Everything you need to know about how Washington works nowadays is contained in the mini-drama that is Congressman Mark Pocan’s bill to do away with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The opening act featured Pocan making the rounds on the news networks promising to draft the measure–attacking ICE for their detaining illegal immigrants across the…… READ MORE
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Toe the Line
Every spring there is a big media campaign to get everyone looking to dig up a new garden or planning to plant trees or put up a new fence to “call Diggers Hotline” at least three days before doing any excavating. The ads feature ominous warnings about electrocution or explosions caused by rupturing underground utilities. And…… READ MORE
Ruling the Neighborhood of Make Believe
You could say that almost everyone involved in politics pretends to be someone they are not. In some situations putting on a façade can make you more popular–or increase your appeal to a certain group of people. But those who engage in identity politics are starting to take that to the extreme. Take Democratic…… READ MORE
Making a Murderer II: Forget All That Other Stuff
If they really do make a second series of Making a Murderer, those who didn’t bother to watch the first installment may want to skip it, because you will have no idea what the heck is going on. If you have seen it, you will recall that the filmmakers want you to believe that Steven…… READ MORE
Europe in Eclipse
Hopefully, we won’t be distracted by “concerns” over separated immigrant families as the southern border or Justin Bieber’s engagement to pay attention to what could be a huge week in terms of the geo-politics of Europe. President Trump is off to the continent to discuss the future of NATO–and how he thinks it should operate…… READ MORE
Holding Out
Usually I would never use this space to promote a strike. I find them to usually be counter-productive and only serve to hurt those that walk the picket line. I would usually never encourage someone to take part in a pro-abortion protest, since I was born and wouldn’t want to deny someone else the opportunity…… READ MORE
The No Balance Association
While the World Cup has Americans thinking about soccer for five minutes, now would be the time to talk about a system used in European Football called “relegation”. As an incentive for teams not to tank games or threaten to move to other cities for better stadium deals, many leagues drop the bottom three or…… READ MORE
Suck On This
It’s hard to believe that someday we are going to look back at the time you would get a plastic straw with your beverage at restaurants as “the good old days”. The new trend is for restaurants to no longer provide you with plastic straws–unless you ask for one. Some eateries are taking that even…… READ MORE
Why 2016 Really Mattered
The incredibly high stakes that were at play in the 2016 election were revealed again in two ways on Wednesday. First, the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy will provide President Trump with a second Supreme Court nomination. And instead of replacing the most hard-core originalist on the court following the death of Antonin Scalia, this…… READ MORE
Identity Commerce
Do you know where the “Republican” restaurants are in town? Which stores are “LGBTQ friendly”? What bar is “committed to providing its employees a living wage”? No longer is the main reason to patronize a business the quality or price of the service or products they provide to you the customer. Now, a determining…… READ MORE
