Michael Maiello's picture

    The Enemy of The President is Not Your Friend

    Donald Trump tends to turn things upside down just by being Donald Trump. Of late, His Fraudulency has hurled himself into a feud with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, turning the agency into an arm of the resistance.  Except that the FBI is not a leftist organization, not by a long shot, and it never has been and neither is the rest of the security/intelligence apparatus in the U.S.

    James Comey is not a good guy.

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    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Striving Over Surviving

    Striving Over Surviving

    Danny Cardwell

    By Simba Sana

    Agate Publishing, 260 pp.,

    It would be easy to categorize “Never Stop” as a postmodern Horatio Alger novel set in an urban community. This memoir has all the ingredients of a rag to riches story. But such a reading has the potential to render all of the pain, failure, and life lessons chronicled throughout its 260 pages invisible. This isn’t fiction. Each shattered life and every violent death can be traced to an easily locatable time in place in our not too distant past.

    Simba Sana’s childhood could be described as catastrophic. His father was a no show. He was raised by a single mother with mental health issues. He grew up in Washington, D.C., at a time when crack was replacing PCP as the drug of choice, and guns were replacing fistfights as the preferred method for settling disputes. He survived a gauntlet of racial and socioeconomic pitfalls that consumed many of his peers. Any of these obstacles could have derailed or ended his life before he attended Gonzaga College High School and then Mount Saint Mary’s University. 

    Richard Day's picture

    STATE OF THE UNION LIVE!

    Not since the days of President Pierce or President Buchanan or President Jackson have Americans been more enamored by our Current Leader.

    Tonight we shall be graced by the most inept English Speaker since George Bush Junior and yet, George W is looking better and better every damn day!

    Did you ever hate someone so very very bad and question whether or not you are the mentally imbalanced and not the object of your vituperation?

    So far only Melania is more pissed than I am?

    Feeding the Dinosaurs: The Death of Movement 2.0

    I'm going to do what I largely dislike doing - linking to a New Republic article instead of writing me own blog piece - because it needs to be discussed.

    10 years ago we'd won the Presidential election, and had introduced a new modern style of grassroots participation that had started with Howard Dean's shortlived efforts in 2004.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    For Le Guin

    Ursula K. Le Guin was my hero. Urusla K. Le Guin is my hero still. She is gone from this world, and only her words are left to us. Those words are marvels.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    The Art of No Deal

    As everyone has already noticed, a president who boasts about his deal-making skills, author of The Art of the Deal, has been unable to strike a deal to keep his own government funded. Worse, he actually blew up a deal in the making, and now negotiations from the White House side seem to have all but stopped. This is because the word "deal" doesn't mean what Donald Trump thinks it means. He doesn't want a deal. He wants a "win," which he defines as the other side losing. And that makes deal-making impossible.

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    Ramona's picture

    Our Bleeding Hearts Might Have Saved Us

    Today marks the anniversary of the Dread Fiend Trump's official entry into politics, not as dog catcher, not even as city clerk, but as President of these United States.
     

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    Was it worth it?

    Shutting down the Government? Basically because of DACA ?

    Yes because acting otherwise would have exposed us as posturing frauds, always on the side of right and truth and honor, etc. Except when the chips were down

    Trump, Stormy Denials Tout Sanctity of Family at DC Rally

    The annual March for Life in a biggest ever of all history DC rally was addressed by Trump and porn celebrities today. 

    Thrice married Donald Trump touted the sanctity of the family alongside Stormy Denials.

    A famous porn star. Trump was adored by the fundamentalist evangelical crowd as a "porn-again Christian", willing to put his money where his mouth or other body parts are.

    Richard Day's picture

    THE GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN!

    Today's events reminded me of an old blog I once wrote.

    http://dagblog.com/arts/zoo-10853

    We are 54 minutes from shutting down the government.

    Vote total?

    50-49?

    Fortitude

    As we seek to dig ourselves out of the moral and political abyss into which our country has sunk, it seems to me that two near-term projects are key.

    These are to retake both chambers in Congress and to obtain the president's removal from office at the earliest possible time.

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    One Exhausting Sh*thole

    “Why are we having all these people from sh*thole countries come here?”

    Sh*thole has been uttered on cable news over a dozen times. My only regret is that George Carlin didn’t live long enough to see the barrage of politicians, news anchors and pundits repeat one of the FCC’s seven banned words.

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    William K. Wolfrum's picture

    American Football in Nigeria - After God is Football

    AFFAM players meeting with HRH. Alh. (Dr.) Shehu Idris, the 18th Emir of Zaria in the Royal Palace of the Emir of Zaria. Idris is a supporter of American football in Nigeria.

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    Oprah for President?

    After delivering a powerful speech at the Golden Globes, Oprah Winfrey is being touted as a potential Democratic Presidential candidate. In response, at least one liberal website - DailyKos - posted an article bashing her for allegedly supporting America's destruction of Iraq beginning March 2003. It is true that she aired a program in October 2002 that was light on facts and heavy on pro-war propaganda.

    But to Oprah's credit in the months immediately preceding "Shock and Awe," she gave significant time to anti-war activists like Phil Donahue. She earned Michael Moore's praise for televising a 1980s photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Your Public Domain Report for 2018

    Hey gang! It's time for Public Domain Day again, where we list all of the music, film, books, and other pieces of art leaving copyright today. And here's that list again, just like last year:

    Nothing. Nothing at all.

    Happy New Year.

    Although the Framers of the Constitution only gave Congress power to grant copyrights and patents "for a limited time," repeated extensions have made sure that nothing has entered the public domain in the United States since January 1, 1979. Today makes nearly forty years since that happened.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Never Trust an Action Hero: Star Wars' Lost Politics

    Star Wars: The Last Jedi has hit the cineplex and begun raking in the customary astronomical profits. But the film has some angry detractors among hard-core Star Wars fans (a minority, I think, but a loud one) who complain bitterly that The Last Jedi is unfaithful to the Star Wars tradition. I'm not going to talk about the new movie here, and I'm going to do my best to delete discussion of it in comments (no spoilers!) for at least the next week. But I'd like to talk about the old Star Wars movies, the originals and the prequels, and the ambiguity that George Lucas tried, but failed, to give them.

    Some History and Current Affairs Books I've Especially Appreciated

    Being a slow reader, I have read 2 pages or more from a book on all but 7 days over the past 21 years, according to my reading log.  This is a habit I fell into, without making any point-in-time "decision" to do so that I can now recall.  It is the only way I can get books read.  

    Following are some (mostly) history and current affairs titles, my primary genres, that have had enduring impact on my thinking.  I am grateful to their authors for believing that something they might wish to contribute might be welcomed by others, and for making the effort.  These are in no particular order of significance to me.

    Here's how we lose next time

    In early October a couple of promising Democratic senatorial candidates will be Frankenized. Attractive young employees of, say, the LA Times or CNN will reveal the titillating details of past "harassment" by them. The employers feeling obliged to "Charlie Rose" the claims lest they be charged with suppressing politically damaging news--will lead with them. Including photos.

    The headlines will be repeated everywhere. Paragraphs 4 to 6 cautioning about the danger of unsupported claims, won't be.

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