By John L. Micek – Donald Trump knew what he was doing Tuesday afternoon. Make no mistake. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” a smiling Trump said of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during a rally in Wilmington, N.C. “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can…
By Robert Reich – “Without a border, we just don’t have a country,“ Donald Trump says repeatedly. For him, the biggest threats to American sovereignty are three-dimensional items that cross our borders, such as unwanted imports and undocumented immigrants. He’s wrong. The biggest threats to American sovereignty are invisible digital dollars wired into U.S. election…
By Hank Sanders – MONTGOMERY, Ala. — What will this looming special legislative session bring? Will it bring fiscal solutions for Medicaid? Will it bring solutions for the hemorrhaging General Fund? Will it bring expansion of Medicaid? Will it bring long lurking gambling efforts to a head? Will it bring better or worse public education?…
By John L. Micek – There are two sets of numbers, both related and intertwined, that should keep Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania awake at night. The first one: 49-38 percent. That’s Democrat Hillary Clinton’s current advantage over Donald Trump among likely voters in Pennsylvania in a new Franklin-Marshall College poll. The second one:…
By Scott Lander – Grassroots organizations are rising up all over the nation to combat this plague, which comes in many different forms. The Black Lives Matter movement is concerned with ending police brutality. The Occupy movement is exposing economic injustices. End Citizens United is purposed with getting money out of politics. People like Elon…
By Dick Polman – Unlike their Republican counterparts, Democrats tend not to wallow in the sewer with infantile chants like “Lock Her Up.” Instead, they simply whacked Donald Trump with substance throughout their four day convention in Philadelphia. Take for instance New York congressman Joe Crowley, who assailed Trump for grabbing federal money that was…
By John L. Micek – PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – After four days of doom and gloom in Donald Trump’s America, Democrats have a deceptively simple task to accomplish with their convention this week: Namely, convincing broad swaths of voters that Hillary Clinton and her new running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, possess the right mix…
By Alan Minsky – This is madness. Fully predictable madness. One archetype of the American experience is now realized. We’ve always had our carnival hucksters and itinerant preachers and snake oil thieves. P.T. Barnum put on a good show. All sought wealth and power. But never before has one risen so high as Donald J.…
By Peter Funt – With Donald Trump basking in the Republican convention glow, tortured analysis persists among those seeking to explain how he ever got this far. A recurring view has it that Americans are fed up with politicians and now want an “outsider” to run things. Also, there’s the notion that it will take…
By John L. Micek – CLEVELAND, Oh. – U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican, wanted to talk about a bunch of stuff during his primetime address at the Republican National Convention. But Donald Trump wasn’t high on that list. He barely mentioned him at all. Instead, the ever-wonkish Ryan focused on the House…
By Tom Purcell – This presidential campaign is the nuttiest in my lifetime but at least America is maintaining its sense of humor. Late-night comics have found a treasure trove of material in Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He’s been mocked three times as often as any other candidate throughout the campaign. Many of the…
By Hank Sanders – SELMA, Ala. – Every time I am stopped by law enforcement, I’m afraid. I recently shared this fear with a friend who is White. He said he understood, but it is very hard for most Whites to understand what it is like to be stopped by law enforcement when you are…
By John L. Micek – A couple of years back, when I was driving down to Florida, I got pulled over on U.S. Route 301 in a little town called Waldo near Gainesville. It was late – past 2 a.m. — and I was pretty sure I wasn’t speeding. So when the dome lights of…
By Robert Reich – We talk a lot about Patriotism, especially around July 4th, but we need also to take to heart its five basic principles. First: True patriotism isn’t simply about waving the American flag. And it’s not mostly about securing our borders, putting up walls and keeping others out. It’s about coming together…
By Robert Reich – We hear a lot about patriotism, especially around the Fourth of July. But in 2016 we’re hearing about two very different types of patriotism. One is an inclusive patriotism that binds us together. The other is an exclusive patriotism that keeps others out. Through most of our history we’ve understood patriotism…
By Dick Polman – With apologies to the climactic song in “Les Miserables,” here are the self-destructive Brits who voted yesterday to exit the European Union. Cue the music! Do you hear the people sing Singing the song of angry men We will crash the British pound Against the dollar and the yen, When the…
My Supporters and I Want Real Change – By Bernie Sanders – As we head toward the Democratic National Convention, I often hear the question, “What does Bernie want?” Wrong question. The right question is what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want. And the answer is: They want real change…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Mobile may soon appear on the list that already includes Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and less famous places lately in the news, because their people were slain in the streets by police sworn to serve and protect the community. Or Mobile may miss the list.…
By David Underhill – The American South is conservative. This is repeated so often that it resembles church liturgy uttered without thought to display adherence to a creed. But it won’t bear examination. The civil rights movement sprang from the South and convulsed the whole country, which quivers still from the effects in this presidential…
Nuclear weapons, climate change, and the prospects for survival. – By Noam Chomsky – In January 2015, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced its famous Doomsday Clock to three minutes before midnight, a threat level that had not been reached for 30 years. The Bulletin’s statement explaining this advance toward catastrophe invoked the two…
