The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Like it or not, we live in Trump’s America now. And it looks a whole lot like Alabama. Thank you Jeff Sessions, George W. Bush and George Wallace for setting the stage for this. Thank you Democratic Party for being so pathetically weak and inept. Sorry for…
By Juan Cole – Informed Comment – I argued that President Obama’s carbon-reduction plan wasn’t anything to write home about. He want to reduce our annual emissions from 5.4 billion metric tons of CO2 annually from the US to 4.7 billion metric tons by 2030. It isn’t an insignificant reduction, but it doesn’t at all…
By Robert Reich – I recently got a call from a political analyst in Washington. “Trump is dropping like a stone,” he said, convincingly. “After Election Day, he’s history.” I think Trump will lose the election, but I doubt he’ll be “history.” Defeated presidential candidates typically disappear from public view. Think Mitt Romney or Michael…
A Conservative View – By Christine Flowers – I’m morbidly fascinated by the rhetorical mud being slung between Democrats and Republicans these days. How exhilarating to hear Hillary Clinton labeled “unstable” by Donald Trump, who is himself called “bat(bleep)-crazy” by a fellow billionaire and Hillaryite, Mark Cuban. This week, though, I actually do need to…
EDITORIAL – In an interesting new development, the AFL-CIO has come out with a new video showing that Donald Trump does not pay his bills and cannot be trusted as president. While many union workers across America and especially in places such as the South and Alabama are supporting Republicans for office and even actively…
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — As if we needed another study to tell us that global warming is speeding up and making climate change worse, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released another 300-page report Tuesday documenting the warming and changes in the climate due to the burning of fossil fuels for energy.…
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…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – I had to turn off NPR news again this morning. I can’t listen to the same old, same old pretense of two-sidedness that helped get us into this mess in the first place. I had to turn off the TV news on Sunday. Same thing. Less facts.…
By Robert Reich – If you haven’t yet seen “The Big Short” – directed and co-written by Adam McKay, based on the non-fiction prize-winning book by Michael Lewis about the housing and credit bubble that triggered the Great Recession — I recommend you do so. Not only is the movie an enjoyable (if that’s the…
By Juan Cole – As Donald Trump supporters beat a ‘Black Lives Matter’ protester at a rally in Birmingham, Ala., Trump himself reminded us of the dark days when a paranoid J. Edgar Hoover had the FBI monitor the Rev. Martin Luther King and black Churches of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “I want surveillance…
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 Jim Norman and Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ support for the so-called “tea party” has dropped to its lowest level since the movement emerged on the national political scene prior to the 2010 midterm elections, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject. Only 17 percent of Americans now say they…
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 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…
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – Over the last 25 years Republicans have gone from disingenuous jerks to complete assholes. From occasional forays into dirty politics and smear tactics to a no holds barred enterprise of fear, hate and racism. From a tacit deployment of bigotry, to a stentorian campaign of disenfranchising minorities and…
By Jeffrey M. Jones – At the outset of the 2016 campaign for president of the United States, the potential Republican candidates identified so far lack the star power of previous campaigns, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject. The Republican nomination contest is shaping up to be a lot like 2012, with…
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – I just ate macaroni and cheese out of a pull top can with a big ass spoon. Forty years ago Sarah Palin would never have been chosen as a presidential running mate. Not because she’s a woman but because she’s dumb as a goddamn stick. Forty years ago,…
Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – Rafael Edward Cruz is running for president. Boy howdy. By all accounts Ted Cruz is bright and formidable. He’s a powerful speaker. His academic accomplishments are impressive. His career trajectory just prior to politics is downright imposing. There’s a certain charisma in a Bob Dole meets Pee Wee…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – Earlier this month, almost every Republican in the U.S. Senate went on record that “climate change is real and not a hoax.” All but a handful, however, balked at agreeing that humans are contributing to that change. The “not a scientist” club has a new line in the…
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – Some of us can recall when Art Linkletter did a segment on his radio show called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” He would ask questions of children and in their wonderful innocence they would give answers that often made us laugh. I read or hear comments from politicians…
