Prejudice poisons our minds into accepting inhumane acts. I find it disturbing that so many on both the left and right have sided with the militant Hamas after the butchery of men, women and children in Israel from the neighboring Gaza Strip. The latest count is more than 1,300 Israelis — at least 25 of them U.S. citizens—killed in the carnage. Dozens more were taken hostage and held in Gaza, with Hamas using them as human shields [...] READ MORE
Are we looking the gift horse of American Democracy in the mouth? As much as I try to pretend that our Democracy (capital D intended) is not in jeopardy, the harder it is to ignore clear signs that the majority of the people in one of our two dominant political parties claim allegiance to a powerful cult of personality that won’t go away. Truth and facts no longer mean anything in what I feel is a dangerous [...] READ MORE
Roger Ailes transformed FOX News into a voice of Republican conservatism. The whole thing is insulting. In fact, it’s deranged. And we’re not playing along. This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live. They are lying, and we’re not going to help them do it. —Tucker Carlson, FOX News Commentator on why his network did not cover the opening prime time hearing of the January 6 Committee. [...] READ MORE
Winks and nudges to keep the woke mob at bay. The most highly sought state-level office across these United States —27 state races with 119 Republican and Democratic candidates from Alabama to Wyoming as we approach the dreaded 2022 Primary Elections—is that of Secretary of State. It is a battle for control of our democratic process—namely, the sanctity of our votes—with Republican Conservative candidates blatantly anointing Trump as the party savior while continuing to promulgate the election [...] READ MORE
Does it? In a true Democracy, three Presidents since 1988 would have lost. In a simple system of majority rule, Mr. Biden’s thumping margin of more than seven million votes would have been the last word. For that matter, so would Hillary Clinton’s national margin of nearly three million votes in 2016: Mr. Trump would not have had a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address in which to barricade himself in 2020. — Jedediah Britton-Purdy in the January 2, [...] READ MORE
Why can’t we remember the lessons of getting in and out of wars? We’ve had a tough time getting out of other countries’ wars, and we still haven’t figured out how to do it effectively. One option is not getting involved in these hostilities in the first place, either as advisors or combatants, but that’s not the American way. It’s become even worse as we sink deeper into the War on Terrorism, which is really the enemy [...] READ MORE
It takes vigilance for a democracy to detect seeds of sedition and treason. So how did we get here? How did we in America, the land of opportunity, get so screwed up about who’s right and who’s wrong after following a Pied Piper to the edge of a metaphorical river where some have already drowned? Others wait on the shore, testing the water, and vacillating. “Should we stay or should we go?” The Piper’s followers have already [...] READ MORE
What starts with a big lie may have diabolical consequences. I understand there were a lot of decent people gathered in Washington Wednesday at the urging of the President with an assurance that things were sure to get “wild.” This was supposed to be a protest of the final congressional confirmation of Joe Biden as President and the formal passing of the presidential baton. This movement has been based on a big lie since even before the [...] READ MORE
Everyone seems to have an opinion, but we all can’t be right. The only sin we never forgive is a difference of opinion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson I prefer not to respond to comments about my blog on Facebook, favorable or otherwise, because I’ve made my point and others can say what they want. Maybe we’ll all learn something. Getting caught up in a debate with someone who seems to be living in an alternate universe is [...] READ MORE
Cautionary warnings about extremism continue to resonate as years fly by. —One of the advantages of having written hundreds of weekly newspaper columns over a span of 40 years for two different newspapers is an archives of your personal views over time. Some age well and some don’t. Some are serious and some are silly, and few were completed without at least one attempt at humor. The following was written as a newspaper column more than five [...] READ MORE
