President Biden knows exactly what happened to President Obama, and he’s not going to let it happen again.
President Barack Obama is now universally credited, even by Republicans, for pulling this country back from the precipice of an economic catastrophe that would have been nothing short of a second Great Depression.
In the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, it may be tempting to seek some sort of solace in the fact that the actual number of rioters was comparatively small. That those who participated included members of prominent far-right, neo-Nazis, and militia groups who had been well-primed in advance for such an event.
Last week was remarkable for two reasons: First, President Joe Biden rolled out a veritable blizzard of unabashedly progressive measures through executive orders, which by their sheer numbers alone appear to have completely flummoxed Congressional Republicans, judging from the deafening silence of their reaction.
Quavering under explicit threats from Donald Trump that he will start a neo-fascist third party (grossly named “The Patriot Party”), Senate Republicans, led by Kentucky blowhard Rand Paul, have signaled that there is no way they would ever vote to convict Trump for inciting the deadly insurrection that killed five people on Jan.
Quavering under explicit threats from Donald Trump that he will start a neo-fascist third party (grossly named “The Patriot Party”), Senate Republicans, led by Kentucky blowhard Rand Paul, have signaled that there is no way they would ever vote to convict Trump for inciting the deadly insurrection that killed five people on Jan.
Since the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol we’ve been treated to the spectacle of people like Rep.Kevin McCarthy, Sen. Ted Cruz, and others within the Republican party invoking a spirit of “unity” as they urge Democrats to temper their response to a crisis that Republicans themselves were responsible for causing.
American historian Timothy Snyder is the author of On Tyranny. The slim volume from February 2017 presaged what we could expect from the Trump administration as it became obvious almost immediately that the forthcoming four years would be among the most tumultuous and stressful this country had ever experienced.
First we should all understand the SurveyUSA (SUSA) poll that currently shows Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff slightly ahead in the Jan. 5, 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoff is just that: one poll.
More than any single event in recent memory, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the gaping chasms of inequality in American society. From the very outset it was accepted wisdom that “essential workers,” i.e.
On Tuesday, I went to my local “club” store to do some pre-holiday stocking up. As I walked through the airy, warehouse-like atmosphere, I passed a table piled up with Barack Obama’s recent memoir, A Promised Land. Grabbing a copy for half the $50 list price, I then proceeded to walk around the store and pick up a few more items.
One of the more chilling and underreported developments of the past four years has been the Trump administration’s employment of unidentified federal officers to threaten, intimidate, attack, and arrest lawful protesters. Often heavily armed, these steroid-bulked goons with no personal identification were dispatched last June, for example, to intimidate protesters in Washington, D.C.
One of the more chilling and underreported developments of the past four years has been the Trump administration’s employment of unidentified federal officers to threaten, intimidate, attack, and arrest lawful protesters. Often heavily armed, these steroid-bulked goons with no personal identification were dispatched last June, for example, to intimidate protesters in Washington, D.C.
It isn’t normal for an American political party to cling to a defeated, one-term president. But by all indications, since the Nov. 3 election, nearly the entirety of the Republican Party appears to have collectively committed itself, for the foreseeable future, to the fortunes of a demonstrably unstable and mercurial reality TV show personality—one whose political acumen over the course of the past four years has been questionable at best.
With the 2020 election now history, the political pundit class is already treating the two months leading up to Jan. 20 as if they don’t really exist. Donald Trump’s “I wuz robbed” shtick has already worn thin in just the span of a week, and the dark, apocalyptic projections of a coup instituted in some fashion by electoral shenanigans have already been doused with cold water.
What to think of this column by Frank Bruni, written for The New York Times, discussing how the last four years have so brutally ripped the veil from our eyes, revealing the stark, amoral emptiness of so many millions of our fellow American citizens? The title of the column itself—“How Will I Ever Look at America the Same Way Again?
As the November election approaches, the American media still haven’t wrapped their heads around an essential fact that maybe, just possibly, might inform their thinking a little; namely, that when the last polls close on the evening of November 3, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic will come to an abrupt halt, as far as Donald Trump is concerned.
In late May of this year, Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame (UND), penned in the The New York Times what certainly ranks as one of the more sanctimonious op-eds ever published, in the Times or anywhere else, for that matter. He forcefully declared that his university would safely reopen in the fall, despite the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, aka COVID-19.
Citing his Catholic education (which he pointed out he shared with luminaries such as Dr.
For purposes of the following, let’s stipulate that Joseph Biden is elected president. Of course, we have a long road ahead to make that happen, but if it doesn’t happen, everything written below will be moot.
MIT’s emeritus professor Noam Chomsky once described the Republican Party as “the most dangerous organization in human history.” Saturday’s issue of The New York Times confirms it, as one story offers a glimpse of how dismal this moment in time is for millions of Americans whose lives are now hanging by a slender thread, thanks to the deliberate action (or in this case inaction) of Senate Republicans.
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed some ugly aspects about the inherent social disparities that many Americans simply tolerated—until the intrusion of a deadly, equal-opportunity virus seeped into virtually every corner of American life, making those disparities so obvious that ignoring them has become impossible.
College football is no exception.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine abruptly reversed course on Thursday, requesting that the Ohio Pharmacy Board halt a rule set to go into effect today that would have essentially banned the use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for the treatment of COVID-19 patients in Ohio.
The coronavirus situation in Texas has deteriorated to the point where one county’s health authority has implemented a triage committee for the purpose of determining which COVID-19 patients the county’s single hospital will treat, and which patients will be sent home to die, according to the McAllen, Texas, affiliate WSYR.
The Villages is a sprawling “age 55-plus” community in central Florida, home to approximately 120,000 fairly well-to do Floridians, mostly retirees. Boasting “an amazing selection of recreation facilities and parks” as well as “many social clubs and activities,” the community is so large it resembles a small city, encompassing three zip codes.
I don’t last too long in “closed” Facebook groups on community/local issues because usually the admins prohibit political discussion in these forums, on the sensible assumption that these would otherwise degenerate into vitriolic bloodbaths, permanently hampering or killing all discussion.
It seems 2020 was the year that the political right fell into a weird love affair with Sweden. This “high-tax, welfare-loving country” with a universal healthcare system took a unique, “hands-off” approach against the novel coronavirus, much to the delight of Libertarians and anti-vaxxers eager to sow distrust of governmental actions on Facebook.
Robert Reich, writing for The Guardian, weighs in on the fairy tale that our country is somehow “roaring back,” as Donald Trump characterized it when he hawked a report last week based on misleading unemployment statistics—numbers that were already woefully out of date at the time they were released.
The US economy isn’t roaring back. Just over half of Americans have jobs now, the lowest figure in more than 70 years. What’s roaring back is Covid-19.
This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Congress that, based on the current trajectory, the United States is likely to see 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 infection per day in the very near future. Because he has to choose his words carefully to avoid antagonizing an administration that would have clearly preferred to get rid of him months ago, Fauci doesn’t play the “blame game” directly.
Today I received an email from the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas (where I apparently stayed many years ago, back when the world was different). Their president and COO proudly announced that, as of today, they are open for business and welcoming eager patrons.
