My mother and I came back from India early last week and then learned my Grandmother who we were visiting had passed away hours after we had left – we were in the air from Chennai to London when she passed though we were not told until a return to the United States, more than […]
Peter Morgan’s back-to-back screenplays that were adopted films Frost/Nixon and The Damned United both had special appeal to me. As a junkie of American political history and English football (soccer) history, probably my two favorite topic areas were covered within a year in movies that starred Michael Sheen as the key men of the film – […]
The US Senate has a well-earned reputation as the “greatest deliberative body on earth.” That reputation however was earned in a bygone era, times of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Often times in the late 20th Century and early 21st, The Senate has been far from deliberative or courageous. It has in […]
I was in High School when I first read Hedrick Smith’s immortal The Power Game. the book remains the definitive guide to how Congress and the White House worked during the Reagan years when the Democrats continued to control the House, while Republicans enjoyed narrow margins in the Senate – however the number of moderate […]
The story of the African-American members of Congress during the Reconstruction era is often forgotten. The long standing Dunning School of history made every effort to paint reconstruction as a mistake and portray that the only way to truly reconcile the nation was to let white southerners do what they want in the region. Thus […]
The New Republic has long been the bible or at least one of them for the center-left in the United States. As someone who has read the magazine on and off for over two decades, I have vivid memories of the Stephen Glass scandal. The embellishments of Stephen Glass which came soon after the plagiarism […]
Southern history has long been a passion of mine – for better and for worse. My interest in the south has led me at times despite my progressive beliefs to defend the shameful side of the region’s history, including my long internal battle about the Confederate battle flag. One of my favorite recent books about […]
A few years ago, I lost perhaps my favorite liberal talking head Chrystia Freeland in the North American media to the world of Canadian politics. Freeland is now in the Cabinet of Canada as Minister for International Trade following the liberal party victory in October’s national election. Freeland entered politics in 2013 after writing about it for […]
While the rest of the western world was excited about the release of Star Wars this weekend and rushed to movie theaters, I during my travels in India engaged in other cinematic pursuit. Instead of Star Wars I saw “United Passions.” For those not familiar, United Passions grossed $918 in its opening weekend of release in […]
The data breach was by most standards a relatively minor happening that would have simply had a reaction limited to political insiders, data nerds and political press – had the DNC not bungled it so badly from a public relations standpoint. The DNC’s action inflamed non-political people who are backing Bernie Sanders and tend to see […]
The Florida Squeeze 