Bill Bumpus Somerville MA - An injury to one is an injury to all

WASHINGTON—Shedding light on an experience common among commuters nationwide, a U.S. Department of Transportation study released Wednesday found that most honking drivers were just excited to see shiny cars. “Contrary to popular assumptions, our findings suggest that drivers mostly use their horns to express their…

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MINNEAPOLIS—Insisting that the caregiver make herself at home, parents Greg and Sarah Meyer reportedly told 17-year-old babysitter Charlotte Kent on Wednesday to help herself to anything she wanted in the medicine cabinet. “So you have our numbers, you know that bedtime is 9 p.m., and after Natalie is down, definitely…

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KENT, OH—Urging consumers to immediately return every arch-support device it had ever sold, popular foot-care brand Dr. Scholl’s recalled all its products this week after announcing the only way to fix flat feet was with eugenics. “While we regret the error, it is our responsibility as a company to alert our customers…

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Shakira reached a deal Monday with the Spanish government, which accused the pop star of six counts of tax fraud between 2012 and 2014, totaling 14.5 million euros in unpaid income taxes. What do you think?

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Amid their constant concern that the feminization of society is causing a decline in male fertility, The Onion asked men’s rights activists to explain how they increase their sperm count, and this is what they said.

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I pay attention to politics in a number of countries, some of which I also vote in. I’m an optimist by nature and I see real possibilities for wins by parties I like. For example, in the U.K. most polls for a long time now have shown Labour forming the next government, which would be a good thing. Polls in Israel show Netanyahu’s support in free-fall, and that too is good news.

But public opinion polls in the United States are the stuff of nightmares.

The website RealClearPolitics aggregates all the major polls. The eight most recent polls regarding the 2024 elections — from respected pollsters including NBC News, the Economist, Reuters and others — all show the same thing. Trump defeats Biden.

In one of those polls, Trump has a 53 – 47 lead, which could mean a landslide — and the Republicans capturing both houses of Congress. Thanks to Trump’s previous term in office, the Republicans already control one branch of the federal government (the judiciary). If Trump wins decisively, they could control all three.

The election is one year away. In the next few months, both major parties will begin the process of choosing their candidates. No surprises are expected here. Trump leads all the other Republican contenders by a wide margin. And Biden has no credible opposition, with the sole candidate getting any traction at all being Marianne Williamson. Williamson is best known as the “spiritual advisor” to Oprah Winfrey and does not represent a serious challenge to Biden.

There are no significant third party challenges either. Cornel West seems to be running, possibly as an independent, or a Green, or on the Peoples Party ticket (and no, I never heard of them either).

If nothing dramatic changes, in early January 2025, Donald Trump may find himself standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, bible in hand, swearing allegiance to a Constitution that he neither understands nor respects. No one knows what happens next, but it will not be good.

It is very hard for most people on the left to understand how this could happen. Biden has turned out to be a far more progressive and ambitious president than anyone expected. He’s more overtly pro-labour than any recent Democratic President, much more so than Obama was. He’s passed very ambitious legislation to help battle climate change while creating jobs. On the international stage, he’s provided outstanding leadership on two major challenges — the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’ war on Israel. And yet most American voters seem to believe that he’s not been doing a very good job.

Trump seems to be spending most of his time defending himself in courtrooms. He’s accused of illegal campaign spending (to pay off a porn star he had an affair with), of exaggerating his wealth illegally, and of pressuring civil servants in the state of Georgia to confirm that he won the 2020 election there. He’s also accused by a court in Washington, D.C. of organising an insurrection in January 2020. For most politicians, any one of those accusations or trials would be career-enders. But not for Trump.

It seems that many Americans support Trump for reasons that many of us find incomprehensible. For example, Trump is seen as someone who doesn’t want to waste money (let alone the lives of U.S. soldiers) to prop up the independence of Ukraine. This taps into a longstanding streak of isolationism in American politics. Trump talks about being tough on crime, often denouncing “Black Lives Matter” protestors while having nothing to say about illegal killings of Black people by cops. This also taps into a centuries-long history of white supremacist racism. He appears to be someone who will protect Americans’ right to own guns, including assault rifles. He says he will finish building his wall on the Mexican border. And he will jail his opponents, if need be. All of these have roots in American history, with its gun violence, xenophobic hatred of immigrants and dark periods of political repression (the McCarthy era being the most recent).

Any one of those policies should be enough to keep one awake at night. All of them together constitute a political nightmare of epic proportions. For that reason, defeating Trump means unity across all the constituencies that are threatened by the possibility of a second Trump term — including workers and their unions, women, LGBTQI people, and ethnic minorities. And it may mean thinking about pressing Biden to step down as a candidate and to allow a younger, more articulate and more energetic Democrat to stand instead.

I for one do not have any answers. And this keeps me up at night.

This article appears as my regular column in this week’s issue of Solidarity.

SLINGER, WI—The nation demanded this week to know what was inside that big silo over there, pointing to the tube-shaped farm structure as they noted that it could be anything, really. “Gotta have something in it, right? Like, farm stuff or something?” all 335 million Americans said as they walked toward the silo…

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BOSTON—Marveling at the passenger whom they assumed to be a higher-up at the World Health Organization or something, sources confirmed Wednesday that a woman still wearing a mask on the plane must have had inside information about the next pandemic. “Wow, to be wearing a mask at this early stage in whatever pandemic…

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This is a developing story. Please check theonion.com for more.

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Javier Milei, a former economist and TV personality whom many have compared to Donald Trump both in his lack of political experience and brand of far-right politics, was elected president of Argentina this week. What do you think?

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Faculty at 23 California State University campuses are preparing to strike. They teach nearly half a million students.

After 95 percent of voting members authorized a strike on October 30, the 29,000-member California Faculty Association plans to roll out strikes at Cal Poly Pomona December 4, San Francisco State University December 5, Cal State Los Angeles December 6 and Sacramento State University December 7.