My husband took this shot of me standing next to a young woman who was protesting the hate being spewed bu so-called Christians at Bele Chere.

OK, I probably shouldn’t have dropped the F-bomb.

But there they were, telling me I’m going to hell because I have a beer in my… Read full post »

From Columbine To Aurora

Click here to view the embedded video.

The question on almost everyone’s lips after a terrible event such as this is, “Why?†After Columbine, the videos, website, and other documents left behind by the killers were poured over and picked apart in a search for some reaso… Read full post »

Back in June 1983, NASA did something rather unusual. A couple of things actually. For one, they sent a woman up into space, 20 years after the Soviet Union did it for the first time and a year after they did it for the second time.

For another, they set up… Read full post »

Before Andrew Leonard’s paean to paying taxes (inspired by his house catching fire) sparked me to write a different post last Friday, I’d intended to write a wrap-up post, comparing Mitt Romney’s NAACP speech to Joe Biden’s speech. Something Vice President Biden sai… Read full post »

The great power struggle of the 20th century was the competition between Soviet-style communism and “free-market” corporatism for domination of the world’s resources. In America, it’s taken for granted that Soviet communism lost (though China’s more capitalist var… Read full post »

Students react to the announcement of sanctions against Penn State following the molestation of young boys by Jerry Sandusky. Image by CNN.

Penn State will pay a $60 million fine, forfeit 14 years of victories, be banned from postseason play for four years and take a cut in the number of… Read full post »

A homeless woman in California begs for help for herself and her child.

In most cities, it’s a crime to be homeless.

People who don’t have housing are chased out of parks and out from under bridges; they’re shooed away from coffee shops, even when it’s freezing or steam… Read full post »

President Obama is slamming Mitt Romney for heading companies that were “pioneers in outsourcing U.S. jobs,†while Romney is accusing Obama of being “the real outsourcer-in-chief.â€

These are the dog days of summer and the silly season of presidential campaigns. But can we get real, ple… Read full post »

Leave it to The Onion to publish the definitively cynical, black humor journalistic piece on the Aurora theatre shooting. It was so funny it wasn’t.

According to the nation’s citizenry, calls for a mature, thoughtful debate about the role of guns in American society started right on time,

… Read full post »

The theater where a 24-year-old man burst in and opened fire last night, killing 12 people and injuring as many as 50 more.

Last night in Aurora, Colo., a 24-year-old white man burst into a theater that was showing the new Batman movie, threw a smoke bomb and then started shooting… Read full post »

One of the great historical strengths of the progressive movement has been its resolute commitment to the separation of church and state. As progressives, we don’t want our government influenced by anybody’s religious laws. Instead of superstition and mob id, we prefer to have real… Read full post »

Initially, North Carolina was the beneficiary of outsourcing — finding cheaper workers to enhance a company’s profits.

In the 1800s, textile mills in New England ditched higher-paid workers by opening mills in North Carolina and then fighting workers’ efforts to make a living… Read full post »

So, what is Mitt hiding?

I go away for one week and all kinds of fun breaks out in the presidential campaign.

Mitt, in trying to talk his way out of the realities of his tenure at Bain Capital, now has his lackey saying he retired retroactively. He wants us to… Read full post »

Quoted in a USA Today article on the changing expectations of young adults, author Morley Winograd, who writes extensively about the Millennials, said their economic situation is “completely analogous†to the depression-era generation. “They were raised in relative affluence, and just a

… Read full post »

It’s been said that the rich are different than you and me. What most Americans don’t know is that they’re also quite different from each other, and that which faction is currently running the show ultimately makes a vast difference in the kind of country we are.

Right now, a… Read full post »

Now that I’ve had a little time to breathe, let me say, “Whew!”

I was surprised to see the Affordable Care Act left intact and shocked to learn Chief Justice John Roberts was the swing vote.

I had agreed to participate in a press conference in Charlotte with Health Care for… Read full post »

On Monday, the US Supreme Court asserted its belief in Citizens United by refusing to allow the state of Montana to control the unfettered political spending by corporations within its own borders.

These conservatives, who whine about federal laws that override “states’ rights,R… Read full post »

I wonder sometimes if Paul Krugman ever gets tired of being right. Or does he get bored with it, given how often it happens?

Last week, at the Take Back the American Dream conference, Krugman shared the stage with Chris Hayes for the “End This Depression NOW!” plenary session … Read full post »

Pro-choice activists have been saying for at least three decades that the landscape of the abortion debate won’t permanently change until women are brave enough to do what gays did 30 years ago — emerge from the shadows, speak our truth and demand respect for our decisions.

One in… Read full post »

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the main regular of derivatives (bets on bets), wants to extend Dodd-Frank regulations to the foreign branches and subsidiaries of Wall Street banks.

Horror of horrors, say the banks.

“If JPMorgan overseas operates under different rules than our fore… Read full post »

This week, the Obama administration invoked executive privilege to prevent the release of certain documents to Congress related to Operation Fast and Furious, the arms-trafficking sting gone awry that came to light last year. (As we’ve detailed, federal agents lost track of hundreds o… Read full post »

When I walked into the “What’s Next for the LGBT Community” at the Take Back the American Dream conference, I thought I already knew what I would write about it afterwards. In the past month, I’ve written two posts — one after President Obama announced his support fo… Read full post »

This curriculum is filled with bad science and deliberate lies, but our tax dollars are paying for it in states that offer parents vouchers to send their children to Christian schools.

The move toward vouchers to send children to private schools is both foolish and dangerous.

First of all, whe… Read full post »

From the everything-is-culture-war files: Yesterday a guest blogger from the Sierra Club posted on Think Progress about the House Republicans’ fit over the transportation bill. Yes, the headline-grabbing aspect of it is mostly the pipeline battles, but the overgrown children that run the… Read full post »

Perhaps you’d expect no more from the Republican leader of the Senate who proclaimed three years ago that the GOP’s first priority was to get Obama out of the White House. But Senator Mitch McConnell’s speech Friday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington is simply bonkers.

T… Read full post »