Huge majorities of Democrats in both houses of Congress have now voted for comprehensive health care reform. Whatever the public thinks about health care reform, most Democrats have gone on record in favor of it.

Given that very uncomfortable fact, what can they do about it politically?… Read full post »

When will I hear a Republican repudiation of Rush Limbaugh? As I watch the news about people continuing to die in Port-au-Prince tonight for lack of medical supplies, I reflect that Rush Limbaugh is telling people to not contribute to White House-run efforts to save lives. He says we cannot trust… Read full post »

Two of the most powerful Americans in recent history just delivered pronouncements on war and peace that not only addressed the topic at hand, but revealed a lot about their outlooks on life, religion, and survival of the fittest.… Read full post »

It’s not often that I get the urge to give advice to the loyal opposition. For one thing, they are so obnoxiously disloyal, not merely as a matter of conviction, or even emotional gut revulsion at policies they dislike, but strictly from a coldly calculated tactical decision to derail the smoot… Read full post »

Some of my best friends aren’t necessarily Republicans, but I’ve recently had opportunities to discuss public policy with conservative acquaintances and family members. Because of the pre-existing relationships with these people, both sides make Obamian attempts to find… Read full post »

According to my dictionary, an agenda is “a list, plan, outline, or the like, of things to be done, matters to be acted or voted upon.”

Sounds pretty harmless, doesn’t it? For years, I had thought an agenda offered about as much excitement and fascination as a 12-hour-long Powerpoi… Read full post »

The Peace Prize established by Alfred Nobel (who also invented dynamite) will be picked up this week by Barack Obama (who is also running two wars in the Near East). Altogether a thing that makes you go “Hmmm” about guys who make things go “Booom!” Read full post »

When it comes to Afghanistan, President Obama delivers on his promises. In the 2008 campaign, he vowed to undo what he considered the Bush administration’s neglect of the Afghan war and take the fight to the Taliban, calling it “a war we have to win.”

In February of this year… Read full post »

My state, Tennessee, has the fourth most regressive tax structure in America. That's the report of the 2009 edition of Who Pays, the annual analysis by the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Ecomonic Policy of the distribution of state and local taxes across income groups… Read full post »

If you listen to your iPod on shuffle play, and you’re in the right meditative state, I swear it can speak to you like the voice of God. For one thing, these are your tunes. If they didn’t have something to say to you in the first place, you had no… Read full post »

What's so sociable about social media?

 When we were all sitting staring blankly at TVs, at least we had to fight over the remote every half hour.

 Now we sit alone at our computers by ourselves, virtually connected to the entire human population, electronically… Read full post »

The other day at church we had a meeting of what we call our "small group ministry" before the regular service. This is a kind of touchy-feeling session the first and third Sundays of each month of about eight people from the congregation designed to encourage bonding and community with the… Read full post »

Hamid Kazai, following a finding by UN-backed investigators that nearly a million of the votes cast for him in the Afghan presidential election were fraudulent, has decided that he has not won a majority of the vote after all, and must stand for a run-off election November 7.… Read full post »

2006 American Express ad series My Life My Card: 13 standard questions to provoke reflection & expression

my name: John Yates

childhood ambition: President of the United States

fondest memory: Kennedy assassination—cured me of my childhood ambition, as well as a host of other fan… Read full post »

“The Democrats and their international leftist allies want America made subservient to the agenda of global redistribution and control. And truly patriotic Americans like you and our Republican Party are the only thing standing in their way.”

Jesus, who… Read full post »

Just when did the Obama administration end? Was it was when he lost Saturday Night Live? When Chicago lost the Olympics? When people forgot his dog’s name? When John Boehner emerged from the President’s meeting with Republican senators on Afghanistan this week and said nice things about h… Read full post »

As President Obama reviews U.S. policy in Afghanistan, the pundits review his midsection—sometimes it’s his guts that come under scrutiny, sometimes his balls, but that general region of the anatomy seems to be what pops into the minds of… Read full post »

How angry are you? Are you mad as hell? Are you mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore? Are you locked, loaded, and determined to stop socialism dead in its tracks?

Right-wing populist rage is in the news. Shout-downs of supporters of health… Read full post »

I returned to Tennessee Tuesday after a long weekend visiting my dad at his nursing home. My dad’s complex and the surrounding town are thoroughly spiffy and spotless, as is the entire state of Kansas. The people who prefer Germany to Italy (“Who cares about old churches crammed with art?… Read full post »

Riding up an elevator in the Washington D.C. Metro with my friend David, I hand him my IPod cued to a live 1969 recording of the Stanford University basketball band. I’m playing saxophone on the song, David is playing trumpet. Now we’re both pushing 60, David is in treatment at NIH… Read full post »

They’re at war within me waging a battle for my soul (or maybe who my soul would like to have lunch with). Both of them are intense. Both of them are intensely moral. Both of them have patently goofy names, but they are so intense you don’t even notice how silly… Read full post »

My wife MaryElizabeth says the shortest distance between two points is the one that keeps you moving. Whatever Einstein meant by space-time, my wife has a definition all her own.

She says it’s all laid out in pig paths, alternative routes to the most commonly used (and most congested) ways of ge… Read full post »

So what in the hell does “fell” mean, anyway, and what does it have to do with swooping? Is this English?

Well, it is, and it comes from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the scene where Macduff finds out that Macbeth’s killers have murdered his whole family:

All my pretty ones?
Did… Read full post »

Driving up the Carolina coast for Fourth of July at the beach, we passed miles and miles of Camp Lejeune, home of the U.S. Marines.

This stretch of road is truly Marineland--marquees on churches, grocery stores, dry cleaners, and hamburger stands repeated the same reminder: "Freedom is not free."

Thi… Read full post »