If this were happening in a developing nation, it would be an international outrage. It’s happening in the United States, and not enough people seem to care. Eight months after Hurricane Maria assaulted Puerto Rico, its residents continue to endure indignity after indignity. These indignities are the direct result of Donald Trump and the Republican […]
George W. Bush
Posted inPolitical Animal
A Contrary View of Barbara Bush
Why the media shouldn’t be showering her with unqualified praise.
Posted inPolitical Animal
Do You Like Your Planet Regular, or Extra Crispy?
Fifteen years ago today, just weeks after George W. Bush invaded Iraq in a war for oil, Princeton University Professor Michael Oppenheimer wrote a column for the New York Times in which he observed: [T]he global warming issue, and particularly America’s handling of it, has become a central geopolitical concern. Speaking at a delicate moment […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Channeling Rage: Trump and Fox News
Here we stand Remote control buttons In our sweaty little hands As one man We’re lining up and waiting For someone’s command… TV rules– Pretty soon you won’t be able To turn it off at all! All you fools Then it will turn you off— Your back’s against the wall! —“T.V. Age,” Joe Jackson, 1982 […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Those Who Do Not Learn from History…
Now that ‘80s nostalgia is in vogue again by virtue of the box-office success of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, it’s as good a time as any to note that this July marks the 35th anniversary of the release of Madonna’s debut album. If Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, then one can envision a […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Stormy Daniels is the Trump Voter’s Legacy
How many Trump voters will bring themselves to watch 60 Minutes tonight? Pardon me for assuming that the vast majority of those who sent the bigoted billionaire to the White House in November 2016 will not have the guts to view this evening’s scheduled broadcast of an interview with the President’s previous paramour, veteran adult […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
March Madness: Right-Wing Media Will Take Aim at Youth Opposed to Gun Violence
They can’t help themselves. If you’ve ever doubted the fundamental foolishness and ghoulishness of the American right, just watch—if you can bear it—the right’s reaction to today’s March for Our Lives. If you think the rhetorical assaults on anti-gun-violence American youth in the days leading up to this march were bad, as Bachman-Turner Overdrive famously […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Life During Wartime: The Blood on the Hands of Trump’s Fanbase
On November 8, 2016, 62 million Americans decided it was a good idea to play Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver—and now, they’ve just pulled the trigger. We will never know just how many citizens of the world will lose their lives as a result of the decision to make John Bolton National Security […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Generation Z Must Take the Media Back
It’s the only way to keep this moment–and this momentum–going. When the nationwide youth demonstrations against gun violence in the wake of the February 14 massacre in Parkland, Florida, began, I must admit that I actually had a cynical reaction: how many of these teenagers, I wondered, would abandon their social conscience twenty-five years from […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Journalists Who Normalized Trump Betrayed the Public Trust
You know, it’s not like they weren’t warned. CNN’s Brian Stelter was generally spot-on this morning in pointing out the dangers of the rhetoric that flowed from Donald Trump’s mouth Saturday night in Pennsylvania, but he could have gone a little further–hell, a lot further: Here’s the problem: Trump has been this way for years. […]
