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The Way Forward Declaring, "We choose love," thousands gathered at vigils in Portland, Oregon this weekend to honor three victims of a bloody hate crime sparked by the toxic times. In remembrances for the two men killed and one injured when they faced down an assault on two young women of color, many echoed the grieving, grace-filled family of Taliesin Myrddin, who wrote that he "did the right thing...In his final act of bravery, he held true to what he believed is the way forward." Read more |
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On Kalief Browder Way: This Happens Every Day Thursday, on what would have been his 24th birthday, a Bronx intersection was renamed for Kalief Browder, the 16-year-old boy flung into New York's brutal Rikers Prison after being wrongly accused of stealing a backpack. There he endured three years of "documented torture" - two in solitary - before charges were dropped and he was freed. Two traumatized years later, he hanged himself. A version of his “American tragedy," Kalief once said, "happens every day." Read more |
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Vote For Rob Quist, Who Didn't Assault Any Reporters Like This Rich Jerk Just Did Ugly Sign of the Trumpian Times: On Wednesday, hours before a Montana special election long supposed to be a GOP slam dunk that now intriguingly isn't, right-wing, evidently short-fused GOP tech millionaire Greg Gianforte body slammed a Guardian reporter to the ground for asking a question about health care; he has been charged with assault. Gianforte's populist, folk-singing Democratic opponent Rob Quist declined to comment. But we will. These people are thugs. Read more |
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They Say There's Never Been Anything Like It Ever Before: Dumpster Fire In Israel Promotes the Possibility of Lasting Peach Oh, the ruinous phantasmagoria of our moron loose in the world, from cringeworthy typos to grandiose gaffes - "I never said Israel!" - to the sight of "a giant hate carrot" slipping into one of the world's holy sites his scribbled unholy requests - for pussy, chocolate cake, a nap? He spent 15 minutes at the Holocaust Museum - "So amazing!" - and an hour in the West Bank. Unsurprisingly, say Palestinians, "Nothing has changed" in a grim bloody Occupation that turns 50 in June. Thanks, America. Read more |
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KKK Is Okay By Us New guerrilla art made a dazzling, albeit brief, appearance this weekend when artist/activist Robin Bell lit up the Department of Justice and FBI buildings with projections calling out AG and good-ole-white-boy Jeff Sessions for his failure to recuse, his affinity for the KKK, and the need to fire him for crimes against decency and competence - this, most newly, surreally manifested in his cruel proposal to bring back the long-savaged war on crime and drugs. Read more |
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This Is American Justice: On Betty Shelby and Malcolm X Malcolm X would have turned 92 Friday, two days after white Tulsa cop Betty Shelby was acquitted of fatally shooting unarmed, hands-in-the-air "bad dude" - aka big black man - Terrence Crutcher after his car fatally stalled. At her trial, Shelby said she'd "never been so scared," adding, "I can't believe he made me do it." The more things change: It was 55 years ago the prescient Malcolm warned, "They put their club upside your head, and (then) accuse you of attacking them." Read more |
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Little Donny Goes On A Trip With Drumpf heading to Brussels to meet with the big boys, NATO leaders are said to be "freaking out" about handling a thin-skinned, tantrum-throwing, attention-deficit toddler man "who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing”; their child-proofing prep includes keeping presentations under four minutes with, presumably, no bigly words. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Read more |
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Hyperbole Is Dead Whoah. It's nigh-on-impossible to keep up with the latest mind-blowing twists in the Comey Paper Trail/ Russia Intel Giveaway/ More Nixonian Than Nixon/ Tangerine Nightmare saga, or to process the surreal state of the Republic. To date: Maine's Sen. Angus King talks impeachment, Jason Chaffetz claims "I have my subpoena pen ready," the Rogue POTUS Staff account is live again, and Rachel Maddow has declared, "Hyperbole is dead." Read more |
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Black Mamas Bailout Day: Because All Of Us Are Fallen Declaring in the tradition of their ancestors, "We're gonna free ourselves," a coalition of 25 grassroots, black-led groups bought the freedom of about 60 black women jailed around the country for low-level offenses by raising $550,000 to pay their bail and bring them home for Mother's Day. The slogan for the campaign, aimed at an unjust bail system that punishes people, especially women of color, for being poor: "Money kept them in. Black love got them out." Read more |
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Garbage In, Garbage Out: Happy Birthday George Carlin The take-no-prisoners George Carlin would have turned 80 on Friday. It's hard not to wonder what the guy who famously berated a country where "Anybody can be president. That's the problem" would have made of the Trumpster calamity. Prescient, he savaged both politicians and the soulless culture that made them, arguing, "If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders." From his trippy weatherman: "Tonight's forecast: Dark." Read more |