IN JUSTICE TODAY: It didn’t take too much deliberation for the Philadelphia Inquirer to render its guilty verdict against District Attorney Larry Krasner after he took office on January 2: “the first days of Krasner’s administration,” the editorial board intoned nine days later, “seem more about imprudence than jurisprudence” Zing. A rhyme. But what does it all mean? Well, Krasner swiftly ousted 31 prosecutors who packed up their desks along with others who had resigned on their own accord before he took office. Last year, Krasner, a career civil rights and defense attorney, rode a surge of grassroots organizing to […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Day Martin Luther King Had To Explain To His Daughter Yolanda That Little ‘Colored’ Girls Are Not Allowed To Go To Funtown
PLAYBOY: Dr. King, are your children old enough to be aware of the issues at stake in the civil rights movement, and of your role in it? MARTIN LUTHER KING: Yes, they are—especially my oldest child, Yolanda. Two years ago, I remember, I returned home after serving one of my terms in the Albany, Georgia, jail, and she asked me, “Daddy, why do you have to go to jail so much?” I told her that I was involved in a struggle to make conditions better for the colored people, and thus for all people. I explained that because things are […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: It’s Mueller Time!
TIME: The special counsel is, like Trump, the scion of a wealthy family, raised at a boarding school and educated in the Ivy League. But the life choices of Robert Swan Mueller III, 72, suggest a decidedly different temperament from the one that occupies the Oval Office. Unlike Trump, who says he has few if any personal heroes, Mueller’s path was marked by a profound admiration for a role model he met at Princeton, a student a year ahead of him named David Spencer Hackett. “I played lacrosse with David,” Mueller explained last year in a speech at West […]
WORTH REPEATING: My Life In The Ghost Of Bush
THE INTERCEPT: Bundled against the freezing wind, my lawyers and I were about to reach the courthouse door when two news photographers launched into a perp-walk shoot. As a reporter, I had witnessed this classic scene dozens of times, watching in bemusement from the sidelines while frenetic photographers and TV crews did their business. I never thought I would be the perp, facing those whirring cameras. As I walked past the photographers into the courthouse that morning in January 2015, I saw a group of reporters, some of whom I knew personally. They were here to cover my case, […]
Since His Inauguration, Trump Has Told 1,950 Lies
WASHINGTON POST: With just 18 days before President Trump completes his first year as president, he is now on track to exceed 2,000 false or misleading claims, according to our database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president. As of Monday, the total stood at 1,950 claims in 347 days, or an average of 5.6 claims a day. (Our full interactive graphic can be found here.) As regular readers know, the president has a tendency to repeat himself — often. There are now more than 60 claims that he has repeated three or more times. The […]
IN ORWELL WE TRUST: Q&A With Pulitzer Prize-Winning National Security Reporter Tom Ricks
EDITOR’S NOTE: This week we will be re-posting choice Q&As from the past year. We start with this still-timely interview with nat-sec reporter Tom Ricks, which originally posted on May 25th, 2017. Enjoy. BY JONATHAN VALANIA Under the darkening skies of the late 1930s, liberal democracy was on the ropes and fascism and totalitarianism was on the rise, reason and common sense were overwhelmed by racist entreaties, economic misery and nationalist fury, press freedoms were under attack and the facts had become a matter of opinion. Sound familiar? Two less than distinguished men rose to the occasion: a tarnished, […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Sweet Home Alabama
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Jesus, God, whoda thunk it?! Whoda ever thunk that that imbecilic Oval Office swamp pig could actually outdo himself?! Yes indeed ladies and gentlemen and “children” of all ages, the pin-brained White House boar hog in residence has actually pulled off the heretofore believed impossible: he has totally and completely outschmucked himself! Way down yonder in Alabysmal — it’s a state of mindlessness and misogyny just inside the southeastern boundaries of the Great Republican Swamp — resides a pedophile by the name of Roy Moore who’s doing his slithering best to fill a vacant U.S. […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Fire On The Bayou
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Yesterday’s election returns were a resounding renunciation of Trumpism and its malcontents and another indicator that 2018 is shaping up to be not just a wave election, but a tidal wave election. But this is no time to become complacent, stay angry, there is much to do, many sandbags that need filling. The swamp is reaching flood stage and sewer-like toxicity. That stench burbling up from the Trumpian swamp isn’t just making us sick, folks, it is literally killing us! And sadly, that White House degenerate of ours had to look no further than the […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: President Moron
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY “Hey, hey, Donnie J., what style, what character, what nature of ignominy did you secrete today?!” Yep, I do indeed recognize that it’s shear folly to continue to repudiate the behavior of a totally amoral moron and his minions, the majority of whom are likely no more intelligent or principled than he is, but hopefully I’ll never tire of doing so. Well, you knew that he was deceitful and duplicitous, but did you know that he could be truly deadly?! Having failed with numerous attempts to kill the Obama/Democrat ACA Medical Program which brought medical […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Donald Trump M.D.
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY So, what’s with the “MD” post-nominal letters, you ask? Well, for all you non-college-educated, angry, white, laboring (or not), red state, Charlottesville torch-bearing Trumpeteers, the current POTUS true-life-inspired suffix stands for Moronic Degenerate. Believe me, I cogitated long and hard to come up with a concise yet altogether properly inclusive designation to attach to this lamentable piece of pulp fiction we so absurdly refer to as “Mr. President.” I mean, just how do you accurately condense such a noxious mix of imbecility, petulance, misogyny, prevarication, racism, bigotry, pandering, bullying, cheating, hypocrisy and hell-bent ambition to […]
AFTER BERN: Q&A With Senator Bernie Sanders
EDITOR’S NOTE: A shorter version of this interview appeared in the Sunday November 27th, 2016 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer we present this reprise edition on the occasion of Senator Sanders’ 76th birthday. BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER In the fullness of time, future historians may well declare Senator Bernie Sanders the biggest winner of the 2016 election, arguing that although he lost the battle for the Democratic nomination he won the war of ideas. Meanwhile, his one-time nemesis Hillary Clinton will almost certainly lose the Electoral College on December 19th despite winning the popular vote by a margin […]