Right wing Christian members of state legislatures – Protestant and Catholic -  across the country have simply gone off the deep end. They are determined to slow the growing acceptance gays and lesbians as normal people with bills and constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. They a/… Read full post »

As the trumped up controversy over the affordable healthcare act by the Conference of American Catholic Bishops began, Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh declared, “The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’” That was not tr… Read full post »

Yesterday’s scene at the Denver Broncos/Kansas City Chiefs game has become a familiar one this NFL season. Tim Tebow is on the side line, down on one knee with head bowed, giving every impression that he is praying. We can’t be sure, but we might assume that he was asking the… Read full post »

            Maybe the Republicans can save the Democrats from themselves, and specifically, Barack Obama. John Boehner says the House will not approve the payroll tax deal passed by the Senate last week and approved by the White House. It’s/… Read full post »

            All we need to know about how far our nation has descended into chaos is what happened in the U. S. Senate last week.

            On Thursday it approved by a vote of 93 to 7 a b… Read full post »

You know something is up when a state university chancellor makes the colossal blunder of calling the police on her own students. Say good-bye to Linda Katehi at UC Davis. Occupy Wall Street on college campuses ratchets up the movement’s impact on the nation. The hysteria of the defenders of th… Read full post »

            Occupy Wall Street is a sign of hope in a dismal political climate. I hear criticism that they know what they are against, but not what they’re for. But at the moment that’s the point. People being fed up with the status q/… Read full post »

I took a self-induced hiatus from news in general and politics in particular for almost a month. Now that I’m back I realize that nothing much has changed. The Republicans almost shut down the government again. President Obama’s jobs proposal is going nowhere because of the Republicans. T… Read full post »

I took a self-induced hiatus from news in general and politics in particular for almost a month. Now that I’m back I realize that nothing much has changed. The Republicans almost shut down the government again. President Obama’s jobs proposal is going nowhere because of the Republicans. T… Read full post »

A lot of people are still talking about the need for shared sacrifice when it comes to our national debt. The new super committee, they insist, must do what was not done in the debt ceiling deal, which is to put “everything” on the table, including taxes, so there is shared… Read full post »

            The American dream is more than getting rich. It’s more than having power. It’s more than being in Congress or occupying the Oval Office. The American dream I still have is about being a people together. It’s ab/… Read full post »

It's Sunday night and I'm getting ready for the next cave in by Democrats. The debt ceiling will be raised and the social safety net built over the last 75 years will go on the chopping block. It is a stunning success by Republicans to convince Democrats that the people who defend… Read full post »

Everybody seems to want to name the adult in the room in the debt ceiling debate, and some want to claim that title for themselves.  The problem wth both is that there are no political adults in the room, and apparently none in Washington, for that matter. Lyndon Johnson said that… Read full post »

            Isn’t it interesting how arguments for cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits assume those who oppose them don’t know there’s a problem. Senator Mark Warner (Dem. VA) said yesterday that the re/… Read full post »

Republicans love Obama, at least they ought to according to columnist David Brooks. He wrote a week ago that the deal the president was offering was one Republicans should see as a “no brainer.” They were getting everything they could ever hope for and more. Today he decided to name the… Read full post »

Honesty should compel all Democrats to admit that President Obama has been ineffective as a leader for the nation and does not deserve a second term. Even his most ardent supporters have to make excuses for his mediocre performance. He faced huge problems when he took office, they insist. He had… Read full post »

I once heard a scholar say that he had recently told a student who insisted he wanted to make up his own mind on a philosophical issue that he would encourage him to do so only when he had a mind worth making up. I thought about that when I first… Read full post »

How did we ever get here, get to where we are? That’s my question, but I hear others asking the same thing. Our nation is in decline without anyone seemingly able to do anything about it. Many conservatives say it isn’t so, of course. They believe talk about America’s decline is… Read full post »

The Huffington Post recently ran an article written by Jim Kuhnhenn who covers the White House for The Associated Press on what Obama will need to do for his reelection campaign. It was a perfect illustration of why the beltway media does not understand what is going on in the country… Read full post »

Rick Santorum is running for president. It looks as if Michele Bachmann will, too. Is any of this real? Rick Santorum lost his bid for re-election to the Senate from Pennsylvania. Michele Bachmann could not win a state wide election here in Minnesota if no one else were running. She is… Read full post »

I have now run afoul of several of my friends and even a few of my own family members. Why? Because I have concluded that President Obama is hardly any better a president than George Bush was. All of them are sure that Bush was the worst president our nation ever… Read full post »

            It’s all about what kind of America we want. I’m talking about the budget debates at the federal and state level going on today. It’s not about money. It’s about values and priorities. My state of Minnesota is/… Read full post »

The fact that Liz Cheney and her Keep American Safe cohorts are claiming that torture was the key to getting information from prisoners that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden should be expected. People like her and Rep. Peter King of New York have no compunction in making up… Read full post »

Given the paltry list of capable Republican presidential candidates, and no one waiting in the wings to swoop in and save the day, President Obama seems to be a sure bet for reelection. But not so fast. There are significant pitfalls ahead for Obama, most of his own making.

The first… Read full post »

Here we go again. Sam Stein writes that Republicans may use raising the debt ceiling to force Democrats to agree to cap the percentage of the GDP the government can spend to about 20.6% over the next ten years. To reduce the current level which is around 24% to the lower… Read full post »