Working Life

My bullshit radar is working overtime, triggered by two different dust-ups in the political world. I find myself feeling sympathetic to two people who I don’t particularly like or share much in the way of political philosophies.

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   Last night, I appeared on Capital Tonight with Liz Benjamin to speak about the censure vote of Charlie Rangel.  

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    Politics, and the maneuvering in politics that so many of our citizens despise, has a way of muddying the waters and clouding the truth. The combatants in politics, aided by the shallowness of media coverage, engage in tussles that leave the voters scratching their heads. The average, normal person thinks: “Wait, my basic values [...]

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   Lesson from last night: if we had held accountable the Democrats who for the past 25 years did not act like Democrats–meaning, those people who were willing to engage in legalized corruption by pocketing corporate campaign cash, those people who voted for NAFTA and so-called "free trade" and those people who lost their voices [...]

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   I’m not sure that anyone has told NY Comptroller Bill Thompson yet but his race for mayor is over…effectively. His only prayer (and any other candidate’s only prayer) to defeat the billionaire mayor was to have a unified labor movement behind him. It was the only way–and even that was a big "if"–to balance [...]

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The Obama pound, exchanged between Michelle and Barack on Tuesday night, marked a historic moment. Yeah, there’s that whole first black nominee for president thing. But more significant, is the fact that the greeting which has been described by confused white journalists as a "fist bump," "closed-fist high-five," "a frat-tastic fist bump" and a "’Hezbollah’ [...]

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Last Fall, during the election, I mused numerous times about the worrisome phenomena of Democrats hugging corporate lobbyists (for example, here). Yeah, I know, this isn’t new. The point was that if Democrats wanted to take power and really be different, they needed to reject those kind of relationships. Well, The Politico has a story [...]

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I’ve not been drinking the Obama kool-aid. And here are two reasons why. First, it was the well-publicized unwillingness to state clearly that there is nothing immoral about homosexuality. Like the junior senator from New York, Obama subsequently issued a second statement saying he did not think homosexuality was immoral. But, you have to wonder, [...]

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Yesterday, I wrote about doubts international diplomats have about the charges the U.S. is leveling against Iran. The posting yesterday referred to a piece in the Los Angeles Times. Today, The NYTimes mimics the theme. Hey, I’m not complaining–if we can get the mainstream media to not roll over whenever the president makes claims about [...]

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I don’t need to say much more. Check out this website: http://www.bushisover.org/gallery.htm

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Congressional Quarterly has a story on the Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee’s “Frontline” program: the Democrats who are deemed most vulnerable in 2008 and, thus, get special early attention. I noticed, in particular, that Melissa Bean is on the list. Readers of this blog will note that I am not a fan of Bean since she [...]

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One thing that is now clear is that Barack Obama’s charmed life is coming to an end. The press basically gave him a free ride until now…but check out this story in the L.A.Times–and expect to see more in the future: The drama began with a tiny ad in a local newspaper — a notice [...]

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I think this has been commented on here and there but it’s worth amplifying. The mainstream media is already beginning to play its role: deciding who is a “credible” candidate in the 2008 races and who is not. The coverage for some candidates is far more prominent than others–almost regardless of their positions. I’ll actually [...]

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It’s too easy to pound on the president’s State of The Union address. I’ll leave that to the red-meat crowd. What annoyed the crap out of me was watching the Democrats. I’m not referring to the perpetual suck-ups like Reps. Eliot Engel and Loretta Sanchez, two of the many Democrats I spotted jostling for position [...]

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One of the most common themes we are now asked to accept, as part of the hagiography surrounding the death of Gerald Ford, is that Ford ended our “long national nightmare” by pardoning Richard Nixon over his crimes in “Watergate” and that such an act remains a positive part of his legacy. In the debate [...]

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I am no fan of Donald Trump. I think he is a blowhard, real estate leech. But, as the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. You may have already seen his comments in Maureen Dowd’s column today. On the Bush twins, he says: “When you’re a president who has destroyed [...]

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