Back in 1965 Bob Dylan sang, “Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?”

Now it’s 2012, something is happening here again and I think I know what it is: A new energy on the progressive left of American politics that’s outpacing the once potent right-wing drive of the tea partiers in 2010. Republican primary turnout is down.
What’s special? Organized labor—under severe new attack—joined forces with students and other movements on the liberal …

April 27, 1968: some 8,000 peaceful peace marchers walk about a mile to Chicago’s Civic Center where a phalanx of police wade in without provocation, beat dozens bloody and jail scores more who are tear gassed in the Center’s jail cells.

Roosevelt University’s President Emeritus, Edward Sparling, led a citizens commission to investigate the incident and found total fault lay with the police and Mayor Richard J. Daley. It was obviously Daley’s forewarning of what would befall demonstrators who might show up for the Democratic National Convention …

The two remarkable last-minute victories of Rick Santorum in Iowa and Newt Gingrich in South Carolina are wonderful object lessons for those who place too much faith too early in poll results.

A week before those elections Mitt Romney was comfortably ahead by somewhere around 10 points and looking inevitable. Even two or three days before those elections, though the margins had shrunk, he was still looking good—except to those who were either on the ground sensing serious movement or doing tracking polls right down to the …

The run-up to Saturday’s Republican primary offers an intriguing laboratory testing out several political assumptions and hypotheses—plus the spectacle of conservatives arguing the very nature of American capitalism.

 
Soon we’ll see the effects of some of the ugliest, most negative internecine political warfare of our time. Negativity and ugliness of course are nothing new to the Palmetto state, where John McCain’s first run for the presidency in 2000 was ended by a tsunami of robocalls alleging he was the father of a black baby. (He and his wife adopted a Bangladeshi …

One has to wonder whether Mayor Rahm Emanuel is actually trying to provoke a violent confrontation between police and demonstrators next May when both the G8 and NATO hold their international meetings here in Chicago. Maybe show the country what a really tough mother a ballet dancer can be.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote of his plan to massively increase fines for resisting peace officers—one of those catch-all crimes like “disorderly conduct”— to say nothing of deputizing almost anybody he wants as a “peace officer,” plus purchase all the …

I’m not big on lists, but here goes.
By far the worst idea of 2011 came, not unexpectedly, from Newt Gingrich. All he wants to do is destroy our tripartite system of government: separation of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.

Gingrich, in his over-the-top pandering, announced that if elected he would ignore federal court rulings that displeased him.
Worse yet, he proposed sending various police out to arrest the offending judges and bring them before Congress for an inquisition—or worse. He continued to …

Christmas is over, Hanukkah’s last candle is about to be lit, Kwanza is just getting under way as I write this, yet one holiday thought is inescapable. The Republicans collectively have given Barack Obama the greatest gift of all: a clear path to re-election.

I never thought the chubby little guy with the white beard and red suit had any politics at all, but considering the magnitude of the gift I conclude that Santa is the embodiment of Republicanism.
The real tipoff, of course, …

Presumably as part of his long-term plan to run for president, Mayor Rahm Emanuel managed to bring the unique but risky combination of the international G8 and NATO summit meetings to Chicago next May.

There is some obvious prestige for the city in hosting these events, though the economics are dubious. But there would be even more glory for Emanuel if all went well—even moderately well—considering that history shows much violence and damage stemming from the massive protests these meetings generate and battles between police and …

I’m not a conspiracy theorist. Naïve me, I believe Oswald killed Kennedy. I believe we landed on the moon and not a stage-set. I believe a hijacked airplane really crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

But I get a strong whiff of conspiracy in the clearly coordinated, often violent police attacks on and dismantling of the camps of the Occupy Movement across the country—including some of our most liberal communities. (There is something unsettling about ostensibly progressive mayors of places such as Oakland and Los Angeles commanding police forces that might …

Now that Herman “suspended” his campaign and become just plain citizen Cain, the fickle seer known as Conventional Wisdom has narrowed the Republican reality show down to a race between former frontrunner Mitt Romney and new idol Newt Gingrich.

Before wrestling with more CW, I have some observations on the Cain phenomenon—the worst prepared candidate ever to achieve, however briefly, leading status. An accomplished businessman and Federal Reserve member, he was gimmicky and ill equipped, with an infinite ability to deliver preposterous alibis—usually a day or …