Posts by: Abe
Back in my newspaper days, I could always expect to receive some warm and fuzzy family Christmas cards from a politician preparing for the next election with a photo of a happy gathering of wife and kids (and often a dog) to prove that the candidate would be driven by the highest moral code as a public official.
Last Christmastide, I got a card with the full assembly of feel-good familyfrom State Sen. Frank LaRose with his wife, Lauren, three young daughters, and the ever-present dog squeezed among them. It’s silly stuff, I know, since kids and dogs – lovable though they […]
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I must begin today’s sermon with a question posed by Donald Trump. He asks, ever so poignantly: “When will Americans start to say, ’Thank you, Mr. President?’”
For an autocratic half-wit president who has led the country into a humiliating dive from democracy, the answer can only be: Never.
It is as though the country is in the hands of one of the national shredding companies, like Iron Mountain, whose service trucks boast of “safe and affordable destruction.”
This week Trump has managed to “disinvite” the Philadelphia Eagles, the Super Bowl champs, to a White House reception because the optics […]
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Got this “Wanted” flier in the mail from the Sierra Club, whose environmental concerns I fully share.
That’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, a creep who has been fouling our air and water with an ongoing series of moves to deregulate controls as a well-paid hit-man of wealthy coal barons in Kentucky, West Virginia and other battlegrounds to declare an end on the alleged “war on coal.” (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s favorite term.)
Not since people started dropping dead from lung disease and other respiratory disorders has there been such an official menace to people’s health than […]
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In this moment of reverential tribute to all who gave their lives in the cause of liberty, we are also witnessing the erosion of such freedom by a militaristic vulgar draft dodger who has no patience with a free press and right of protest..other than his own.
I’m talking, of course, about the guy who is aptly known on the mean streets these days as “The Don”, i.e., President Donald J. Trump.
Adding layer upon layer to monstrous attacks on his critics, The Don has morphed into a snorting land mass shoving ahead on his path to destroy the First […]
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From this day forward, we can fairly assume there will be nothing more heinous than an American president’s wretched tweet that arrived from the draft-dodger’s bizarre notes on Memorial Day.
By tradition, it was left to Donald Trump to honor the dead in the annual display of humble patriotism. But he was instantly taken by the opportunity to honor himself instead at this solemn moment. Here is how he tickled the minds of his feckless base:
“Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. […]
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When President Trump tweeted that he would “demand” an investigation by the Department of Justice of its own investigation of the Trump-Russia campaign links, our country drew one step closer to fascism by our autocratic leader.
Demands are not usually issued by normal presidents, and as we have seen, Trump’s corrupt behavior is clinically abnormal. On the other hand, autocrats who dismiss democracy as a way of life would demand that their uninsured grandmothers would pay their last penny for health care.
It will probably get worse as word filters out of the Mueller […]
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Another week of thoughts and prayers.
You would think that after more bloodshed in the classroom the enablers of the gun lobby would find a new way to console the victims’ families. But as we’ve seen, prayers don’t work and the only time the politicians think about kids is when the students are found dead.
The good news is that some of the trigger-friendly deep thinkers are serious about “doing” something, saying the status quo is unacceptable. Who could argue?
For example, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas, an immovable opponent of gun control, gravely stood before the TV cameras […]
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I know very little about witches. I doubt that I have ever met one, although as a kid I had questions about a shriveled old woman who lived in a shack across the street that I and my friends only knew as Annie Gator. We would sneakily gather at her window at night to watch her in the glow of a candle as she fussed with thread and needle to repair her shawl.
Oh, there was also my arithmetic teacher, Mrs. Lenz, an assertive woman who would come to my desk, aiming an index finger at me and sternly demanded, […]
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Let’s see…. It was more than a decade ago back in 2006 that then-congressman Sherrod Brown defied conventional wisdom by running against a securely seated Republican, Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine.
The risk was clear, or so some of Brown’s Democratic political supporters feared, that he would dare give up a safe 13th District House seat to challenge a hard-right social conservative who, to this day, remains firmly in the grip of the National Rifle Association while assuming a cautious political profile that has been regularly polished by Ohio media. But it has hardly been a profile in courage in a day […]
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If pageantry and pretense rely on fantasy to achieve their fullest effect, you should prepare for the longest star-spangled parade in America’s history – led by Donald Trump, who boasts of being the brightest and boldest star in the firmament.
As the exalted ruler of the Kingdom of Base, the president loves patriotic displays of empty loyalties. This mighty procession from the White Guy House schedule has already given us his ceremonial plans to celebrate his vast accomplishments to make America great again as he crusades as the parade marshal on a long journey through the Old South to the […]
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When President Trump blew into Cleveland the past weekend, the Plain Dealer reported with a prominent front-page headline,”Trump uses visit to boost Renacci”.
That’s Rep. Jim Renacci. He’s the former Wadsworth mayor and wealthy businessman who is now a candidate for the U.S. Senate after first announcing that he would run for Ohio governor and do whatever necessary to win. That was until political temptation induced him to change his mind and challenge Sen. Sherrod Brown.
My first tepid response to the Trump-Renacci tandem was to wonder which of these two guys would be hurt the most by their meeting […]
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