At this point, Dave Chappelle can only make neanderthals laugh.

It’s rare, but nice, to see a well-fed bodega cat.

Religious freedom/liberty has been instrumentalized by illiberal and anti-liberal groups to deny equality before the law to other groups. The abuse, and misuse, of this principle for craven, political ends erodes its credibility.

Media and other over-exposed pundits say Democrats are failing. Let’s look at reality. People say the Senate is 50-50 with the VP as tiebreaker. In reality, among the 50 “Democrats” are three non-Democrats: Sinema, Manchin, and Sanders. So in fact “Democrats” are not in control of the fate of Biden’s legislative priorities. Ignoring this reality, media and punditocracy blame the Democrats while remaining silent on the fact that 50 Republicans vote “no” on everything; because they are beholden to a lazy narrative about Democrats.

One can speak of physical violence and symbolic violence (which can take the form of speech). They are not identical, but there is evidence that language, images, etc. are not neutral with respect to power. Acknowledging this fact doesn’t mean the end of “free speech.” First Amendment Absolutists fail to realize that freedom of speech means one is subject to the free speech of others, which can be critical of what one says. They don’t like the criticism and to ward it off they call it “censorship.” I don’t support banning words, films, and the pseudo-politics of today’s outrage culture. I support counter-speech as a resource that can/should be more equally distributed.