Yes, We Have Work to Do

Joe Biden

This humble spirit would like to join the crowd in commending President Biden on passing the torch.  Even avid Biden supporters should acknowledge that what we saw wasn’t a “bad debate”; it was a sad and painful display of significant cognitive decline.  On the chance that he defeated Trump, the odds of which were getting […]

The Second (Third) American Revolution

No Project 2025

Kevin Roberts, president of the far-right-wing Heritage Foundation, the organization responsible for the equally far-right-wing “Project 2025” announced last week on Steve Bannon’s War Room webcast (after Bannon was finally sent off to jail) that “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to […]

 “Trumponomics”

Crisis

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has suggested enacting a foolhardy and frightening fiscal policy that one commentator has aptly dubbed “Trumponomics.” “Bidenomics,” which is serving to reduce America’s economic inequality, has suffered from bad branding and poor communications, but Trumponomics would most certainly be a disaster that increases economic inequality—and very possibly destroys America’s economy.  […]

Billionaires’ Retribution

Shiesty Smiley

It’s both shameful and depressing how many billionaires, including much of the Silicon Valley crowd, have been “coming back” to Donald Trump in recent weeks, regardless of his 34 felony convictions in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial or fascist-like threats of “retribution.”  With Nicki Haley having fallen by the wayside and Trump becoming the […]

Feeling Helpless to Stop Trump

Biden and Trump

Will anyone do anything to stop Donald Trump from becoming president again?  Journalists and commentators have been regurgitating the threat he poses to our democracy for months, but inevitably addressing the same limited audience and talking mostly to themselves, helpless in the face of impending disaster.  When I say “anyone,” I’m referring to the Democrats […]

Stormy Daniels and Cricket the Dog

An assault rifle laying on top of the American flag

Two events in the news last week highlight MAGA’s ugly machismo tendencies, its pent-up anger and readiness to engage in violence: ambitious up-and-comer Kristi Noem, Governor of South Dakota, shooting her dog, Cricket; quickly followed by more information than most of us cared to know about Donald Trump’s affair with adult movie actress Stormy Daniels.  […]

Conspiracy Against Democracy

Capitol Building during January 6th insurrections

This humble spirit hates to sound like a wacko QAnon conspiracy theorist, but that’s how I’m feeling lately.  I’m not so concerned that everything is “rigged” (although it most certainly is for working-class Americans these days), but rather America feels like a white Christian nationalist nightmare combining Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Handmaid’s […]

Make America 1864 Again

My Body My Choice

An abortion ban dating back to 1864?  Are you kidding me?!  That’s only a year after this former Confederate officer lost his life fighting (on the wrong side) in the Civil War.  Back then our knowledge of medicine was so limited that army doctors didn’t even know enough to sterilize their knife before starting the […]

Snake Oil Salesman… in Chief

Man selling fake elixir

Surely you’ve already heard all about it, but it’s impossible not to comment on the aspiring snake oil salesman in chief. Donald Trump was, is, and always will be America’s greatest snake oil salesman, and in his vulgar way, as American as apple pie. As if his gold high-top sneakers weren’t enough, Trump is now […]

Nibbling at the Edges

How did the Democratic Party become the party of college educated “elites”?  What happened to the party of the American middle class, the working people?  That’s what it used to be and should be again.  Unfortunately, MAGAs and too many swing voters don’t see it that way. Democrats not only have a messaging problem, but […]

MAGAs Defining “America”

MAGA Hat

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) always contains disturbing revelations, but this year they outdid themselves.  As a sample, right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened the Conference by declaring: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor […]

White Christian Existential Panic

Trump and Putin

Lately it’s hard to ignore MAGAs’ dangerous attraction to white, male authoritarian rulers.  What the hell?!  Donald Trump and other prominent MAGAs, including House Speaker Johnson and “media personality” Tucker Carlson, are delighting in reverence for Russia’s authoritarian dictator, Vladimir Putin, seemingly unfazed by his continued war in Ukraine or his murder of Alexi Navalny.  […]

Civil War at the Border

Texas Border Crisis

As someone who lost his life fighting (on the wrong side, of course) in the American Civil War, your humble spirit humbly suggests that MAGAs should stop calling for another “civil war” every time they open their mouths.  Like Southerners who seceded from the Union back in 1861, if they’re not careful, they might get […]

The World Economic Forum

Davos Summit

Committed to improving the state of the world?  Who do those people at Davos think they’re fooling?  The only world most of them want to improve is their own! If you’ve read even a few of my journal entries, it should be fairly clear this humble spirit hates Donald Trump and disparage his MAGA “base” […]

New Year’s Realizations

Trump or Death

As unrealistic as they may be, your humble spirit has some heartfelt wishes for 2024.  Wishes for Donald Trump and MAGA: Putting aside the obvious—such as Trump not getting reelected and/or his MAGA base no longer believing his lies—in no particular order, here are some New Year’s resolutions, or rather New Year’s realizations, that Trump’s […]

Happy New Year!

Donald Trump Mugshot

This humble spirit has been hovering about the earth for well over 150 years now and I can hardly recall a grimmer holiday season or a glummer prognosis for the new year, either here in America or around the globe.  In preparation for what is to come, however, I thought it might prove instructive to […]

Happy Genocide!

Adolf Hitler

What a grim holiday season this has turned out to be.  Talk about the Grinch who stole Christmas!  There are more wars going on around the planet than we’ve had in years and, with the exception of Donald Trump’s impending dictatorship looming over us, hardly anything has gotten more attention than the subject of “genocide”—how […]

“Bidenomics” Going Down with the Ship

Titanic Stamp

The White House seems determined to make “Bidenomics” the center of the president’s 2024 presidential campaign, and given how things stand (Trump and Biden in a statistical tie, with Trump ahead in most swing states), that’s a really scary proposition for the Democrats—and the country!  Bidenomics, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment […]

Trump Gets His Comeuppance

Trump Behind Bars

Last week, Yusef Salaam, one of the “Central Park Five” who were wrongly convicted for the 1989 rape and beating of a white jogger in Central Park, won a seat on the New York City Council representing a central Harlem district. (Congratulations, Yusef!)  Although his conviction was eventually overturned based on DNA evidence, as were those […]

Mike Johnson
(Speaker of the Christian Right)

Mike Johnson

It turns out that Mike Johnson, the new House Speaker, is no less a far-right MAGA bomb thrower than Jim Jordan, only he’s quiet and polite, and thus not as loathed by his House colleagues.  First on the list of his impressive MAGA credentials, he took a leading role in trying to overturn the 2020 […]