US politics

Common Sense 2025: Gilded fool who would be king

When I contemplate the present condition of America, I am struck dumb by the sheer theater of it all — the gilded spectacle, the red-hatted congregation, the rallies that thrum like tent revivals for a man who believes himself chosen not by Providence but by poll numbers. We have suffered under the reign of Donald Trump as our forefathers once suffered under monarchs — and…


Who invented the Electoral College?

The delegates in Philadelphia agreed, in the summer of 1787, that the new country they were creating would not have a king but rather an elected executive. But they did not agree on how to choose that president. Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson called the problem of picking a president “in truth, one of the most difficult of all we have to decide.” Other delegates, when…


Dancing for the apocalypse (another Doug Porter joint)

A widely advertised dance performance this week (Feb. 8-14) at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido — tickets are $90 to $200 — and San Diego Civic Center (April 21-23) is actually part of an international right wing propaganda effort. Images of a beautiful dancer in a midair leap grace the web and billboard ads for local performances of Shen Yun, one of eight touring…