Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
I am not an infectious diseases expert. And, unlike Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade advisor cum political hitman, I have enough sense not to play one in the midst of the worst pandemic in over 100 years. That’s why I’m reprising this query in a spirit of consternation, not vindication. I first raised it when… Read more.
Today is one of those rare occasions when I feel it would help to reprise a previous commentary in its entirety. It’s short. I will append an update below. So, first, here is “Viola Regrets Portrayal of Black Women in The Help” from September 17, 2018. ********* The Help was a box-office hit. It also… Read more.
This is why Brazilians have far more to fear from Bolsonaro’s leadership than Americans do from Trump’s. Here is what I wrote about this Trumpian buffoon in “Covid-19 ‘Power Grabs’ Are Playing Out Just as I Feared … and Warned” on April 27: _________ President Bolsonaro of Brazil [is] dismissing the pandemic as ‘just a… Read more.
As the nation faces a pandemic, financial catastrophe and massive social justice protests, it is suddenly also confronting a spike in violence in some of its major cities. … The burst of bloodshed came at a particularly fraught time in the nation’s relationship with its police forces, amid waves of demonstrations decrying police tactics, brutality… Read more.
President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone, intervening in extraordinary fashion in a criminal case that was central to the Russia investigation and that concerned the president’s own conduct. The move came just days before Stone was to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence for lying to… Read more.
Frankly, these rulings smack too much of Chief Justice John Roberts being hell-bent on his Supreme Court having its cake (of judicial independence) and eating it too (by pandering to both sides of America’s coarsening political divide). In any case, I am not surprised. I’m just dismayed because it took nearly four years to establish… Read more.
As a reminder, here is how I previewed this highly anticipated book in a commentary on June 18: His niece has written a family exposé that promises to make Mommie Dearest look like a lullaby. The book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Mary L. Trump,… Read more.
Capitalizing the B when referring to Black people might not seem like a big deal. However, when editors at The New York Times, USA Today, and the Columbia Journalism Review all make a big deal of their change in style, it’s certainly worthy of comment. Here is how the Times announced and rationalized its (belated)… Read more.
When Donald Trump first began commanding media attention with talk about running for president, I wrote the prescient commentary “Trump for President? Don’t Be a Sucker!” April 8, 2011, hence today’s title. One name explains why Trump ran, and why Kanye might run: Barack Obama. With respect to Trump, the die was cast when Obama… Read more.
On March 18, President Trump declared America at war against Covid-19. More to the point, he took great pride in hailing himself a “wartime president.” Except that, Trump has been so incompetent on this front, Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger for the November presidential election, has had just cause to repeatedly dismiss him as follows:… Read more.
