HILLARY CLINTON IS CLEARLY LYING. NOW WHAT?

Dorothy Allison’s young adult novel Bastard out of Carolina has a quote which partially describes the current state of play in Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s repeated failures to credibly explain her use of a private email server while she served as Secretary of State: “Things come apart so easily when they have been held together […]

SUNDAY SMACK: WHAT ABOUT THIS CHINESE WASH-THE-BLACK-OFF COMMERCIAL?

My friend Anisha Moon, a musician (you can see her here, trading lyrics with Leon Ware), and entrepreneur, posted this Chinese laundry detergent commercial on her Facebook page. Here’s the story flow. 1. An Asian woman is washing clothes. 2. An African descendent man appears, apparently taking a break from painting. 3. And he finds […]

LIVE: ANNABEL (LEE) IN L.A.

Annabel (Lee) member Richard E. hipped me to a recently-produced video of the group, armed with an orchestra, performing “Find Me” from their By the Sea … and Other Solitary Places album. I later found a live clip of “Suki Desu” from the group’s YouTube channel. You know how I feel about By the Sea […]

CLINTON’S AMAZING WEEK OF ‘NO’

As the presidential candidate who’s “willing to debate anytime and anywhere,” and is willing to speak with any investigator about her private email troubles, Hillary Clinton seems to be saying “No” a lot lately. Saying “No” to a Party of No Guts primary debate with opponent Bernie Sanders in California makes sense on the surface […]

IF ONLY FREDDIE GRAY WAS A POLICE CAR

Of course cop cars matter! So do the lives of police officers! And guess what? Freddie Gray’s life mattered! While I’m making my rounds of citing who and what matters, allow me to state what should be obvious: Black lives matter. Are you mad because I ended that last sentence with bold characters, and didn’t […]

SUNDAY SMACK: 2008 ALL OVER AGAIN?

The two stupefying Wall Street Journal charts about US credit card debt you see above has caused me to break from my typical Sunday Smack format of simply raising questions without a strong injection of my opinion. Banks are issuing more credit cards today than they did just prior to the 2008 financial crash while […]

UNDERPAID FAST FOOD WORKERS AND ROBOTS HAVE FEW FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Liberal politicians fighting for fast food workers to earn $15 an hour are either thinking on excessively narrow terms or are operating from a dishonest line of reasoning. Conservatives ranting about how fast food “robots” — or order kiosks — are corporate CEOs’ response to the coming wave of government-mandated minimum wage increases are being […]

SUNDAY SMACK: PRESIDENT OBAMA — WAR MACHINE?

This week’s Sunday Smack explores President Barack Obama’s war record. As the New York Times notes, President Barack Obama is on track to have managed one or more overseas conflicts every single day of his two-term White House tenure, which will set a new record for the amount of time any US President has led […]

ZIMMERMAN’S LYRIC: SELLING THE GUN HE USED TO KILL TRAYVON MARTIN HAS DEEPER MEANING

I didn’t want to spend too much time discussing George Zimmerman’s decision to sell the gun he used to kill 17 year-old Trayvon Martin, since doing so only contributes to his public relations platform. But I want to point out the important and converging symbolism in what Zimmerman is doing when he referred to […]

MEDIA PLAYS DOWN ANOTHER BERNIE SANDERS WIN

A fetor of anti-Bernie Sanders media bias surrounds this headline of yesterday’s Guam and Washington caucus results: “SANDERS NETS 31 DELEGATES IN WASHINGTON, BUT LOSES IN GUAM“ (Laughing) The creator of that headline isn’t counting on you to give any thought to it. But I suppose that’s a reason for why my blog exists … […]