IMPORTANT READS

WORLD WATCH-The bombing continues unabated. The explosions are heard in the distance. A family with seven children is cowering in fear in a corner of their shack, not daring to step out, dreading instant death from shrapnel or a sniper’s bullet.

OTHER WORDS-Unity and bipartisanship sound wonderful. But can anyone explain how “building bridges” to today’s GOP will get anything done? 

COMMENTARY-In an age of misinformation, we have to be careful of anything that plays into a specific bubble of belief and yet has little or no basis of truth.

UNTANGLING LIES-Much has been made recently of the concept of the “big lie”: 

FOREIGN POLICY RESET-The predominant direction of a progressive U.S. president should be toward “Making America Safe for the World.” 

THE F-WORD-“Leftists” I know have had their undies tied up in a nasty knot bunch over other leftists’ use of the F-word – fascism – to describe Trump and his backers. 

POLITICS-You can’t poke into any issue in Congress without stumbling over sacks full of corporate campaign donations.

PERSPECTIVE--On November 23^rd. NPR Reporter Brian Naylor wrote and reported that President -elect Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban American to head and become the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

LABOR POLITICS--Late last year, Congress allowed federal mandatory emergency paid leave benefits to expire.

PERSPECTIVE--President-elect Biden frequently calls for “healing the soul of our country.” Lincoln wrote of “binding up the nation’s wounds.”

A NEW WORLD-We did it. We took control of the Senate from Mitch McConnell.

COUP POLITICS--The year 2020 will be remembered in history for a deadly pandemic and a deep economic crisis that touched almost every country on earth. Hopes for a brighter 2021 were one of the few things most people could agree on. 

GUEST WORDS--Americans often ask what a President’s “legacy” will be. Donald Trump revealed a great and terrible truth: who America “really” is.

IN DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY-On January 5, 2021, one day before Trump sparked his fascist Attack on the Capitol, the liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg called for Americans “to defend democracy” by “investigating” Trump and wrote these words: 

RIGHTING HISTORY’S WRONGS-Here’s a hard but undeniable truth: America has a short memory and a long tradition of revising history.

TEST FOR DEMOCRACY--I still see the noose in front of the capitol building, dangling oh so metaphorically.

SAVING DEMOCRACY-The answer to what happened in Washington last Wednesday is what happened in Georgia last Tuesday.

VIEW FROM HERE-In the bloody wake of an insurrection on the Capitol by hordes of armed white supremacists and naive Trump supporters, the President-elect issued the following statement on Twitter.

SEDITION--Whatever you want to call the violent assault in Washington on January 6, 2021—a mob action, a siege, a coup attempt, a riot, domestic terrorism, an insurrection—the fault clearly lies with the president.

AN OPEN LETTER TO MAGA MARCHERS--When Donald Trump incited you to assault the Capitol, he said he would be with you.

He wasn’t.

POLITICS--“No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s [January 6^th] coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway.”