It’s an old parenting dilemma: do you tell your innocent genetic sequels about all the scary and awful things in the world (there seem to be a lot right now) or let them enjoy a few years of ignorant bliss before they plow into the unending shit tornado of adulthood?

When the Access Hollywood tape came out last October and 13 women subsequently came forward with allegations of sexual assault against Donald Trump (remember them?), it was mind boggling and infuriating. How can the Republican party knowingly nominate a sexual predator for president? I was heartbroken when Trump then won…

Civil-resistance expert Erica Chenoweth, PhD, recently released an encouraging statistic: Since the year 1900, every resistance campaign with at least 3.5 percent of its country’s population actively involved has succeeded in overthrowing a sitting government.

If we apply this rule to the US, it would only take 11 million people to oust the Trump administration.

When I first read that number, I didn’t believe it. It sounds like 3.5 percent would be a fraction of what would be necessary to overthrow a government. But I looked into Chenoweth’s research, outlined in her book Why Civil Resistance Works, and learned that…

So Trump Knows What “McCarthyism” Is

Any clout Trump won during his congressional address last Tuesday — when he was applauded like a toddler would be for learning how to walk for finally appearing “presidential” (definition: “able to string two words together into a vaguely coherent sentence”) — was decimated before brunch on Saturday. America woke up to a fresh hell of insomnia-induced Twitter accusations against Obama, claiming that he wiretapped Trump Tower — and a double-whammy reference to both Watergate and McCarthyism. Wow, what an astonishing appeal to privacy from someone whose extensive tabloid exposure turned his own first name (The Donald) into a brand…

As the first Black History Month under the Trump administration came to a dismal close, let’s take a look back at this week’s final face-to-palm moments in racial politics (and some key victories along the way too).

1) #OscarsNotSoWhite…Not How Trump Likes Them

Despite a year of trailblazing films covering a vast intersection of topics on race, many feared this year’s Oscars would again prove to be as white as Trump’s cabinet — that is to say, very. …

1. The Battle of Berkeley:

After marching across the country for several weeks, Trump’s troops — led by alt-right champion Milo Yiannopoulos — descended upon Sproul Plaza. Trees burned. Students marched. Police shot non-lethal bullets. Amid the black-bloc protesters were agents provocateur trying to martyr themselves to breathe life into Trump’s threat toward Cal. “NO FEDERAL FUNDS”?

As a politics writer, I often get texts from friends asking me to explain this or that political or social issue. On Election Night, I got about 10 of these, all of which more or less read, “Dude, WTF is happening?!?!”

But, of course, it’s impossible to pen a simple explanation for something like Trump. Recently, I was thinking about satirist Karl Sharro’s attempt to write a “simple” one-sentence explanation for what created ISIL. His 181-word end product was a serious explanation masked in a joke — namely, that something as complicated as ISIL’s rise could be confined to one…

Saturday’s Women’s March in San Francisco saw 100,000 people gather from all walks of life marching in the rain for human rights, civil liberties and social justice for all.

And while the size of the crowd was thrilling, this was more than just a crowd—it was a collection of people, each of whom traveled to downtown San Francisco to patiently listen in the rain to speeches and songs before tramping through puddles from Civic Center to the Ferry Building.

These are people from the Women’s March and the words from the rallying speakers. …

Summer 2015

An overconfident and underprepared man smiles blankly from a descending escalator in the lobby of his gold-plated plastic tower. He doesn’t know where to put his hands; his fingers hang like tiny sad sausages, peeking out from his baggy sleeve. What would a real politician do? He decides to wave, even throws out a few celebratory thumbs-ups. His trophy wife smiles serenely, two steps in front of him and below him. She has no idea how hard the next few years will be.

But everything in his world is a lie, and he has everything to hide. …