“the dam is going to break and even The New York Times and The Washington Post are going to recognize that we have a huge problem on our hands. We may have a criminal family sitting in the White House that took money from foreigners in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Romania, Russia, and China.” — Newt Gingrich   The minute Democrats realize “the Big Guy” can’t possibly represent the party in ’24, everything changes. To Democrats, the reason Sleepy Joe is still in the picture is that 1) Trump is the very likely GOP nominee, and 2) Biden beat him once, and can again. So what if Democrats turn to a generation-younger candidate, one minus Biden’s criminal baggage? Will the twice-impeached, multiply-charged, 77-year-old “Orange Man,” the one who revved up the masses January 6, 2021 to overturn the ’20 election and whose controversies helped cause Republican losses in ’18, ’20, and ’22, will he still be the inevitable GOP nominee? Really? Biden survives because of Trump. But doesn’t ...

There is something magical within the quiet simplicity found within Past Lives . Rather than being a film with narrative twists and turns that attempt to create a plot filled with extraordinary situations[], Past Lives embraces a grounded and more simplistic drama that sees its characters work through impossible emotions in a naturalistic setting similar to the works of filmmakers such as Yasujirō Ozu .   .   .What is love? Should one compare loves? Is love enough to define a future? These are all questions within Past Lives that are impossible to answer, yet the film eloquently lets them breathe and allows the audience to engage with them without ever oversimplifying the experience to provide a cleaner and more satisfying resolution. — Carson Timar, Buttered Popcorn       Ozu favored a stationary camera and believed strongly in minimalism. Tokyo Story (1953) was voted the best Asian film of all time in a 2015 poll of 73 film critics, festival exe...

“ All men are created equal. — Thomas Jefferson, July 4, 1776 July 4. Jefferson’s most important words from our founding document. Words fully validated for the first time in 45 years, after a near half-century of affirmative action telling us that some Americans are really more equal than others. Affirmative action prolonged the unequal treatment of races that marked most of America’s history from slavery to ending Jim Crow laws with the 1965 Civil Rights Act. The Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868 to make ex-slaves legally equal, says no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In Chief Justice John Roberts words last week, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” More than anything this blog, “America from its multiracial edge,” is about recognizing America’s real progress away from racial bigotry toward multiculturalism. America is increasingly a mixed ancestry nation. An overwhelming 94% of U.S. adults in...