SAY WHAT?

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING-- Primaries can be long drawn-out affairs. The Obama-Clinton struggle of spring-summer 2008 went down to the wire, still being contested in June. As I write Tuesday evening, the delegate count for Super Tuesday is still not known, and the actual count for California could take a long time to nail down.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING --While Donald Trump’s alleged wrongdoing in the Ukraine Affair has been the focus of impeachment proceedings, there are bigger problems afflicting the president hiding in plain sight that he may be more concerned over. Trump is widely known to hold that the president can’t be prosecuted while in office and that the Constitution places him above the law, something that Congress and most constitutional scholars scoff at.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--If one thing drives me to write, especially these posts, it is the urgent need for us to start understanding power. Power is the force that shapes almost everything about our lives and our deaths. There is no more important issue. Understanding power and overcoming it through that understanding is the only path to liberation we can take as individuals, as societies, and as a species. 

Which is why it should be simply astonishing that no one in the media, supposedly a free marketplace of ideas, ever directly addresses matters of power – beyond the shadow play of party politics and celebrity scandals.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--It’s true.

If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t.

Now, I know what half of you (or 53.9% of you, to be precise) are saying, “Not the president I deserve!”

Au contrair mon frère!

Apologies for the French, but I write this as I am flying over France on my way from London to Barcelona, after a quick trip to Rome.

Three European cities in three different countries in six days on a business trip that often turned into something quite unique.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--Right off the bat, I must disclose my perspective: I am a lifelong liberal Democrat who was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Elizabeth Warren’s. I am very concerned about income inequality and the influence of money in politics. I would really like to see a woman lead the Democratic ticket, and I think we need a person of color either at the top of the ticket or as the running mate. Although I favor gun control, it is far from the top issue I care about.

Based on the above, you can see that I am no Bloomberg fanboy. He is not a dedicated partisan, as I am. His commitment to economic equality is not at the level of Warren or Sanders. He is an older, white male. He is trying to buy the nomination. The issue he appears to be most passionate about is gun control.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--Why some people still believe that the president of the United States of White Nationalism is still a salvageable piece of roadkill is beyond me. But some reporter found it in himself to ask the president of people who hate seasoning if he’d learned anything from his impeachment acquittal, and the first used colostomy bag to cheat his way into office offered this sound bite:

“The Democrats are crooked,” he said. “They got a lot of crooked things going. That they’re vicious. That they shouldn’t have brought impeachment,” CNN reports.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--One of the clearest ways to see America’s collapse is through the lens of its eerie mirror image: the Soviet Union.

 The similarities, by now — ideology, a collapsed middle, masses living in shortages of basic goods, elites too arrogant and clueless to understand, much less care — should be striking to any thoughtful person. And those resonances lead me to ask a tiny question: is Bernie America’s Gorbachev?

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--I don’t know a lot about white history.

I also don’t know much about green bean casserole, Creedence Clearwater Revival or shampoo-and-conditioner-in-one. I am, however, familiar with seasoned salt, the nuances of Blue Magic vs. Dax vs. Pink Oil Lotion, and the musical stylings of Frankie Beverly and Maze.

And, unlike many of my educated white counterparts, I know a lot about American history.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--Donald Trump once made fun of a journalist for having a “t****y dad,” according to a new book co-authored by two Daily Beast journalists.

Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng’s new book, Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington, bills itself as an “eyewitness account” of how the Trump administration brought an “unprecedented awfulness” to Washington in the form of “charlatans, conspiracy theorists, ideologues, and run-of-the-mill con artists” who were given powerful political jobs.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--If you’re like me, you spent the weekend depressed after reading Nate Cohn’s column in The New York Times or David Wasserman’s post on the NBC website.

In each, the two data science-focused reporters looked at the Presidential election polling. Rather than simply looking at the national results, they considered the state by state results and analyzed what these results mean for the election.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--US President Donald Trump looks back as a question from the press is shouted after a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 22, 2020. (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

While attending the World Economic Forum's summit of global elites in the Swiss mountaintop retreat of Davos on Wednesday, President Donald Trump openly admitted he would—if reelected in 2020—consider cutting back funding for key social programs including Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--While scratching around for some Christmas cheer through the oft disgraced but equally celebrated ‘Poet Laureate of LA Low Life’, Charles Bukowksi, I wandered upon an old favourite.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--There’s an old joke about how Richard Nixon was the kind of politician who’d cut down an endangered giant redwood, then climb on the stump and make a speech about conservation.

Fast forward to 2020 and Donald Trump, who with every breath plunges Nixonian hypocrisy to heretofore unimagined depths: “I want clean air,” he declared the other day. “I want clean water. I want the cleanest air, want the cleanest water. The environment is very important to me."

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--On today’s episode of “White Men With Weird Persecution Complexes,” I give you Iowa Rep. Steve King. On Friday, King spoke on the house floor to decry the term “white nationalist” as a totally unfair term created and weaponized be “the left” to smear good conservatives such as himself with.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--Many of us watched the impeachment proceedings in absolute horror. We witnessed Republicans screaming, ranting, pounding tables, dredging up information that was a deflect or distraction, and yet never making any attempt to actually “defend” trump’s actions. I know I wasn’t the only one thinking “what is wrong with these people?” They appeared to be appealing to the theatrics and drama of the type of reality show that the trump base love. Was this performance for those that watch the likes of Duck Dynasty or Honey Boo Boo? All the while, the Democrats remained fairly calm, focusing on the issues, and not playing into the Republican gas lighting attempts.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--With the March primary election rapidly approaching, the stakes are high in the race for a rare open seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Until now, it has been a largely civil affair, with L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson the perceived front-runner to replace term-limited Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. But the gloves are finally starting to come off.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--The Trump Administration has quietly removed sexual orientation protections from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI) guidelines on workplace discrimination. The official explanation of why contradicts an anti-LGBTQ argument being made by Trump in several court cases.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--Sorry but bad news: IMPOTUS is a moron, and increasingly unwell. 

While vacationing once again - on what is now the $118 million taxpayers' dime - he spoke to young conservatives at their Turning Point USA conference in West Palm Beach. 

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--With President Donald Trump headed for a partisan impeachment in the House and a largely automatic acquittal in the Senate, liberals like to console themselves that history will be unkind to Trump’s staunchest defenders in Congress ― that the Republican members turning a blind eye or offering bad-faith excuses for the president will rightfully be recorded as enemies of truth.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING--It didn’t surprise the locals when Claremont United Methodist Church unveiled its annual outdoor Nativity scene this week. In keeping with its spiritual leanings and activist traditions, this was no tender Christ-child-in-the-manger tableau.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING-A new report from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office spotlights a dangerous incongruity in how California approaches two issues involving global warming: the push to reduce emissions of Earth-warming greenhouse gases and what to do about the already-rising seas. While the state has been an international leader on the former, it is woefully behind on the latter. California has not done what it should to prepare for coastal erosion, sea incursions into low-lying areas (including sensitive wetlands), storm-surge flooding of shore communities or the possible need for a forced retreat from imperiled developments at the ocean’s edge. (Photo above: San Diego coastal flooding.)