There ought to be a law. I read about Eric Barrier, half of the classic rap duo Eric B. and Rakim, and how he recently wound up in jail. The story is interesting not because it’s unusual but because it’s typical. Without getting into the weeds of his original 2002 offense because […]
Columns
Billionaires and Corporations Love anti-SLAPP Laws. Why Does John Oliver?
November 18, 2019John Oliver recently dedicated his HBO show to why we need a federal anti-SLAPP law. Like most of his stuff, the episode was witty and engaging. It was also sloppy, thoughtless and poorly researched. From now on, I’ll wonder whether I can trust anything he says. An anti-SLAPP motion is a powerful legal […]
For Progressives, Capturing the Democratic Party is More Important Than Beating Donald Trump kik
November 7, 2019Nothing, leading Democrats say, matters more than beating Donald Trump. 2020, they argue, is the most important election of our lifetimes (OK, they always say that). It’s not true. If you’re a progressive voter, taking back control of the Democratic Party from the DLC-Clinton-Biden centrist cabal is more important than defeating the incumbent. […]
“Far Left”? There’s No Such Thing in This Democratic Party
November 4, 2019America has lots of leftists. Forty percent of voters say that they would prefer to live in a socialist country than a capitalist one. Yet America has zero leftists running for president. Think about that the next time someone tells you that we live in the greatest country on earth, or for […]
The Killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Illegal, Disgusting and Degenerate
October 29, 2019As a society degenerates, life cheapens. The rhetoric that follows death coarsens. Respect paid to fallen rivals is replaced by triumphalism. Historians observed this trend in ancient Rome. As republic turned to empire and domain expanded and so also arrogance and hubris, vanquished chieftains who previously might have been allowed to keep their […]
Generation X Faces a Bleak, Impoverished Old Age
October 21, 2019In 1991 the demographers Neil Howe and William Strauss published their awkwardly-titled tome “13th Gen,” about Generation X—the Americans born between 1961 and 1981. If Xers had paid attention they would have committed suicide. “Child poverty, employment, wages, home ownership, arrest records — in every category, this generation, the 13th since the American […]
The First Thing We Do, Let’s Fire All the Cops
October 14, 2019In the latest shooting of an innocent civilian by a trigger-happy police officer, a white Fort Worth cop blew away a 28-year-old African-American woman through her bedroom window as she played a video game with her eight-year-old nephew. Atatiana Jefferson’s neighbor had called a nonemergency police number to request that they check on her […]
The Impeachment of Trump Is a Deep-Democratic Coup Against Elizabeth Warren
October 8, 2019Some Republicans see the Ukraine/Biden impeachment inquiry as a deep-state coup attempt against President Trump. Some progressives are beginning to scratch the surface of an alternative, but equally cynical, analysis that I think leftists ought to consider: The impeachment of Donald Trump is a DNC/centrist coup attempt against progressives inside the Democratic Party. Democrats could […]
The New York Times Called a Famous Cartoonist an Anti-Semite. Repeatedly. They Didn’t Ask Him for Comment.
October 1, 2019Earlier this year the Portuguese cartoonist António Moreira Antunes drew one of the most controversial political cartoons in history. His cartoon about U.S.-Israeli relations sparked so much controversy that The New York Times, whose international edition published it in April, decided to fire its two staff cartoonists, neither of whom had anything to do […]
Left, Center and Right: We’re All in Denial About Climate Change
September 21, 2019The political left, center and right do share something in common in today’s polarized America: we’re all in denial. The first step in 12-step programs begins with admitting that you have a problem for a reason: you can’t tackle a challenge whose existence you refuse to acknowledge. “From a psychoanalytical viewpoint, denial is a pathological, ineffective […]
