Has America Lost its Mind?

There have been many stories about America’s dysfunctions: social (“culture wars”), political (Donald Trump), and economic (conflicts with China), but none have been explored with the frequency and intensity as our collective insanity in the face of Covid-19 and its variants du jour.

The highest rates of vaccination are in the states with predominant Democratic party registrations. Not surprisingly, the states with the lowest vaccination rates and the highest number of Covid-19 cases are Republican strongholds, the places where people lack trust in the government, in education, in science, in facts.

And these are the…

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has just filed charges against The Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, for tax fraud and tax evasion. Not surprisingly, more charges are likely to be filed (when is another question). Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, believes that his daughter, Ivanka, is likely to “flip” on him since she has a lot more to lose due to loyalty to her father, and her husband comes from a genuinely wealthy family.

The Manhattan D.A.’s office has focused its investigation on Trump’s taxes. By analogy to the prosecution of Alphonse “Al” Capone, Trump’s many…

…Republicans will NEVER cooperate

President Joe Biden had a long and distinguished career in the United States Senate. Through both personal and national tragedies, Biden maintained a bipartisan, conciliatory approach towards some of the most intractable problems we have faced. As a life-long Democrat, he was loyal to his party’s platforms and principles, but he also wanted to work with Republicans in the hopes of achieving joint solutions to the problems this country experienced. In that way, he reasoned, we would accomplish our goals in a truly bipartisan way, fulfilling the promise of democracy: common solutions to common problems.

Unfortunately…

….the only way to fight Voter Suppression

In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Professor Neil H. Postman argued that Americans are controlled by their addiction to entertainment rather than by state control and/or media control.

With his cries of “Fake News!” ex-President Donald Trump constantly lied about who was controlling us. He claimed that there was a strong, left-wing bias among the media, slanting their coverage of his presidency and the condition of our country.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine…

….a half-century memorial

1. Boy, the way Glenn Miller played,

Songs that made the Hit Parade,

Guys like us, we had it made,

Those were the days.

2. Didn’t need no welfare state,

Everybody pulled his weight,

Gee, our old LaSalle ran great,

Those were the days.

Chorus:

And you knew who you were then

Girls were girls and men were men,

Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

3. People seemed to be content.

Fifty dollars paid the rent.

Freaks were in a circus tent,

Those were the days.

….and Why We Need to Root it Out Through a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Imagine: you are an inquisitive little boy, six years old. You ask a million questions. One question for which you haven’t received a meaningful answer is this:

“Daddy, why do White people treat us bad, just because we’re Black? Is there something wrong with us?”

Countless times those questions have been asked, the querent only changing the color based on their own ethnicity.

At some point in a young Black child’s life, one (or both) of his/her parents will have to have “The Talk,” the…

If something goes wrong with our free press, the country will go straight to hell. — I.F. Stone

Newspapers are gossip printed on the backs of advertisements. — Donald E. Koch

Arguably, the most important of Americans’ rights is embodied in the First Amendment, which includes the right to a free press. Without a free press, the ability publicly examine, analyze, and, if necessary, criticize the words and deeds of our leaders would not exist, thus leading us into the abyss of kakistocracy. Such is what we had during the Trump Administration.

During the 1890s to the 1920s, in the…

Twice impeached, twice acquitted, Donald J. Trump dodged bullets twice in connection with his Presidency. Now that he’s out of office, and can no longer claim the protection of being a sitting president, what lies in store for him?

First, we have to realize that Trump absolutely lacks any sense of shame or a moral anchor. His megalomania and his extreme form of narcissistic personality disorder make clear that he only cares about himself. Having lived in a childhood with an emotionally-absent mother and a psychologically-abusive father, Trump was trained from birth to be an unaccountable, lying, sniveling rich brat…