HeyJaredKill the Spider with Jamal Simmons
When a spider crawls across a table, it's hard to focus on anything else. Some issues are sticky like that and until we deal with them, nothing else matters. Sometimes you have to kill the spider to move on.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 6
- Latest publication
- Sep 11, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 3, 2026
Latest issues
25 Years After 9/11 MAGA is Making the Military Less Great (opens the original)
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After September 11, 2001, about two million of our fellow citizens left home for Iraq, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern destinations to defend democratic government, our families and their brothers and sister-in-arms. Despite how we may feel about the political and intelligence failures of the civilian leadership, the eruption of applause for veterans during the national anthem shows how much we revere their sacrifice. Twenty-five years later, the Star-Spangled Banner now waves over a land l
UAW, Civil Rights & FDR vs The KKK (opens the original)
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Two years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 desegregating American war industries, the Ku Klux Klan organized 25,000 White workers to walk out of the Packard Motor Company plant to protest three Black men joining their previously segregated assembly line. The reaction to this minimally compliant inclusion of Black people in the production of P-51 combat jet engines was extreme. One striker reportedly shouted into a mic
Why is Trump Punishing Parents in Michigan, Ohio and Maine? (opens the original)
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It’s back-to-school time and families across America are making trips to the mall and grocery store to get ready. Costs are still rising faster than wages and now President Trump is slapping 50 percent tariffs on Canadian products that will punish parents’ pocketbooks even more. The key battleground states of Michigan, Ohio and Maine are due for a special hit.<a class="image-link image2
"Is My Dada in That Box?" (opens the original)
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Jamiah Swinton, age 27, told the New York Times that when her four-year-old daughter with Sergeant Michael Swinton witnessed the dignified transfer of her father’s flag-draped remains at Dover Air Force Base last week, she asked “Is my Dada in that box?”*It was heartbreaking to read those words over the weekend. It must have been nearly unbearable for Jamiah Swinton to hear them.Sgt. Michael Swinton, of the 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade from Fort Bragg, was one of four soldiers
Pacino, Jagger, Ian Ziering & Me... (opens the original)
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“Kill the Spider” is about naming the thing I’m thinking about and not avoiding it for safer topics. So here we go…I turned 55 this week. (This is the first time I’ve written that number).Thanks for reading Kill the Spider with Jamal Simmons! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.<input class="button primary" type="submit
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