For the first time in American history, today the Senate confirmed a Black woman to become a justice on the United States Supreme Court. Since its formation in 1789, the Supreme Court has only had two previous Black justices (Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas), both of whom were male. Out of 115 justices who have ever sat on the highest court in the land, 108 of them have been White men. Only seven have either been women or non-White. And when the court convenes next fall, for the first time White men will actually become a minority on the court. Or, to put this a much better way: for the first time, the highest court in the land will actually be a lot more representative of the makeup of the citizens of the United States of America. This is a historic occasion, and a very hard-fought victory for all who aren't White men.

Read Complete Article »

I can't believe I'm about to do this, but this is a column offering some free and helpful advice to Donald Trump.

No, really -- it's not an extended April Fools joke, I swear!

What inspired me to write some political advice for the former president was watching how his fledgling social media platform Truth Social seems to be going down the tubes. Launched in February (on Presidents' Day) it soon became a very popular download -- but that's where the success story ended. Because downloading the app (onto your Apple phone, since there is still no version for the Android yet) didn't get you in. People were put on a wait list with hundreds of thousands of people in front of them. Which is where they'd stay for weeks and weeks. The waitlist is now reportedly up to over 1.4 million. When people finally did make it onto the platform, there wasn't much of anybody there to talk to.

Read Complete Article »

When Donald Trump was president, he came up with a rather fantastical reading of the United States Constitution. Perhaps "reading" is too strong a word, since it has always been plainly obvious that he's never bothered to read the document at all, in whole or in part. But someone planted and germinated an idea in him and his articulation of it was: "I can do anything I want as president." Sometimes he'd attempt to point to "Article II" of the Constitution (which, for the record, most definitely does not say the president can do anything he or she wants to do). For Trump, the non-existence of the "anything I want" power within the Constitution didn't matter one whit, since he had already convinced the only person that ever mattered to him (himself) that it just had to be true, so he took it as his personal North Star. Which is why this week's developments in uncovering his culpability for the events of January 6th should really come as no surprise. The only question that remains is whether he'll be allowed to get away with his blatant disregard for what the Constitution actually does say, or whether there will be any consequences at all for such behavior.

Read Complete Article »

Lo, how far the moralistic mavens of the Republican Party have fallen! They keep attempting to take the moral high road so they can piously point out all the failings of their political opponents in this realm... but they keep being undermined by fellow Republicans who have embraced the new amoralism Donald Trump ushered in to the GOP.

Read Complete Article »

I have been watching the Senate confirmation hearings on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, both today and yesterday, and as usual I am struck by the Kabuki nature of any and all of these hearings. The outcome is a foregone conclusion -- Jackson is going to be confirmed to the high court -- and it is likely that no senator is going to thoughtfully change his or her vote because of anything said in the hearing room. All Democrats seem to be on board with confirming her, almost all Republicans are going to vote against her, and the only real question is whether one or possibly two Republicans will give President Joe Biden a thin veneer of "bipartisanship" to her nomination. Which is ultimately meaningless, since it doesn't matter how many senators wind up voting for any justice's confirmation, as long as it is a majority of them.

Read Complete Article »

Let's start with some good news this week, because we could all use some, right? Two years ago today Tom Hanks announced to the world he had contracted COVID-19, on the same day that the virus people were then largely calling "the novel coronavirus" was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. This was when it all hit home for many -- that this could quite possibly be a very big deal indeed, even though the president of the United States was desperately trying to get the American public to believe otherwise. Salon provides a good rundown of what we all went through next:

Read Complete Article »

In politics, as in much of life, timing is key. Sometimes there are windows of opportunity that can be missed. Such seems to be the case with the so-called "People's Convoy," a group of American truckers who launched a copycat imitation of the Canadian truckers' protest, in the hopes of bringing media attention to their cause (or just themselves, perhaps). But their time -- if it ever even existed -- seems to have passed long before the big-rigs arrived near Washington D.C.

Read Complete Article »

This week, President Joe Biden gave his first State Of The Union speech to the United States Congress, to the American people, and to the rest of world. This speech had to be hastily rewritten at the last minute, obviously, due to intervening events. Russia's Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of last week, which was obviously a lot more important than any political points or laundry lists of proposed legislation. So the speech got a quick makeover.

Read Complete Article »

But back to the speech. Biden's delivery was awesome both at the start of the speech and at the end. He showed honest heartfelt emotion when denouncing Vladimir Putin and Russia and metaphorically standing with the people of Ukraine. At the end, he spoke louder than the building applause when he called for what is best about America overcoming our worst impulses. Barack Obama couldn't have done a better job with Biden's closing paragraph, and that's high praise indeed!

Read Complete Article »

Some weeks, obviously, are more momentous than others. This past week may be looked back upon as being one of the most historic anyone alive has ever lived through. The world order shifted on its axis and nobody is quite sure what is coming next.

Read Complete Article »