2022 Archives

Will the media amplify the voices of Republicans who’re saying it’s really no big deal, trying to overthrow the government, and that Thomas should stay on the Court? In 1969, Richard Nixon and congressional Republicans took down the Supreme Court's most liberal member, Abe Fortas, threatening to send his wife to prison. There's a lesson here for today's Democrats and Clarence Thomas. Today's Democrats are calling on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from decisions involving Trump's conspiracy to overthrow our government. They should be calling on him to resign and his wife to be prosecuted.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Was Clarence Thomas trying for a twofer? — After the single most racist confirmation hearing before the US Senate in my long lifetime, Republican leader Mitch McConnell says he’s not going to vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. — Republicans in Arizona just passed the most extreme voter purge in history, requiring anybody who registered to vote more than 18 years ago to re-register before their votes can be counted. — Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court — without hearing any arguments or pleadings — chose to cancel a voting map that would have created a largely Democratic (and Black) congressional district in that state. — What’s going on with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s decision to abandon his office’s prosecution of Donald Trump and his family? — Another plus for open, honest democracy: it looks like Putin’s losing his war against Ukraine because of corruption in his own government. — The Turner Diaries narrative that animated Tim McVeigh to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in the hope of starting a race war in America live on. — Geeky Science: What will be the impact of finding plastics in our blood? — In Good News, the largest “built all at once” wind farm ever has opened in Oklahoma, and is now on track to save its customers over a billion dollars.

In America, there is only one way for us to accomplish the progressive goals we’ve fought for all these years, and that’s through getting inside and seizing control of the Democratic Party. Years ago, a caller named “Jeff from Denver” used to call my show complaining of a lack of progressive action and sold-out Dems in Colorado. One day I challenged him to show up at his local Democratic Party and do something about it instead of just complaining. He stopped calling, which made me think I’d offended him and he’d stopped listening. Instead, about six months later, he called back in to say that he’d joined first his county and then his state Democratic Party and not only helped get a good progressive candidate on the ticket but participated in writing the national Democratic Party platform.

Most of the countries of Europe & Asia (Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) have laws in place that guarantee a healthy middle class: poverty, like in America, doesn't haunt their dreams. The Washington Post just published a heartbreaking story about Dave Ramsey Jr., a working class American who fell out of the middle class and couldn’t afford an urn for his father’s ashes, much less a memorial ceremony. To save money, the funeral home gave him his dad’s ashes wrapped in a cloth bag.