History is not a linear thing. It is not neat, nor is it ramrod straight. It’s beginning is theoretical; its end, unknowable. History—like the rotation of the earth, the orbit of the moon and the life, death and rebirth of… Read More ›
US Politics
Goldwater Runs Deep: The 1964 Republican National Convention & The Rise of Conservative Extremism
On the most southerly outskirts of San Francisco, far away from the subsidized counterculture of the Haight and the boho hustle and bustle of The Mission District, lies the sprawling, unsightly mass of asphalt and concrete known as The Cow… Read More ›
Sins of Omission: The State of the Union & Obama’s Race Problem
Speechmaking has never been Barack Obama’s problem. From the first time the nation heard him as a young state senator from Chicago at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, through the Hope and Change stump speeches on the campaign trail in… Read More ›
Queen City Conservatives: How The Tafts Can Teach The GOP To Be Functional Again
There’s an old saying–often attributed erroneously to Mark Twain–that has it that when the world ends, a man should want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always 20 years behind the times. As a resident of the Queen City(1) for… Read More ›
Edward W. Brooke & The Importance of Moderate Republicans in American Politics
Given the frenetic and bloody start this new year has taken with the Charlie Hebdo killings, the Boko Haram massacre of thousands of innocent civilians in northeastern Nigeria and the row over the murders of two NYPD officers, even the… Read More ›
Bowling For Presidents: How College Football Can Help Sort Out The Field For The 2016 Election
Boys and girls, we have entered very strange air as of late. The mid-term elections are over. The dumpster fire that was the 113th Congress is pretty much finished. And, as 2014 fades into 2015, the first presidential rumblings for… Read More ›
The Wall Street Woodcutter & The Trees: A Look At The Passage of the Cromnibus Bill
Come on down and have a sit with me. Just a sit—a brief sit—so’s I can tell you a little story my daddy used to tell me when I was knee-high and tow-headed and didn’t know shit from Shinola about… Read More ›
The Last of The Gang to Die: How Democrats Lost the Deep South
On the evening of July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson lay down beneath the grand canopy of his four post bed in The White House’s 2nd floor living room, exhausted; his mind surely swirling with that mixture of clear conscience… Read More ›
This Is Just The Beginning: How The 2014 Midterms Can Be A Clarion Call For The American Left
Calm yourselves progressives. Turn off the TV, shut off the iphone, log off of Facebook and try to stay away from the mewling hyperbole of the 24 hour news media. These midterms should be no cause for panic. Concern, perhaps,… Read More ›
Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right: Progressive Third Party Politics in West Virginia
It was all Nader’s fault. Never mind the butterfly ballots and the hanging chads. Forget about Palm Beach County’s sudden and accidental infatuation with Pat Buchanan(1) and Katherine Harris’s purging of thousands of legitimate black Floridians from the voter rolls… Read More ›
Virally Suppressed - Muckraking For The Modern World 