Most progressives were thrilled after Hillary Clinton’s dominant debate performance last Monday night over Donald Trump. Me? I was scared to death. I couldn’t help thinking of the millions of Americans who couldn’t hear Clinton’s words because they are deaf to facts, who have been brainwashed into believing that Trump is Clinton’s intellectual and moral […]
global warming
Posted inPolitical Animal
Vice Squad
Will Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence also flake out this Tuesday night? I wouldn’t be surprised if the hyper-conservative Indiana Governor makes a Trump-sized fool of himself at the VP debate, which will be held at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Pence is perhaps the least intellectually gifted Republican ever chosen to be number two […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Not Ready to Make Nice
So George W. Bush is a good guy now? One wonders how many Americans had a queasy feeling in their stomachs last weekend when the 43rd president spoke at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Although Bush did sign the bipartisan (!) legislation clearing the path […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
This is What You Call Getting It Terribly Wrong
Almost as bad as the mainstream media’s pre-debate obsession with normalizing Donald Trump is the Fourth Estate’s fixation on promoting the idea that there are still reasonable, moderate Republican politicians in this country, that the GOP hasn’t completely gone goofy, that the party isn’t consumed by cynicism. Case in point: the questionable coverage of a […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
If Trump Wins
It could happen. It could happen. In his 2009 book The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989, right-wing author Steven Hayward describes the aftermath of President Carter’s defeat on November 4, 1980: By Thursday the magnitude of the election was starting to course through the news cycle. “The election was a shocker,” Washington Post […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
In the Court of Public Opinion
Sometimes you can just tell when an effort is doomed. Such is the case with a peculiar proceeding in Oregon this past week, where an effort to get the federal courts to do with the Obama administration allegedly will not is guaranteed to down in flames–the height of irony, as the court case in question […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
The Hayes Code
It was a moment of beauty in a time of profound political ugliness–and that moment has endured, thankfully. Five years ago today, MSNBC debuted Up with Chris Hayes, one of the most intellectually stimulating programs in the history of cable news. Hayes was an immediate natural, an engaging, charismatic host whose mind moved faster than […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Burning Down the House
It’s sadly ironic that as worldwide temperatures continue to rise, mainstream-media coverage of the most pressing issue of our time–human-caused climate change–continues to fall. Fortunately, documentary filmmakers and writers have stepped up to do the job that so much of the Fourth Estate won’t on climate. Speaking of writers combating carbon pollution, 2014 produced the […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Crimes and Misdemeanors: Part III
Back in April, I suggested that Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) harassment of climate scientists should become a focus of discussion in the 2016 presidential election. Smith’s abuse of his position as head of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and his attempts to destroy the lives of those who have tried to raise […]
Posted inPolitical Animal
Break On Through (To the Other Side): Part II
Are the Republicans who are declaring that they’re “with her” quietly admitting an inconvenient truth about the man who was declared victorious over Al Gore sixteen years ago? Notice the common thread that runs through the words of pro-Clinton Republicans: they’ve declared that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is “completely unqualified” for the White House, […]
