Barry Goldwater, considered a right-wing extremist and fringe candidate in 1964, won the 1964 Republican presidential nomination by declaring that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice!” But the GOP is now way beyond the fringe, declaring that nuttiness in defense of extremism is no vice. Consider Ginni Thomas. Her recent far-out political role in the effort to overthrow the people’s 2020 presidential vote shows that her husband Clarence Thomas – the surly, reactionary […]

President Joe Biden seems intent on easing entry into the United States at the politically worst possible time. It’s not impossible that he has a plan to keep order after he ends Title 42, which has made it harder for asylum seekers to enter the country. Even if he manages to skillfully handle what will undoubtedly be a new surge at the border, it will lead to more ugly incidents for the news channels. In […]

“Soft on crime” is the old dog whistle that Republican senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley used to smear Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as they attempted to derail her historic Supreme Court nomination. Their racist deception failed. Jackson is almost certain to be confirmed – and her strong public approval ratings rose after the disgraceful performance of Cruz, Hawley and their GOP colleagues during her nomination hearings. But let’s consider the Republican regurgitation of […]

Powerful politicians have this bad habit of elevating members of their family – or the family of friends – to high office. Sometimes the chosen kin or friend’s kin has fine qualifications. But the sense that their inside track gives them advantages over others with equally fine qualifications leaves a bad taste. It’s also un-American. Thomas Paine, a leading intellect of the American Revolution, condemned the system whereby the children of monarchs automatically replaced their […]

When I first met Madeleine Albright in the early 1980s, she was still making dinner for the boys. The boys being the members of what we used to call the “priesthood”: the out-of-power Democratic national security team, which, with the exception of Madeleine, looked very much like the priesthood, then and now. The priesthood used to gather regularly to sit down with visiting potentates eager to break bread with the opposition who might be in […]