A Happy Just Ask The Question Holidays!
As god as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly
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The Day America died
60 years after the death of JFK we still haven't recovered
My first slim memory of life was when I was about a year old.
My mother and father drove with me to New York in their pale blue Pontiac to visit friends. I remember passing through a tunnel on the Pennsylvania turnpike to get there. It is a faint, fleeting memory.
My first continuous memory revolves around the first time I saw my mother and father cry.
On October 13, 1962 President John F. Kennedy visited Louisville, Kentucky to campaign for Wilson Wyatt who was running for the U.S. Senate. It was part of a barnstorming event that took him across the country a few weeks before the midterm elections, stumping in several states for Democratic candidates. As he got off Airforce One in Louisville, the president said, “I just made a terrific speech, did you hear any of that? I want you to know we’re coming here to this state to elect Democrats."
Kennedy arrived at Standiford Field (Now Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport) and after he spoke for about a minute and a half, he then worked a rope line before attending a rally at Freedom Hall.
While working the rope line he spotted a young father with his toddler son, and as politicians do, Kennedy picked up the baby – approximately the same age as his own son – and smiled as he held him. The baby promptly urinated, and since it was a cloth diaper, the president was slightly soiled. And mom says I’ve been pissing on politicians ever since. I have no real memory of that, but dad recorded the incident for posterity in my baby book. Kennedy was the first president I ever met…
A perfect Thanksgiving — Donald Trump on the rocks
You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant
Each Thanksgiving my family goes through an extended ritual of talking about things we’ve been thankful for during the previous year. This all started several Thanksgivings ago when my friend and I went to visit Alice at the church near the restaurant in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I was thankful then for the meal she provided. And I figured I should do something for her.
This Thanksgiving I am extremely thankful for those who are injected, inspected, detected, neglected and all kinds of mean, nasty ugly things for democracy.
The millions of poll workers, precinct captains and local election judges who give us their time to make sure our elections are fair, accurate and safe have my thanks.
Those who walk away, complaining about how they’ve been pressured and hounded, do not. Don’t let the bastards win. All that it takes for evil to succeed, as wiser men than I have noted in the past, is for good people to do nothing. I mean, I mean, I’m just sitting here on the bench and noticing all those who’ve walked away from the Republican Party while complaining about it yet doing nothing. They do not have my thanks. I’m also tired of hearing from former Trump staffers and administration officials who didn’t fess up to the boss’s insanity while they worked for him. They only found their conscience after they left Trump and signed lucrative book deals. None of them stood up to him when it mattered – when they were on the inside.
EP:229 - Just Ask The Press - The brawl, the dictator and Gaza
This week on Just ask the Press: Brawling and near brawling in the House and Senate. Joe Biden cuts a deal with China and is Donald Trump still a shoe-in for the Republican nomination?
All this and a look at how the Gaza war could end.
EP: 227 - Just Ask The Press - Is America doing the best it can in the Middle East?
Just ask the Press. How can a twice-impeached president facing 91 felony charges, hundreds of millions of dollars in civil fines be leading over a president who delivered a trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill, supports abortion and has reclaimed America's esteem in international politics?
Is the American government doing the best job it can in the Middle East?
And will the government shut down this week?
All this week in Just Ask the Press.
America's future demands hope: Is Joe Biden up to the task?
As we head into yet another Trump-Biden race in 2024, America is fueled by seething anger. Can we escape?
Everyone is angry.
I’m watching people snap.
Late last week, when I was stopped at a red light, a naked man streaked past me on the crosswalk, through the fruits and vegetables, being chased by a fully clothed and highly capable police officer. Both of them looked angry. The naked man looked even angrier when his range of motion was severely curtailed shortly after the police officer made his acquaintance. The officer seemed angry that he had to tackle a sweaty, fat, wide-eyed and extremely pale naked man.
Of course, things are far angrier than that in the world, and not nearly as Pythonesque. Wars, human trafficking and mass shootings continue, and seem to increase in direct correlation with the rising temperature of the planet. Many people are losing faith that things will get better.
The next president of the United States must successfully harness hope — or I fear a further descent into madness for all of us.
Cancel the Donald Trump reality show: War in the Middle East makes Don's courtroom antics irrelevant
The threat of growing war leaves Trump looking so very small
Democracy is a legitimate form of government for one very important reason: It works.
It worked to the detriment of the Republican Party in local and state elections across the country on Tuesday – and that is why Donald Trump and his supporters continue to wail like banshees. So it’s official: They have little to no legitimateclaim to power.
Democracy needs shared facts and trust to work. We trust our elections are fair. We trust each other to vote fairly and act reasonably in doing so. We trust the media to report the election results factually. We trust there will be a peaceful transfer of power.
My sister, a resident of Kentucky, sat next to a man at a bar Tuesday night watching the election results. When a CNN report showed incumbent Andy Beshear leading in the governor’s race, the man next to her turned and said “It’s CNN. You can’t trust it. It’s all Fake News.”
That’s where Trump has been most successful – convincing people in this country that the problem is the system and not the fact that the candidate they support is not accepted by a majority of the people. Trump and his supporters scream they are victims. They make unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and have yet to win a single case in court that proves them right. Trump’s congressional elves, like Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., still won’t admit Trump lost in 2020…
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