live in a bubble and not really know you’re in it.
The next two national elections will probably decide the fate of the American republic. And that means specifically whether our country continues to operate as a democracy dedicated to the preservation and expansion of human rights, or whether it descends into a quasi-fascist autocracy, seeking to limit and curtail those same rights and freedoms under the thumb of white, evangelical-oriented, right-wing minority rule.
In almost any mass shooting involving an assault-style weapon in this country, there are varying levels of moral culpability. The first and most obvious is the culpability of the shooter himself (they are almost always men), who consciously chooses to make use of that weapon for its intended purpose by killing one, two, or sometimes scores of human beings.
Those with a passable knowledge of classical music composition might be excused for assuming that this genre was almost exclusively the province white men (with a smaller subset of often overlooked white women). But in the late 18th century, for example, fans of no less stature than former U.S.
It’s exceedingly rare that the Supreme Court simply snatches away an established constitutional right, let alone one impacting personal bodily autonomy that had stood for nearly half a century and enjoyed the support of well over half the nation’s citizens. It is completely anomalous when it does so with such evident glee and malevolence.
Far from a measured, evenhanded assessment of the law, the Alito opinion overruling Roe v.
Having already confirmed its intent to force people who become pregnant to bear unwanted children under the penalty of criminal laws and state-sanctioned vigilante harassment, the United States Supreme Court is now poised to ensure those and all future generations continue to endure the harsh miseries of uncontrolled climate change.
In the Academy Award-winning 1984 film Amadeus, F. Murray Abraham brilliantly portrayed Antonio Salieri as a mediocre court composer who was so threatened by the meteoric rise and prodigious talents of Wolfgang Mozart that he spent the better part of his life mired in spite, trying to bring Mozart down.
Con artists are a special breed of predator. Not only do they traffic in humanity’s most basic passions—their hopes, fears and expectations—but they rely on the singular human emotions of self-respect and self-worth in order to protect themselves from blowback if their con is discovered. The most painful thing for any person to admit is that they were snookered, led down the merry garden path by a huckster, or simply “ripped off.
The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently authored an interesting column in which he candidly acknowledged his surprise at the vehemence of Europe’s reaction to Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine.
Most people who’ve had kids know the routine (some of us know it several times over): At certain points during pregnancy, tests are administered at various intervals to determine the existence of any abnormalities or unusual conditions. Tests for Down’s syndrome, Edwards’ syndrome, Patau’s syndrome, and spina bifida are typical.
So we’re knee deep in potential recount territory in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. On one side we have a TV huckster named Mehmet Oz; on the other, a former hedge fund CEO named Dave McCormick. It seems that Republican voters despised both of these clowns about equally (even in spite of Trump’s endorsement of Oz, a fellow erstwhile Hollywood It-Boy) so much that both of them bled support to a right-wing, apparent bigot named Kathy Barnette.
It took next to zero effort for pandering Republican state legislators to obtain cut-and-paste, ALEC-generated laws banning and criminalizing all abortions in their states, then brag and fundraise after such laws were passed by a willing Republican governor. But now that the Supreme Court is apparently set on overruling Roe v.
A lot of the commentary in the past week regarding the leaked Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade has understandably focused on the sheer malevolence of its attack on women’s and others’ rights to make reproductive decisions free of government intrusion. Some have focused on the political ramifications, which may turn out to be profound.
Chief Justice John Roberts is understandably upset about the leaking of his fellow conservative, Samuel Alito’s, wrathful, misogynistic diatribe representing the views of (apparently) the majority of the Supreme Court toward the subject of abortion.
Nineteen-year-old Florida resident Alexander Jerich was looking for a way to commemorate the birthday of his hero, Donald Trump. Simply driving around West Palm Beach in his white Chevy pickup truck, with its giant Trump flag flying proudly from its bed, just didn’t seem to make enough of a statement.
A California man is facing five years in prison for threatening to shoot and bomb employees of the Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster company because he objected to the reference book publisher’s definitions of the words “girl,” “female,” and “woman.
In the span of a few weeks, the tilt of the geopolitical world has shifted so quickly that perhaps Americans just haven’t had enough time to digest how fortunate they are Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. Doubtlessly the Ukrainians are aware, and those living in the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are as well because their very lives would have been entirely forfeit or at grave risk right now.
It’s disturbing but predictable that, as the Ukraine crisis continues to unfold, many Americans are getting what amounts to their first “crash course” on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Despite Vladimir Putin’s draconian efforts to control the flow of negative information about his ill-conceived and (so far) poorly executed war on Ukraine, it appears that what passes for Russia’s “legitimate” administrative state may be horrified by the entire operation.
Few foreign world leaders—let alone any murderous dictators—have received more solicitous treatment from the Republican Party during the last five years than Vladimir Putin. Imagine if Democrats so warmly and fulsomely embraced someone who now threatens to rain destruction down on our country (Osama Bin Laden comes to mind). Or if they had gleefully sent delegations to kowtow to that person’s criminal syndicate, thugs, and cronies (on the 4th of July, no less).