Under most circumstances, it would have been hard to begrudge Hillary Clinton too much for saying a few nice things about Nancy Reagan at her funeral earlier this year. Regardless of your feelings towards either woman, it is usually considered good… Read More ›
Democrats
Race Based Red Baiting: Why The Right Wing Pegs President Obama As A Communist
Over the past 7 years, the splenetic rage that has been nurtured by the political right in America against President Obama has splintered off into a number of separate, but not mutually exclusive, strands that highlight the various issues driving… Read More ›
Sentiment Over Substance: How Presidential Candidates Talk About Addiction Without Saying Much Of Anything
It happened at the beginning of the New Hampshire Forum on Addiction and the Heroin Epidemic, well before the 5 mid-card presidential candidates who participated in the event showed up to speak. About halfway through the morning portion of the… Read More ›
Exit Jail, Do Not Collect Ballot: Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin Revokes Voting Rights For Ex-Felons
At it’s most basic level, incarceration is exchange between an individual and the society in which he or she lives. Before the advent of the carceral punishment, this exchange was pretty direct and tangible. Steal a loaf of bread and… Read More ›
Say It Ain’t So Joe: The Unfortunate Prospect of a Biden Presidential Campaign
Up until today, the Republican and Democratic presidential primary fields were a study in contrasts. On the right, you had a raucous melange of hyper-conservative ideologues, religious extremists and political would-be-kings vociferously bickering on national TV, all of whom seemed… Read More ›
The Ballad of Lincoln Chafee — Dispatches From The Democratic Debates
Tuesday night’s showdown of prospective Democratic nominees for president provided all of the clarity and revelation that one could reasonably expect from an inaugural debate taking place 4 months prior to the opening of primary season. As she was expected… Read More ›
But The Hate Remains The Same: Reconstruction & A Changing Of The Guard in Southern Politics
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›