By Robert Reich – The other night I phoned a former Republican member of Congress with whom I’d worked in the 1990s on various pieces of legislation. I consider him a friend. I wanted his take on the Republican candidates because I felt I needed a reality check. Was I becoming excessively crotchety and partisan,…
By Walter Simon – I’m not much of a football fan. But due to circumstances beyond my control, I ended up in a house watching the Alabama-LSU game last night and something dawned on me. In American football, we have it all ass backwards. The defense should be called the offense, and the offense is…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – I don’t know if Americans or Southerners are incredibly gullible or just stupid, or if local news outlets are to blame. But we had a good laugh Saturday night when the sportscasters fell for the line calling the Alabama-LSU game (Alabama won, 30-16) “The Game of the…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It seems old stories never die. They just keep going round and around, circling further from the truth as time goes by. I just got off the phone with a producer in New York who wants to interview me, again, about the political prosecution of former Alabama…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – MARION, Va. – Listening to a babbling brook running behind the campground in this state park just as the sun went down on Halloween, I could have sworn I heard a small female child crying off in the distance, moaning “hungry mother, hungry mother.” Back during the pioneer…
By Eugene Robinson – Jeb Bush deserves headlines from Wednesday’s anarchic GOP debate, but not the good kind. Something like: “Is Bush Finished?” The evening in Boulder, Colorado, will be remembered for interruptions, non sequiturs, mangled facts and general chaos. But the most significant impact may have been to dramatically lengthen the odds that Bush,…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – My eyes and my soul are drawn to one event in nature more than any other. Autumn color. I could play the innocent and talk about this natural beauty like describing playing in mud puddles as a youth and wax eloquent about the uniqueness of…
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – I’ve been pretty skeptical about the substantive differences between our two political parties for awhile. Having said that, I still believe the Democratic party is the lesser of two evils. So it it makes complete angry sense to me to avail myself of every opportunity to to mock,…
By E.J. Dionne Jr. – WASHINGTON, D.C. – It was a withdrawal speech that sounded like an announcement speech, and it perfectly captured the aching ambivalence of Joe Biden. He wanted to run for president. He had his issues. He had President Obama’s record and was proud to defend it. And the man who noted…
Totally Missing the New Media Conversation and the Peoples’ Political Pulse – By Edgar Wilson – Far from leading the conversation, the mainstream media is missing it entirely. Preconceived narratives surrounding political dynasties, some sort of manifest destiny, and the most predictable sort of ebbs and flows of primary polls have driven coverage away from…
By Robert Reich – Giant Wall Street banks continue to threaten the wellbeing of millions of Americans, but what to do? Bernie Sanders says break them up and resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated investment from commercial banking. Hillary Clinton says charge them a bit more and oversee them more carefully. Most Republicans say…
A Day That Will Live in Infamy – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – I woke up this morning with a fitful start. It promised to be a depressing day. But it was a beautiful morning in the campground thanks to a cool front that passed through the region with…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala – The temptation was too great for New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz. Photos of Donald Trump’s August 21 campaign rally at the football stadium here showed a throng so white it might have been a convention of albinos. Perhaps a spy agency’s scanning technology could pick out a few…
By Robert Reich – In 1928, famed British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would advance so far in a hundred years – by 2028 – that it will replace all work, and no one will need to worry about making money. “For the first time since his creation man will be faced with…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. A cool front passed through the nation’s capital overnight, making it extremely comfortable in the campground. It is easy to be lazy and not want to care about the ridiculously shallow coverage of the presidential election of…
By Robert Reich – “He can’t possibly win the nomination,” is the phrase heard most often when Washington insiders mention either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders. Yet as enthusiasm for the bombastic billionaire and the socialist senior continues to build within each party, the political establishment is mystified. Political insiders don’t see that the biggest…
By Robert Reich – President Obama is said to be considering an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose their political spending. He should sign it immediately. But he should go further and ban all political spending by federal contractors that receive more than half their revenues from government. Ever since the Supreme Court’s shameful…
By Robert Reich – Almost lost by the wave of responses to the Supreme Court’s decisions last week upholding the Affordable Care Act and allowing gays and lesbians to marry was the significance of the Court’s third decision – on housing discrimination. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court found that the Fair Housing Act of…
By Nicholas Sheppard – If Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency is successful, would it make her the most powerful woman in history? The proposition is a tricky one, because of all the historical relativism. Making sense of it involves looking at power both in absolute, and global terms. Unlike other powerful women in history,…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. – It’s cool in the mountains this Sunday morning at first light. The birds are singing and the does and fawns are starting to move around. A few drops of water are still dripping down on the canopy from the trees, remnants of…
