Recent Comments

1. 2 minutes ago on Bill Bramhall

   Gosh, too bad about that improvement of the economy, helping address the pandemic, rebuilding our infrastructure, investing in the economy, restoring the faith of our allies, forgiving paid-off predatory student loans, helping the LGBTQ community in multiple ways (e.g., pardoning those unjustly booted from the military), fighting for labor and unions…

   If people don’t get it, it may be partially because the Democrats are not communicating the message well, but it is NOT because they are alienating voters. There’s a whole Republican noise machine that feels no constraint about lying while labeling itself “news.” It’s no accident that Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine…

2. 7 minutes ago on Joe Heller

   Crap! You’re right, of course. My bad. My memory betrayed me, and I should have known better, as my mother moved to Miami immediately after Andrew to run a business paper there…

3. 9 minutes ago on Nick Anderson

   I am not referring to the right. I am referring to people who might be in a mental state where they cannot make that decision objectively, and in a moment of despair do something irrevocable.

4. about 2 hours ago on Nick Anderson

   There are 120 guns per 100 Americans – not just the highest in the world, but FAR higher than any other country in the world. #2 (The Falkland Islands) has 62, and #3 (Yemen, which is in a war right now) is only 53.

   And why? Do we need them? The era of the citizen-soldier is long dead. And so are a lot of Americans – if we had even mild restrictions on guns, as the majority of Americans and NRA members want, we would reduce deaths considerably – not even just mass murders (to which no other country can begin to compare to us), but just suicides! Roughly 50,000 Americans die by their own hand and a gun. And unlike other methods, it is more often successful.

5. about 21 hours ago on Joe Heller

   This is EXACTLY the pattern I have seen in the comments here. The second panel sometimes comes out as “it’s a good thing!” The third is a classic denialist tactic of “it’s not our fault!” The fourth is abandoning responsibility, sometimes stated more firmly (as one person did within the past couple of weeks) as “we can’t change the climate” which is hilarious since we made the problem in the first place! Finally, it’s the “cost too much” – as if wiping out our soi-disant civilization isn’t a MASSIVE cost. Just look at what the Superstorm did to New York, or what Hurricane Andrew did to New Orleans, and multiply that over and over again – not to mention climactic shifts altering fertile regions, which can have HUGE geopolitical effects. (Historical case in point to avoid current politics: the Medieval Warm Period led to overpopulation in Scandinavia, which led to the Viking age, which had any number of impacts on countries all over the world, from the Varangian Guard in Constantinople to the Norman Conquest [William the Conquerer was a “Frenchified Viking,” as one writer put it].)

   It’s sad, really, how much work they put into not seeing what is right in front of them. Why not put just a little of that work into making it better?

6. 2 days ago on Ted Rall

   @Ted Rall, I’m more than a little appalled that you bought the Kremlin/Republican lie hook, line, and sinker. Anyone who has been paying attention for the past 40 years knows that #45 is a crook and always has been. He first came to prominence standing in for his father when they were accused (accurately) of illegally blocking black residents from their apartments. He’s got mob ties going back decades – he used the mob to protect him from being picketed for using (and underpaying) nonunion labor and it is known that he should have been blocked from getting his casinos in Atlantic City. He’s connected to the Russian Mob, too, of course.

   And the only reason he hasn’t been convicted before of fraud, is because he settles to make sure that he avoids conviction, as with Trump University and the Trump Foundation – both of which were found to be fraudulent.

   His conviction in New York was absolutely by the book. Even though there was some question as to whether it should have been brought, it went through a Grand Jury process, and then through a trial where every single count went against him – something no one expected, and could only have happened because of the jury’s judgment of the evidence.

   The Biden Administration had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

   However, if #45 wins, this is exactly what will happen. Who’s been chanting “lock her up” for years? Not Biden.

7. 2 days ago on Clay Jones

   Have somebody else do it, and avoid telling them explicitly, mob-style. Except that some of the mobsters he hung around with said he was a “wannabe” at best.

8. 5 days ago on Clay Bennett

   Oh, and let’s not forget politicians have a lousy record of even following the Ten Commandments themselves…

9. 5 days ago on Clay Bennett

   @Joe1962 Why? It’s a clear violation of the separation of church and state, it’s a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, and if their form isn’t precisely the same as yours, they could come for you, too. After all, there was a time when Catholics were considered un-American and threats to the powers-that-be. Does this form of the Ten Commandments use the King James version, or another translation?

   And considering that they think they are “Christians,” why don’t they put up Jesus’ commandments instead? The Golden Rule, “love your neighbor as yourself,” the Beatitudes – it makes it very, very clear that these people are in no way Christian.

   I sent my kids to Catholic school, but if they tried doing this in my town, you can bet I’d be screaming about it from the rooftops.

10. 6 days ago on Tim Campbell

    And no, they are reality-based, intelligent people – as well as the vast majority of ALL scientists.