Police
I stayed up later than planned Thursday night into Friday morning, watching a mob attack Minneapolis’ 3rd police precinct building. Earlier, at least five officers were seen on the roof, firing flash bangs (loud explosive devices) and tear gas. Sometime before 10 p.m., the mayor ordered police to abandon
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This won’t mean anything to you, unless you live in my neighborhood and are in the 182nd Pennsylvania House district and are represented by Brian Sims, the Progressive Prince Valiant with a couple of flags on his file. First elected in 2012, Sims is a lawyer who became the
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In the battle between two groups of millionaires, most people are sitting on the bench. Let’s play ball! Major League Baseball, the organization that had an agreement with the players, just threw a screwball at the union. In March, the union had agreed to a prorated pay scale, meaning
Coronavirus
To me, it is not the number — 100,000 Americans dead — nor the speed, since Feb. 6 in Santa Clara County, Calif. The CDC reported a record high 80,000 deaths from the plain old flu in 2017. Were you aware of that number? I wasn’t, perhaps because it
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I’ve got a gift for timing. On the very day I posted a column supporting mail-in ballots, a story broke about a South Philly Democratic committeeman and judge of elections who had ballot-stuffed in three recent elections, which I will talk about later. It was like Fate giving my
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Before I started to write today’s column, which happened yesterday — isn’t time travel fun? — I decided to have a libation in honor of Memorial Day, which I will return to later. So my tone might be a little different, as I glanced at Page One of the Inquirer,
Coronavirus
Hate to criticize what is done for charity, but the Thursday-night, one-hour concert fund-raiser had a slap dash feel to it, and low production values, for the most part. Excluded from that criticism is Godmother of Soul, Patti LaBell, who had backup singers and six musicians who joined her for
Coronavirus
Feel like a little nostalgia today? It’s been 25 years since the Bruce Willis action/sci fi drama “Twelve Monkeys” was shot in the city of Brotherly Love — and at its heart was a Philly-launched virus that wiped out 5 billion people, 99% of the earth’s population, driving
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When Philadelphia Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said this the other day, we knew two things: 1- A lot of Philadelphians were going to ignore him this weekend. 2- He’s not from Philadelphia because a Philadelphian would’ve said, “Don’t go downashore.” Like Farley, I did not grow up
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I am doing something many Trumpsters think is dangerous — I am voting by mail. In fact, I already have. I have mailed in my primary ballot. I have made a voting statement, not a political statement. President Donald J. Trump has said voting by mail was “corrupt” in an April
Politics
Almost everyone agrees that single-party Democratic rule, like the Republican rule that preceded it, is bad for democracy, is bad for Philadelphia, and is bad for the party itself. Britain’s Lord Acton said it best: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Long decades of Republican excesses
Joe Biden
Basement Brigadier Joe Biden can win a presidential campaign against the mobile President Donald J. Trump in the opinion of two guys who propelled Barack Obama to the presidency. The advice givers — David Axelrod, senior strategist for both Obama’s campaigns, and David Plouffe, 2008 campaign manager — wrote an op-ed