Regardless of one’s thoughts or feelings on the subject of Donald Trump and his border wall, there is one element of the current controversy that should terrify and outrage his supporters as well as opponents. On January 4th, on the heels of a new Democratic majority taking its place in the House of Representative, Donald […]
Were the founders of the American republic religious people? Probably, but whatever the answer they had enough humility and foresight to realize that religion, especially the great monotheistic traditions, was a dangerous foundation upon which to build a new nation. Additionally, they seem to have understood that a government wrapped in theology would be a […]
There is a coup underway in the United States of America. Some have made an excellent argument that this coup has been going on for several years and is nearing a point of completion. The American electorate has been conscious participants and unwitting victims, but this coup has taken place all the same. This isn’t […]
In the wake of every mass shooting in this country the forces of gun control and gun proliferation meet on the battlefields of social media and cable news networks to lob rhetorical missiles at each other. One perennial argument offered by those in the latter category is what I have termed the “evil will prevail” […]
Is there a war against conservative free speech in this country? If we are to believe the tirades coming from such right-wing organs as The Daily Caller, there is no doubt that a war is raging between the Quixotic champions of the First Amendment (the vilified, threatened and intimidated voices of the political right) and the […]
There seems to be two unassailable truths when it comes to policymaking and government budgeting: 1) military spending is sacrosanct and 2) education related spending, however much it’s praised during campaigning, is always a viable source of savings. Let us, for a moment, consider the case of a program called 21st Century Community Learning Centers, […]
What we in North Carolina have witnessed over the past few days is, in many ways, a nearly perfect demonstration of how we would like our governments to work: neither side emerged fully satisfied, but both sides could still claim some degree of victory. The most despised element of the original S.L. 2016-3, the requirement […]
In all the discussion, debate and hyperbole surrounding the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) and its efforts by reactionary forces in the US Congress to dismantle and/or replace it, there seems to be one issue left out that, I believe, is the core issue in the entire conversation over healthcare in America: is healthcare a […]
As states across the country continue to undermine the voting rights of their citizens, let us look briefly at one of the simplest, yet most effective barriers to the exercise of voting rights. In an effort to halt the great specter of “voter fraud” state governments have established regulations that force voters to present ID […]
Passive genocide, I think, is an appropriate phrase to describe the misguided, nonsensical and unconscionable actions recently taken by Donald Trump and his cadre of toadies in the Executive Mansion. Rather than directly targeting, bombing and massacring a certain group of people (i.e. Muslim refugees from the list of 7 countries), the syndicate in the […]
Antidote Notes 