Home

Our Present and Future Demagogues

We must also, as a society, fix the underlying economic and social conditions that make Trump-like supporters in the first place and then vote the way they do. Donald Trump is only the latest demagogic figure to come along and exploit much of the ignorance and insecurities that some of these people feel in their […]

Read More

The Center Cannot Hold

Prediction: Republicans are not going to crack up at their convention in Cleveland. There’s enough time between now and the July 18–21, 2016 Republican National Convention for party leaders to realize that Donald Trump is their dream candidate. The singular achievement of the Trump campaign is that he distilled decades of Republican agitprop–White Supremacy–into a […]

Read More

End of an Era, Indeed!

The New York Times published the note below at the end of a strange story about the reburial of Richard III. I revered to Times journalists as a young journalist. Unlike many in my generation who came into journalism because of Woodward and Bernstein, Harrison Salisbury was my initial inspiration. Then, John F. Burns became […]

Read More

A Plug for Unions

The New York Times published a story yesterday about a study (done at Harvard and elsewhere involving income data from millions of people) that found In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters. If you’re born in the bottom 20 percent in New York City, for instance, you’ll wind up on average around the 40th percentile. People […]

Read More

The 2013 State of the Union Address

February 13, 2013 | 1:01:01 | Public Domain Remarks by the President in the State of the Union Address U.S. Capitol Washington, D.C. 9:15 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow citizens: Fifty-one years ago, John F. Kennedy declared to this chamber that “the Constitution makes us not rivals […]

Read More

Sanders’ October 2010 Filibuster Against Corporate Greed

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhOAzqfMoms[/youtube]So many people are talking about Rand Paul’s filibuster of John Brennan’s CIA nomination in the U.S. Senate that I thought I would remind people of Vermont’s Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders made a much loved speech on the senate floor that was turned into a book. It was in Oct. 2010 and the U.S. Senate […]

Read More

Pieces of Me

This site is, of course, the archive of mostly my newspaper journalism. I have written other places, too. I don’t know if it is wanderlust, nostalgia, whatever, I found myself looking around the web for some of my past writings and came across these pieces scattered around the Internet. Some of these pieces, I posted […]

Read More

Mitt and the Bain Capital Chronicles

In an all too familiar tale, during its heydays, when Mitt Romney and his posse rode into town on behalf of Bain Capital, someone’s dream was going to get crushed, usually a lot of someones. Hopes and aspirations are swiftly snuffed out. “I don’t think Mitt Romney is a bad man. I don’t fault him […]

Read More

Michelle Obama Rocks the House

September 4, 2012 Charlotte, NC–Transcript of first lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, as prepared for delivery: Thank you so much, Elaine…we are so grateful for your family’s service and sacrifice…and we will always have your back. Over the past few years as First Lady, I have had the extraordinary privilege of […]

Read More

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry at the DNC

CHARLOTTE — The following is a transcript of a speech, as prepared for delivery, by Mary Kay Henry, International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, September 4, 2012. Mary Kay Henry International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Hello, delegates, and hello to my […]

Read More