As the Georgia Senate runoff election enters its final days, the Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, has been accused of carpetbagging. Tapes have surfaced in which he nonchalantly tells the people of Georgia that his home is in Texas. “I live in Texas,” Walker said in January 2022 while speaking to the College Republicans of the University of Georgia. Why did …
A few days ago, I was reading Alexander Keyssar’s outstanding “The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States.” In his introduction, Keyssar writes, “Americans do place a high value on democratic institutions, and white Americans, at least, have long thought of themselves as citizens of a democratic nation — indeed, not just any democratic nation, …
I’ve been feeling a little left out lately. In fact, I have been for some time now. See, just about everywhere a person goes on the internet there are conspiracy theories popping up. And I’ve never been able to get behind some of the most popular of them. You know, the ones about aliens, the Earth being flat, who was …
I don’t know if you’ve been following along but there’s this thing 58 percent of Americans do the first Tuesday of November. And no, it’s not check the mailbox for a welfare check as some might have you believe. It’s called it an election, although some people refer to them as train wrecks. The last election should have been sponsored …
“It’s now clear that so-called fake news can have real world consequences.” —Hillary Clinton, Dec. 8, 2016. As shocked as I am that it took Hillary — she’s been the subject of fake news since the ’90s — Clinton this long to acknowledge this, I’m glad she’s talking about it. First off, let’s stop sugarcoating it by calling it fake news. …
To my friends who are feeling frightened and damaged by the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016, I offer the following thoughts. First, the people have spoken. Virtually the entire American establishment —mainline politicians, the media, the major religious leaders, Hollywood, the pundits of both parties, former and current national security personnel, the diplomatic corps, the leaders …
By the time you read this, the world will probably have ended. Not that I’m against that. I am convinced that 65 million years ago, faced with an election between a T-Rex and a Velociraptor, all the other dinosaurs prayed for that sweet meteor of death to strike the planet. But since I will send this column out to newspapers …
I’m a little older than our two presidential candidates. Unlike many people I know, I really do watch the news as it relates to each of them and their spokespeople. I read the local newspapers, online stories by the national press and, last but not least, countless Facebook posts. I think Facebook has to be why the host of fact-checking …
As the election lurches toward us, I find myself in a deep sadness, even a depression. Probably Hillary Clinton is going to win. If she does, it will not give her a mandate or even a reasonably good chance of proving herself as president. She will be wounded from the moment she declares victory. If you think the conservatives did what …
By now, we all know that Donald Trump is a loose cannon. He says things he cannot possibly mean in order to whip his national constituency into a frenzy of xenophobia, islamophobia, race hatred, American-firstism and the zeal to depart 11 million to 15 million illegal immigrants. Every rational person now has to decide whether President Trump would try to …
The conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton won the first presidential debate Monday. I was less certain. She was clearly better at talking policy, but I doubt that she really drew many undecided voters to her side. If she had been debating an inspired or charismatic opponent, she would come off as dull and uninspiring. My own study of American …
It is done! Last week, I gave my unsolicited opinions on the clown show that was the Republican convention. I promised to do the same after the Democrats met. I have to admit: It was more than I anticipated. The Democrats, whether you like it or not, were organized, prompt, factual, entertaining, efficient and “told the truth.” Now, for all …
Robert F. Kennedy once said, “All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.” I don’t have the date he made that statement, but it certainly does ring true today, in view of all recent …
Why would anyone want to serve in the Congress of the United States in the political climate of today? Take North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, for example. Unlike most high-ranking Republicans, he does not have the courage to denounce racism, bigotry, misogyny, sexism and other attributes of his party’s presidential nominee. Back in the day, anyone who uttered the statements …
This will be the shortest blog post I’ve ever written. (Cheering, clapping of hands!) So short you can probably read it at a stoplight on your way to work (but don’t comment — that would be illegal). Today is Tuesday, June 7, 2016, the day North Dakota Democrats will hold their presidential preference caucuses. I’ve already written about that here, back …
It’s becoming difficult to determine whether many people are the new “normal,” bigoted, uninformed, fully informed, hateful, uncaring or just plain stupid. I’m referring to the uproar surrounding the U.S. attorney general taking action to enforce the constitutional rights of transgender people. Unlike the uninformed believe, being transgender is an act of birth, the same as being gay or lesbian. …
Every time I start to think that the politicians at the national level can do no more “stupid,” they pull another rabbit out of their hat full of “dumb.” I’d like to share examples of this from both political parties, but it’s the Republicans who just can’t leave well enough alone. Each day, they make the Democrats in Congress and …
I flew from Winnipeg to England the day after President Richard Nixon resigned, Aug. 9, 1974. It seemed like a good time to leave. I was fulfilling a high school dream to live in Europe. Despite leaving a terrific job as chief photographer of the Daily News in Wahpeton, N.D.-Breckenridge, Minn. and my bright red, new 1974 Plymouth Duster with very …
Two comments on the state of politics today: John Hoeven lied. Start practicing now, so you are ready, in 2017, to say “Gov. Stenehjem” and “President Clinton.” First John Hoeven. I am glad that it took me a few days to get around to writing this because last week I was walking through a dusty parking lot in the Bad …