This was the tough questioning that coulda woulda been, as Radley Balko suggests , instead of the softballs like "tell us what you enjoyed about being a U.S. attorney," (that was a real question) followed by "well, I made up my mind!" (that was a real response)
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Paul Bidanset, the uber-energetic organizer of the Norfolk Folk festival, posted this interview with me to help promote my old time music series this January. Beyond nice of him to do! I am excited that my conjunto Los Abejas del Norte will be playing at the Festival next August. Puro Conjunto! Poke around on the festival site a bit.
This is one of the better articles I have read in this surrealistic and depressing post-election moment. Especially regarding the terrible imbalance for populous blue states that disproportionately send tax dollars to DC and yet are saddled with unfair representation in Congress and in the electoral college. It does offer a bit of hope via federalism, where enlightened states can actually begin to pursue their own interests in the absence or hollowing of federal programs. Under Trump, red states are finally going to be able to turn themselves into poor, unhealthy paradises and this piece is a good reminder that the big danger from Trump is his embrace of the Big Lie and related propagandistic efforts. " Rather than obsessing about Trump's outrageous tweets, we should focus on the more systematic ways he threatens our democracy." The astonishing thing is that these kind of analyses of Trump's danger to the system iteself--to democracy-- are coming from mainstr...
After a long time in gestation, this edited collection is finally coming out and is available for pre-order. I have a chapter in here about trainhopping old time punks. Nope, none of them called them selves "bohemian," but they didn't call themselves much of anything, really. The other chapters look really interesting as well, and it's a real honor to be included with this group of authors, many of whom I have read for years.
There is no shortage of excellent anti-Trump columns. They are especially useful when you can give them to someone who is still clueless about the threat Trump poses to our culture and political system (yes, some of those people are still around in surprisingly and depressingly large numbers). T his one by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar should be read and widely shared.
Elizabeth Warren nails it (again)
In the hearings today about Wells Fargo's fraud , she proves her fearlessness, mettle, and morality: "During the hearing, senator after senator expressed astonishment that the creation of unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts by Wells Fargo employees could have gone on for so long without more assertive action by senior management. But Warren turned that line of questioning personal, suggesting the "cross-selling" strategy that prompted some employees to make the phony accounts enriched Stumpf's own stock portfolio. "While this scam was going on, you personally held an average of 6.75 million shares of Wells Fargo stock," Warren said. "The share price during this time went up by about $30, which comes out to more than $200 million in gains, all for you personally," Warren said. Warren's plain-language questions, context-setting remarks and call for tough penalties show why she has become such a feared figure among Wall Street ...