Four Weeks Out: What Will Be the Narrative of Election 2014?
Almost every election year has a driving narrative that determines how voters (and, just as importantly, those who choose not to vote) are thinking headed into the election. Four weeks from November 4,...
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Citizens United and the Black Death
A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman - copyright Random House 2014 Every summer, for the past few summers, I have attended Oxford University's summer school program, studying (or reading, as they say...
View ArticleVirtual Numbers and the Young Billionaires
One of the characteristics of money is that it is virtual and almost unfathomable. For the wealthiest and the poorest there is never enough. For the wise, money becomes a tool, an expression of...
View ArticleWTF Happened to TV News?
If you've never seen Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom on HBO, you need to. If you don't have HBO, get it and binge watch the first two seasons and then wait patiently for season three coming this fall. I'm...
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#5 Liberal America, You Don't See What We're Up Against, and It Matters
Summary: Liberal America does not perceive well the nature of the force that's taken over the right. Not perceiving what we're up against has enormous consequences, because understanding one's foe -...
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Changing the Future of Sexual and Reproductive Rights
Nineteen years ago, the United Nations convened the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. The Conference, which was held from Sept. 4-15, 1995, adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for...
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10 Ways Politicians and Toddlers Are Alike
With midterm elections less than a month away, politicians are ramping up the TV ads, the mudslinging, name calling and well, bullsh*t. As I was watching my 15th political commercial in less than an...
View ArticleHow Many People Must Be Maimed or Killed Before We End the Militarization of...
Yesterday, a grand jury in Habersham County, Georgia, decided not to bring charges against the police officers who threw a flashbang grenade into the crib of Bounkham Phonesavanh, known affectionately...
View Article40 Under 40: Latinos in American Politics
A new generation of Latinos continues to move up in American politics. Some are immigrants, others are homegrown; most are progressive, but conservatives have elevated serious talent as well. Â Last...
View ArticleShould We Just Follow Orders? Rules of Engagement for Resisting the Police State
The perils of resisting the police state grow more costly with each passing day, especially if you hope to escape with your life and property intact. The thing you must remember is that we've entered...
View ArticlePanetta Recycles the Same Tired Criticisms of President Obama
Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is the latest to recycle the same tired criticisms of President Obama. The criticisms with only slight variation boil down to Obama are weak, ineffectual, hesitant...
View ArticleHow We Enabled ISIS By Disarming Iraqi Militias
As ISIS raced through Western Iraq, cutting through Kurdish villages and Sunni enclaves with rapid speed, the United States reacted with shock. How could the Iraqi Army "go ARVN," the term used in...
View ArticleWhat Would Martin Say? Martin Luther King and the November Elections
"They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. ... God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth,...
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Women and the Elections: What's at Stake?
Love it or hate it, we're in the home stretch of election season and we'd better start thinking about how we're going to vote. Especially women and the men who care about them. Why bother? Congress is...
View ArticleThe ECB Needs a Plan B for Its Monetary Policy
With the introduction of a negative interest rate on excess bank deposits, it has become clear that the ECB is running out of options. The institution's most important financial political tool - the...
View ArticleThe 'Bent Twig' of Arabia: A Note on the Origins of Jihadism
The Champs Elysées might be an odd place to consider the rapid metastasis of jihad, but on a recent visit viewing the grandeur of the Arc de Triomphe at one end and the Place de la Concorde visible...
View Article'Kafka's' Immigration Trials Spark State and National Response
In Franz Kafka's "The Trial," an ambitious banker is arrested from his home by two wardens. Having done nothing wrong, the charges are as invisible as the court system is untouchable. He spends the...
View ArticleWhat It's Like to See ISIS Capture a Town You Cleared
The anti-insurgency strategy that the United States adopted in Iraq was a three-step process known as "clear, hold and build." Marines like me did the clearing and holding of towns throughout northwest...
View ArticleA Tent Too Large: the Republican Party and Anti-LGBT Bigotry
RNC Chair Reince Priebus yesterday said something predictable and something startling in response to the Supreme Court's refusal to overturn court decisions clearing the way for same-sex marriage. The...
View ArticleThe Saudis, 9/11, ISIS, and American Secrecy
There is a growing movement in the United States against secrecy and a growing distrust that government is operating in the people's interest. I've written previously about this crisis in democracy....
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