Construction Maison

A month after publicly denouncing a health care bill that the president was desperate to pass, Senator Dean Heller sat uncomfortably alongside President Donald Trump in front of rolling cameras. Holding the floor, Trump did not disappoint, addressing the awkwardness head on with a veil of humor so thin it stood no chance of obscuring anyone's view of the true threat at its heart. “Look, he wants to remain a senator doesn ’t he?” Trump said with a smirk. Heller rocked his head back and initially burst into a laugh. But, with a subtle yet significant hand on his arm, Trump let him know that the warning was not to be taken lightly. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now “And I think the people of your state, which I know very well, I think the people are going to appreciate what you hopefully will do,” the Republican president added . [embedded content] And with that, the uneasiness of being a Republican in the era of the most unpredictable and self- serving president ...

Gemmel Moore Courtesy LaTisha Nixon UPDATE, Aug. 15: The Los Angeles Sheriff ’s Department's homicide bureau "has assigned several investigators to review the circumstances of the death to determine if any criminal culpability exists ," according to a sheriff's statement. Sheriff's officials say the case is closed on the recent death of a 26-year-old suspected of overdosing on methamphetamine at the West Hollywood apartment of political influencer Ed Buck . But the mother of the man, Gemmel Moore, says Buck should be held accountable for her son’s death. Moore's mother, LaTisha Nixon, says that about a year ago her son called her crying about Buck. He was scared, she says, and his experiences with the 62-year-old inspired him to leave Los Angeles and return to her Texas home. She also says he was struggling with homelessness and an HIV diagnosis. A day before his death, Moore flew back to Los Angeles, according to Nixon. She says Buck sent him a plane tick...

Photo Credit: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock In 1994, I visited the home of Donald Trump. He was a Democrat then, of sorts, and I was the party’s nominee for governor of Connecticut. He’d taken an interest in our state owing to his keen desire to lodge a casino in Bridgeport, an idea I found economically and morally dubious. I had scant hope of enlisting him, but made the trip anyway, thinking that if I convinced him I might win, he’d be less apt to bankroll my opponent. I arrived at Trump Tower in early evening, accompanied by my finance chair and an old friend and colleague. Stepping off the elevator into his apartment, we were met by a display of sterile, vulgar ostentation: all gold, silver, brass, marble; nothing soft, welcoming or warm. Trump soon appeared and we began to converse, but not really. In campaigns, we candidates do most of the talking; because we like to, and because people ask us lots of questions. Not this time. Not by a long shot. Trump talked rapidly and virtually no...

There’s been a lot happening this month.  I don’t have any great plans of action as to the way forward, but I have some knowledge of the background, in terms of how we got here, that seem worth sharing.  Basically I just need to process, and thought I’d do that out loud.  So here are a few reflections on the events of August, 2017, that may be intimately related to one another. Note:  any links that appear below will take you to songs on the subject, mostly written in the past few weeks… *     *     * The Spanish Civil War has been discussed in the media more in the past few weeks than I can remember in my lifetime.  The media has said more nice things about anarchists in the past few weeks than ever in my lifetime as well, and I’m pretty sure they have covered protests more lately than at any time since 1970 or so. At the beginning of the month I wrote a song, “Rojava,” after getting encrypted messages from the front lines of the war against Islamic State in Syria, sent by an anarchi...