2023 Archives

These are the two primary strategies we all use to motivate ourselves and others every day. We use them in our internal self-talk, we use them with our children, and politicians use them constantly. Increasingly, the Democratic and Republican parties are offering us all a very real choice: trust or fear. Think back to the 2022 election we endured just two months ago. Remember the ads you saw on TV? Odds are each one fell into one of two very simple categories: “be afraid of the other guy” or “trust that I’ll make your life better.” Most of the “fear” ads came from Republicans; most of the “trust” ads came from Democrats. Pain or pleasure. Fear or trust.

We’ve entered the new McCarthy era, and Kevin is doing everything he can to empower Jordan as the new Joe. This column could get me thrown in jail. And the fact that I’m even thinking that way is the entire point of Jim Jordan’s new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee which Jordan chairs. He and his fellow fascist seditionists want Americans to be afraid of them, particularly Americans who may be in a position to identify their crimes and hold them to account.

And it’s damn well past time that the people who conceived and ordered and facilitated the execution of this crime against all the rest of us are held to account in a meaningful way. There’s a reason the Framers of our Constitution wrote the word “treason” into that document 7 times and the word “rebellion” 5 times: they knew how deadly rebellions are to democracy when they aren’t swiftly and severely punished. Yesterday saw that hard lesson play out in Brazil, with coordinated and simultaneous attacks — explicitly inspired by Trump’s assault on the US Capitol and cheered on by American Republicans — on Brazil’s presidential palace, capitol building, and supreme court building.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — It's been two years since the insurrection, aided and abetted by numerous Republican members of Congress, and chaos is still the main note coming from the Republican caucus. — The hilarious meme floating around the internet about George Santos presaged the actual most recent lie he's pushing. — So much for "corporate responsibility" when it comes to political donations. — President Biden has taken serious action against illegal border crossings, even though there's not a single Republican in Congress, House or Senate, who's willing to engage in good-faith negotiations to reform our out-of-date immigration system. — When Trump took unknown millions or billions from the Saudis to bring the LIV golf tournament to the US after he left the White House, it appears he opened the door to that government getting inside information on the families of 9/11 victims. — Former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold is calling on the Senate to revise their rules so more Democratic-aligned federal judges can be vetted and placed on the federal bench. — Geeky Science! Global warming is wiping out glaciers that feed some of the world's most important rivers. — Crazy Alert! Apparently dictators like to steal things.