Reactionaries howl in outrage at Kathy Griffin’s photo of the comedienne holding a faux severed, bloody head of the president and against Shakespeare in the Park’s modern dress version of Julius Caesar, wherein the assassinated emperor is a Trump look-alike. Of course, these condemnations of exercises in free expression are spewed by the same cry babies waging holy war against whatever they perceive as “political correctness.” Trump and his minions denounce efforts to protect religious, ethnic and LGBTQ minorities from public insults and hate speech as infringements on their First Amendment right - but cry bloody murder whenever their sacred cows are mocked and raked over the coals.  

Russia, Russia, Russia!!!   But what about the Americans?

Attorney-General Jeff Sessions has confirmed the Russians hacked into as many as 39 state data bases, and did all they could to affect the electronic vote count that put Donald Trump in the White House.  

But Americans could have done it much easier.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach set in motion a Jim Crow/Crosscheck purge of hundreds of thousands of mostly black, Hispanic and Asian-Amrican citizens prior to the election in at least 29 states.  

Now Trump has appointed Kobach to an "Election Integrity" Commission.  His co-commissioner is J. Kenneth Blackwell, who as Ohio Secretary of State helped steal the 2004 presidential election.

What isn't this pair of election thieves being called to testify before Congress?  Why is there no national viewing of Greg Palast’s BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY on precisely this topic?

The electronic flipping techniques Blackwell used in Ohio 2004 are part of the “black box voting” syndrome documented by Bev Harris.  No Russians needed. 

Wednesday, June 14, 1pm
Ohio Statehouse
Facebook Event

For the past many years and for many years to come, “extremism” has been unacceptable in U.S. politics. One must be in favor of more fossil fuel pipelines under certain strict conditions, not against them entirely. That would be extreme.

The moment when extremism becomes acceptable, or ceases to be extremism, will be the instant before the last human being breathes his or her last breath on a baked and ravaged planet. On that last breath may be the words: “I’ll be a leftist now, I suppose.”

Today, of course, one must be in favor of the good wars and against the bad ones — but not too much against the bad ones. One must not try to abolish war entirely. That would be extreme. So would be banning nuclear weapons.

But in that moment when we know that the nuclear missiles have been launched by the dozens, someone may have the presence of mind to mutter: “Perhaps banning them might have been sort of pragmatic after all. Of course it’s not something worth voting for a third party over. I loved you. Good bye.”