In this essay, I reflected on the damage that the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee has done to democracy, in its insistence that as damaged a candidate as Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday, and Brett Kavanaugh’s unhinged response to her charges, was an epic installment of … More Post-Kavanaugh Stress Disorder
And I still do. These were my thoughts as this dumpster fire of a SCOTUS confirmation proceeded. What will come of the allegation by Christine Blasey Ford, a clinical psychologist and professor at Palo Alto University, that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when he was seventeen and she was fifteen? As of today, … More I Believe Christine Blasey Ford
It is less than ninety days until election day in the United States, when Democrats hope to achieve one of the biggest sweeps of Congressional seats in recent American history. Many of these Democratic hopefuls are veterans. As longtime political strategist Joe Trippi put it back in March, these are candidates who are new to the … More The Watergate Babies
This year I turned 60, a birthday that starts a whole series of internal clocks ticking: five years to Medicare (if it still exists); ten years until full social security benefits (if they still exist). Then there is the realization that the end of my life is, while not imminent, approaching. According to the benefits … More On Beyond the Academy
Would someone please reconsider the prominent role of marketing in politics? Or perhaps I should rephrase that question — could we take a close look at the substitution of marketing and branding strategies for politics? I ask this question only days after the Democratic leadership, well-embarked on flipping the House of Representatives from Red to Blue, has … More What Does “For the People” Mean?
Although I love to travel, I’ve never liked crossing borders. It makes me nervous, perhaps because, on one side of my family, I am the child of immigrants who were always fussing about their paperwork. Border guards, I learned at an early age, are anonymous functionaries who have outsized power to wreck your plans, or … More The U.S. Border Crisis is Not the Holocaust
Public Seminar had the privilege of printing an excerpt of historian Kim Phillips-Fein’s recent book, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and The Rise of Austerity Politics. Originally published in 2017 by Metropolitan Books, it is now available in paperback from Picador. The book tells a complex story of an iconic moment in the so-called “urban crisis” of the 1970s, in … More When New York City Almost Failed
I used to love Bill Clinton (known in our household for years as The Big Dog) and now I just want someone to get him off the stage. Two days ago, in an interview with The Today Show‘s Craig Melvin about a new thriller co-written with James Patterson, former president William Jefferson Clinton seemed to be completely, and … More Bill Clinton’s Symphony of Hypocrisy and Rage
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