Ken Padgett

  In the past few years, the prominent use of flags by Trump fans has ranged from the “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flag to the Confederate Battle flag to basic Trump or MAGA banners to “Blue Lives Matter” flags. Now they have a new flag to rally around. On October 13, 2021, at a rally held for Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin that was organized by Steve Bannon, members of the crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance to an American flag that they were told was present at the Capitol during the 1/6 insurrection.  The symbolism is obvious to any student of fascist political movements. In Germany in the 1920s and ‘30s, members of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party venerated the so-called blood flag, or blutfahne, that was said to have been carried in Hitler’s failed 1923 “beer hall putsch” in Munich and soaked with the blood of a party member who was killed in that failed coup attempt. The Blood Flag became a totemic relic for the Nazi party and Hitler used it to consecr...

Why do people continue to support Trump no matter what he does? Simple. T hey don't care what he does. They support Trump because he hates the same people they hate. He can do pretty much anything and they'll explain it away. Or they will just laugh it off because they truly don't care what Trump does or they chalk it up to "fake news." How liberals see Trump supporters - it's not that simple   The one core value that Trumpsters celebrate above all others is hatred for weakness. Refusing to wear masks to protect oneself and others from COVID has been turned into "freedom" but it's really about exposing fear. They're playing chicken with nature, and whoever flinches is a "weakling." Their passionate hatred for weakness is what proves to them that they are strong.  Kindness = weakness.  Honesty = weakness. Compromise = weakness. They believe themselves superior in every way to anyone who doesn't hate weakness as much as they...

"Amazon helps small-town businesses"   Amazon is responsible for the closure of thousands of storefronts in America and now offers their platform to business owners so that Amazon can get a piece of every online sale they make. Amazon claims their Amazon Storefronts, "a curated destination to shop exclusively from American small and medium-sized businesses" helps small businesses. Perhaps, but it will never offset Amazon's total devastation of Main Street America and suburban shopping malls, thanks to the overwhelming power of Amazon's marketing machine and predatory business practices. Then there are the many local jobs that have been lost, along with the local tax revenue from those jobs. Sure, Amazon creates some jobs in regional distribution warehouses; jobs that exploit workers and take such a physical and mental toll that few people can handle it for long. According to syndicated columnist Jim Hightower: "Bezos followed the bu...

Since the 1950s conservatives have been successfully redefining Socialism from "state ownership of the means of production" to be anything that helps average people cope with the excesses of capitalism. Millions of people are angry because the political and economic system is not working for them, which is how Trump got elected. But Trump's economic policies are no different than what the GOP has done before; cut taxes for corporations and the rich, more money for the military-industrial complex, while also cutting "entitlements" and privatizing government services for the benefit of private corporations.  The amazing thing is that so many fail to understand what's really going on while being easily manipulated by bigotry and trigger words like "socialism." The question is, what to do about it? How to reach people who are so totally enveloped in the conservative/Fox News bubble? They automatically reject any factual informati...

  “Do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless cunt” -- Samantha Bee Though the White House had nothing to say about Roseanne Barr's racist remarks about Valerie Jarrett, they didn't hesitate to demand that Samantha Bee should be fired. “The language used by Samantha Bee last night is vile and vicious. The collective silence by the left and its media allies is appalling. Her disgusting comments and show are not fit for broadcast, and executives at Time Warner and TBS must demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of this administration will not be condoned on its network.” -- White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders These statements are a government assault on free speech and the hypocrisy of Trump condemning anyone else for using the word "cunt" is truly breathtaking. "I remember you. You were that cunt from the airplane." -- Trump to Jessica Leeds, one of the first women to publicly ac...

Sure, not everyone who voted for Trump is racist, misogynistic or hateful. Of course some people ARE hateful and intolerant. We may know someone for years and not realize the full extent of their bigotry until Trump came along and gave them permission to express themselves fully. Others who voted for Trump have indicated that in exchange for a bunch of empty promises and platitudes, they are willing to tolerate demagoguery, bigotry, misogyny, bullying, near-constant lying, his refusal to do full financial disclosure and disengage from his business interests, and his scapegoating of minorities. People who voted for Trump had to overlook all of that before deluding themselves into believing that Trump is going to look out for their interests. To any of my former friends who voted for Trump: If you are unwilling or unable to even acknowledge that there is ample evidence already that Trump is a clear and present danger to our republic, then you are a fool who is also unwilling to hold ...

Today we mourn for the country we thought we were. Our illusions about the basic goodness of America have been shattered by the reality that Americans have elected a demagogue and a dictator as our president . Trump has made it quite clear that he will use the awesome powers of the presidency to silence his critics, bully our allies and abandon international agreements.  Americans have also returned to power a Republican Congress that has done everything it could to damage America so that they could blame it all on Democrats. After eight years of craven racism and obstruction, Republicans will now insist that “for the good of America” we should all come together and help them pursue their agenda of tax cuts for the rich, “law and order” in the inner cities and dismantling the safety net.  And when Americans finally realize that they made a mistake; that Trump isn’t a champion of the “common man” so much as a con man, will they learn from the experie...