Black and brown and LGBTQ and so many other people know this already: What we call "policing" in too many places in the United States might more properly be called "government-sponsored terrorism." For what else is the purpose of the way in which police around the country have responded to anti-racism and anti-police violence protesters than to try to make them cower before their helmeted, riot-geared presence? To terrorize them into giving up Continue Reading...

As Democrats grapple with how to handle the accusation by former staff member Tara Reade that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in a hallway in the Senate office building in 1993, let's remember that as much as we want it to be about finding out the truth, it's never just that. And let's remember that not every purported rape victim is telling the truth and that every victim doesn't have to act like you think she should act. 1. It's possible that Continue Reading...

Ever since the first death from COVID-19, President Donald Trump has brayed like a howler monkey getting a tree branch stuck up its ass about how allegedly terrible President Obama handled the H1N1 outbreak in 2009-10. On a daily basis, we have heard about how the incompetent fuck-ups in the Obama administration personally went out and murdered, depending on the day, between 12,000 and 18,000 people with the swine flu. (The 12,000 is roughly the Continue Reading...

From the EU Observer, September 4, 2015: "The new prosecution chiefs - first Oleh Mahnitskyi, then Vitaly Yarema, now Viktor Shokin - have presided over a system which still looks more like a crime syndicate than a law enforcement agency...Shokin also caused scandals by trying to quash anti-corruption probes into his clan." From the Kyiv Post, February 15, 2016: "Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaly Kasko, who was given the job of cleaning up a Continue Reading...

Donald Trump is a coward. This much we must agree on before moving on. Everything he does, everything he has done, is based on his soul-draining fears. He fears that he will not be perceived as a success, a tough guy, a charmer, a winner of everything. He lashes out at anyone who foments those fears, those who tell him he's wrong, or those who want to hinder him. He is driven by his panic that everyone will find out that he is entirely a fake, Continue Reading...

In the wake of Democrats finally loading the cannon on actual articles of impeachment, Republicans are somewhere between frantic denial and explosive apoplexy as they insist that Donald Trump did nothing wrong in his dealings with Ukraine and Congress. So I have a few questions for 'em. 1. If Ukraine is so corrupt, why was no funding held up in 2017 and 2018? And why was corruption in Ukraine not a significant part of any hearings in the House Continue Reading...

Oh, listen, dear children of America. There was a time, a generation ago now, when the financial conduct of president of the United States was enough to prompt an endless investigation by the Justice Department. You might have heard about how, way back in the 1990s, President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about getting blow jobs from a White House intern (Monica Lewinsky, who is ten kinds of awesome nowadays). Except, see, Continue Reading...

At my college, the semester just started. And in my classes, as usual, I have an array of students from other countries, including Syria and Lebanon. I have said on other occasions that my Middle Eastern students are almost always some of the best, hardest-working, least-complaining ones. It's just an anecdotal observation based on years of experience, but make of that what you will. In my classes, we read literature that has a political bent, Continue Reading...

After Donald Trump was inaugurated, I heard dozens of predictions about how soon he would fall and be forced out of the presidency. I talked to people In The Know or people who would mention a friend who's an intelligence agent, and they all knew, with near certainty, that we were mere months from the wheels of justice and the righteous government of the United States rejecting Trump like he was a dog's arm grafted onto our precious human bodies. Continue Reading...

If you ever happen to find yourself in Waskom, Texas, a tiny burg across the Louisiana state line off I-20, a place best described as "twister bait," you might wanna head on over to the Great American Mural that covers the front of the We Buy Houses 123 building in the middle of town. It's a mighty huge thing, what with its portrayal of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in a dull, gray New York City; an extraordinarily masculine Statue of Continue Reading...

Too many Democrats are tying themselves in knots in order to avoid committing to impeachment hearings for President Donald Trump, a man who, in his best days, betrays the public trust ten times before finishing his first Sausage McMuffin of the morning. But the arguments Democrats make are utter bullshit, and they're belied by history, circumstance, and the Democrats' own actions. For example: "Why bother impeaching Trump when we know the Continue Reading...