Danny Cardwell's picture

    Sex, Lies and Hate

    This past Monday Pat Robertson offered his Christian Broadcast Network audience a conspiracy theory, as a legitimate response, to Fox News contributor Eric Bolling’s suspension from the network for allegedly sending unsolicited nude photos to at least three female coworkers. Robertson said:

    If you wanted to destroy the Fox News, you really wanted to destroy them, what would you do? Well you would send some salacious material, ostensibly from one of their popular co-hosts or hosts and you’d send it out and then get it publicized and then you have some woman complain that she had gotten this salacious material from this particular co-host.

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    War and Words and Words and War

    Today, our president uttered threats at North Korea that sounded comic book villainish or, to take it to the real world, a little more like what I expect from saber rattling emergent enemies of the United States who might make reference to "The Great Satan" or say thinks about streets running red with the blood of innocents, or even that the United States is "not worth an old shoe." Yep, our president sounded like somebody who had come to power through heredity or coup, rather than an election. 

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    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    The Three Myths of Reverse Racism in College Admissions

    Twenty-five years ago, I was sitting in the tiny teacher's room of the little parochial school where I taught, talking to a few other people about the news. The principal's administrative assistant said something about affirmative action letting unqualified black students into Harvard, and I asked her if she thought that was a real worry. She actually gasped. "Don't you?" she asked, in shocked disbelief that I could not be concerned, nay scandalized, about such a well-known social problem.

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    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Lil Duval, Non Binary Genders & Questions About Rape

    Fact: there are transgendered people who live in a constant state of physical and sexual terror. In the last few years there’s been an increase in gang rapes, sexualized torture, and murders of transgendered women and men. Paradoxically, all of this violence is happening at a time when more and more people are fighting to affirm the rights of the LGBTQIA community. Much of the violence and fear transgendered people are experiencing is a last-ditch effort to push them back into the closet. This violence has no place in our society.

     

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    The Man Myth

    Ah yes, another firing of an idiot who stated what much of the world believes, that "men are more charismatic performers? ... they work harder? ... they are more driven? Possibly a bit of each."

    Having spent part of the weekend listening to drunken "charismatic performers" at 5 am and the last 1 1/2 years horrified by the latest batch of "more driven" men, I'm still bewildered that people think of this as a plus, as a feature, rather than a grave disqualification, or at minimum a toss-up among other useful measures, such as efficiency, quality of work, consistency, team inspiration & enablement, etc.

    Michael Maiello's picture

    What They've Wanted To Repeal For Seven Years

    Ever since the Affordable Care Act became law, Republicans have sought to repeal it. In the most recent failed attempt, I've seen numerous references to the difficulty of repealing an "entitlement" once people have grown used to having it and the use of that word mostly reminds me of just what a paltry entitlement the ACA is for most people.

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    Four Tumors

    John McCain came out of the hospital this week yet again a hero, with all of America cheering him on. Never mind that he was off to do battle against the type of health care that had just saved his life - the free health care that had made his life livable for 50 years since his horrid Vietnam days, while so many other lives slump by.

    But it was 10 months ago that America went ballistic on Hillary Clinton for supposedly hiding something sinister - presumably a tumor tied to a blod clot a few years back, or maybe just maybe Parkinsons, or something else, Wikileaks even going as far as to offer a poll to guess. The Media was hardly down with sympathy at her moment - why hadn't she said she had pneumonia, gasp!?!? why had she covered things up? and lots of bets on when, not if, her demise would come.

    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Trump's Recess Scheme

    Until recently, I believed that President Trump's only option for firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller was a Nixonesque Saturday Night Massacre in which he fired everyone down the chain of command until he reached someone obsequious enough to do his bidding. This may be possible in principle, but it's a "nuclear" option likely to turn even Republican allies against him.

    There is another way, however. Trump's recent contretemps with Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggest that he's working on an alternative scheme to rid himself of that troublesome special counsel. If he can hound Sessions into resigning, Trump could then appoint an obedient, non-recused attorney general to shut down the investigation without technically "firing" anyone. There's a catch, though. Attorney general appointments require Senate confirmation, and even this timid Republican majority won't let Trump appoint whomever he wants.

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    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Virginia Election 2017 Trump vs. Pipelines?

     

    The Omni Homestead resort in Hot Springs was the center of politics in the Commonwealth of Virginia. On Saturday July 22nd, the Virginia Bar Association welcomed the current lieutenant governor, Democrat, Ralph Northam and businessman, Republican, Ed Gillespie to participate in the debate moderated by “PBS Newshour” host Judy Woodruff.  

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    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Hating The Game: Did Michael Vick Sellout?

    "First thing we’ve got to get Colin to do is cut his hair."

     

    Michael Vick offered Colin Kaepernick some unsolicited advice as a guest on Fox Sports 1’s “Speak For Yourself”. After listening to him say, “I really think the stand that he took has nothing to do with him not having a job playing in the National Football League right now.” I was disappointed. Michael Vick was the previous owner of the shoes Colin now fills. There will be over 100 quarterbacks competing for jobs before rosters are cut and Vick doesn't think Kaepernick is better than half of them? Does he really believe 32 head coaches, 32 general managers, and 32 owners simultaneously came to the conclusion he couldn't play anymore?

     

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    Michael Maiello's picture

    Donald Trump Jr. Really Is Patrick Bateman

    Josh Marshall remarks that the Trumps are not really "political," by which he means that they are not actually interested in policy as an end to itself:

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    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Blacks Only?

    The only space we can truly make Black-only is the space between our ears and that’s much more difficult than segregating an auditorium for a few hours.

    The absence of White bodies doesn’t make a space Black-only. People of color have been consciously and unconsciously conditioned to see themselves as less than. Physically separating oneself from White bodies does nothing to deal with the psychological damage that comes from being inculcated with the myth of white supremacy. In every Black-only setting lives the remnants of an ideology that formed the desire to meet outside of the White gaze.

    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Presidential Pardons and Obstruction of Justice

    One thing is finally clear about the Russia investigation, thanks to Donald Trump, Jr.'s decision to tweet his incriminating e-mails: someone is going to prison over this. All three principals who took that meeting looking for Russian oppo research, Manafort, Kushner, and Trump, Jr., are likely in serious criminal jeopardy. Other figures (like Flynn, Sessions, and peripheral creeps Eric Prince, Carter Page, and Roger Stone) may be in danger of prison as well. But the Trump Tower Three certainly are.

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    The Nuremberg Defense

    It was summer of 1972 and G. Gordon Liddy along with his plumbers had just broken into the Watergate with the help of some disgruntled Democrats, but gotten caught. Meanwhile, the DNC in a futile attempt at unity had forced the Eagleton choice on McGovern only to see it blow up in his face with stories of psychiatry and electroshock.

    Leftbehinds

    Our techno selves are gaining ground, but despite the Kurzweil singularity and all the promises of our cyberfuture, I'm more interested in stuff.

    A few groups reviewed Lennon's Imagine, with the usual questions of whether it's the drippiest sappiest song ever written, or something of noble spirit with timeless scope.

    But me, I'm looking at these pieces I find strewn about and wonder who's going to take care of them, archive them, re-imagine them in other forms and colors and textures and mashups. An old postcard, a record, a nice rock, a ticket from a concert, an unfinished sketch...

    Our humanity will be determined by what we cling onto. No one will save us from the responsibilities of our own space, no one will clean out that room - that bit's ours, to love, honor and cherish, or simply dispose of through neglect. It's us.

    We keep getting stuck in what other people define for us. How about we just think about what we want to think about, develop what we want to develop. At the end of time, it might just be us, a tent, a campfire, and a tin of beans. Who ever needed more?

    Poof. Like Quinn in space - that's all it ever was, just a promise. And we know about promises.

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Donald Trump Keeps Winning!

    Donald Trump should make All I Do Is Win his official theme song. President #TwitterFingers is winning! He wins when he wins; He wins when he ties; He wins when he loses. It’s time to admit that we are playing his game by his rules.

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    Doctor Cleveland's picture

    Ask the Blue States about Terrorism

    Here are a few pictures from Copley Square in Boston, where the Boston Marathon ends:

     

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    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Who Will Be The Next #_________?

    Acquittals for killing unarmed people of color will be to this generation what stock footage of police using water hoses and siccing dogs on protesters was to the 1960’s. Almost 54 years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, unemployment in many black communities is twice the national average, and law enforcement continues to disproportionately use lethal force against people of color. For all of America’s talk about racial progress the underlying disparities that necessitated the original gathering remain in place.

    Danny Cardwell's picture

    Separating Church And Hate

    On Wednesday (June 14), the Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution formally distancing itself from the alt-right movement. The legislation condemns “every form of racism, including alt-right white supremacy, as antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ” and “every form of racial and ethnic hatred as a scheme of the devil.” Had this resolution passed a day earlier it wouldn’t be newsworthy, but it didn’t. The Southern Baptist Convention’s bumbling of this issue is another stain on a denomination that seems to take a step backward for every step forward it takes.

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