I have to apologize in advance, because today's column has nothing whatsoever to do with politics. Regular readers know that on exceedingly rare occasions, I feel the need to comment about something completely separate from the political world. Sometimes I'll toss in my two cents on the subject of sports, or grammar, or anything else I feel so strongly about that I am compelled to share my thoughts. But I certainly never thought I'd ever devote an entire column to a television game show.

Read Complete Article »

Today I am going to spike a football in the end zone. That's as appropriate as a sports metaphor gets, really, because I am celebrating the fact that the Washington Ethnic Slurs football team has finally decided to retire their official team name. They seem to be in some sort of discussions (variously reported as being with Native American groups, the military, or possibly someone who already owns the trademark and/or copyright) about what the new team name will be, but as of Monday they will never be called the "Washington Redskins" ever again. And that is indeed a reason for an end-zone celebration.

Read Complete Article »

In the latest whiplash-inducing reversal of a monumentally stupid idea from the president, Donald Trump has now announced that he's changed his mind and the White House coronavirus task force will not actually be disbanded. One day earlier, he had floated the idea of just sending them all back to where they came from and instead convening a "let's get the country open no matter how many people it kills" task force in its place. But then Trump saw the public's reaction, and he hastily reversed course.

Read Complete Article »

The great fear of those who did not support Donald Trump's election in 2016 was that if America hit a crisis point -- a virtual certainty, over a span of four years -- Trump would prove to be dangerously unstable and not know how to deal with it. The consequences could be alarming, as Ted Cruz joked about on the campaign trail at the time:

Read Complete Article »

So rather than sit down today and write out a "Get out there and VOTE!" column, I thought I'd re-run a column I wrote ten years ago. This was the first time I ever saw Ferguson, and when I did my jaw hit the floor. People (at least, back then) just didn't say stuff like this on television, no matter how late the hour. I was so enthralled by Craig's rant that I sat down and transcribed it the next day. It remains the best "get out and vote" rant I've ever seen, so while the political references are dated (this was during the McCain/Obama race), the sentiments are not.

Read Complete Article »

The Cleveland Indians' season is over. While this was a cause for sadness among their fans, there is also a good reason for everyone else to rejoice at the close of Cleveland's 2018 season. Because the 71-year tenure of the maniacally grinning and blatantly racist Cleveland mascot "Chief Wahoo" is also now at an end. Sort of. The Indians, starting next season, will not display this offensive logo any more on their uniforms -- however, they will still (sadly) continue to sell Chief Wahoo merchandise to their fans. A step forward, in other words, but not the true end of the road for what unquestionably has to be the most racist and offensive logo in modern professional sports.

Read Complete Article »

The best commentary on the Omarosa-versus-Trump saga I've yet heard came from Republican pundit Ana Navarro. Forgive me for paraphrasing (I'm doing this from memory), but last Sunday she pointed out: "Omarosa is entirely the creation of Donald Trump. Trump deserves Omarosa." That pretty much sums it up. A reality-show president is being attacked by a former (three-time!) contestant on his reality show, with all the drama and faux outrage of a scripted encounter on that reality show. The question for most viewers isn't (as the media anguishes over): "Which one do you believe?" but rather: "Whose presentation is more entertaining?" As Navarro pointed out, Trump does indeed deserve Omarosa. Especially seeing as he was the one that hired her -- for the fourth time -- to be an aide in his White House.

Read Complete Article »

Primary election season for the 2018 midterms continues apace. Last night, voters in Maine reaffirmed their commitment to their new "ranked-choice" voting system. Two Democrats in Wisconsin proved why Governor Scott Walker was so right to be scared of holding special elections, as two more state-level legislative seat flipped from Republican to Democratic (which makes 44, and counting...). A brothel owner in Nevada won his primary. In Virginia, a man who defended the white supremacists in Charlottesville won the GOP nomination and will take on Senator Tim Kaine. So there's plenty of election news to talk about today. But instead of addressing any of these, I simply have to chime in on the fact that in my home state of California a ballot measure has now qualified for the November ballot which will allow voters to decide whether to support the idea of splitting California into three states or not.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump has apparently decided to take the advice of that impressive fount of political wisdom, South Park. It's hard to come to any other conclusion, really, when you recall that one of the songs from their first big movie (a song nominated for an Academy Award, no less) was titled: "Blame Canada." President Trump was obviously inspired by the lyrics: "With all their beady little eyes / And flapping heads so full of lies," when he began his tweetstorm against Justin Trudeau after Trump left the G-7 meeting early.

Read Complete Article »

The best quip I've heard about the explosive television news today has got to be: "This was the problem all along: Having Roseanne back meant having Roseanne back." In other words, the show was great and funny and all of that, but Roseanne Barr (the actress, not the Roseanne Conner character) had, in the years that intervened between the original run's cancellation and the reboot, completely gone off the rails. She was not just a Trump voter, to put this another way, she was out-Trumping Trump in her support of crazy conspiracy theories. And, yes, some of those crazy conspiracy theories were also pretty racist or (at the start, she later became staunchly pro-Israel) blatantly anti-Semitic.

Read Complete Article »