Protesters outside the Wisconsin Statehouse, Madison, WI, Feb. 26, 2011. (Photo by Richard Hurd, via Creative Commons)

A new poll conducted last week shows Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) with a seven point lead over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in next Tuesday’s recall election, in Wisconsin./… Read full post »

In his article in the current issue of the New Yorker, describing the Supreme Court’s machinations in the 2010 Citizens United decision, Jeffrey Toobin informs readers that the attorney for the plaintiff, Ted Olsen, had a specific goal when he was presenting his case to the court in September,… Read full post »

“In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party…

“But ideology cannot be a substitute for a determination to think for yourself, for a willingness to study an issue

… Read full post »

DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz speaks to College Democrats (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’ve ever heard Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) speak of her life in politics, chances are you’ve heard her story about how the Florida Democratic establishment tried to discoura… Read full post »

“You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn’t, Mr. Potter. In the whole, vast configuration of things, I’d say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider!” – George Bailey, from the

… Read full post »

“On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.” – Rachel Carson, in her seminal book about the unchecked use of pestic

… Read full post »

The exposure is stark, high contrast, black and white. The last time this country cared even near this much about a person in a hoodie was that infamous sketch of the sunglassed Unibomber, Ted Kaczynski.

But wearing a hoodie doesn’t make one evil, threatening or a gangster, despite FOX News sho… Read full post »

It turns out what Rush Limbaugh did by calling Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, a nasty name may not only be misogynistic and in horrible taste, it may be illegal. That would make him a criminal and an asshole.

According to the Huffington Post:

Gloria Allred, the famed celebrity lawyer, sent

… Read full post »

“There are credible reports that the death toll now often exceeds 100 civilians a day, including many women and children,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for political affairs Lynn Pascoe told the U.N. Security Council. “The total killed so far is certainly well over 7,500 people.R

… Read full post »

“In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong.“
- President Abraham Lincoln, from Meditation on the Divine Will, 1862

Happy birthday, to America's strongest cultural warrior

The fight against slavery was a c… Read full post »

   “The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn’t fly. If the top would only stay on the soil, it might not be so bad.

The owner men went on leading to their point: ‘You

… Read full post »

“We deal in illusion, man! None of it’s true! But you people sit there — all of you — day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds — we’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe this illusion we’re spinning here. You’re beginning

… Read full post »

To the casual observer, like Baltimore Sun columnist Thomas F. Schaller, the perception of the Ron Paul brand is a simple one.

“To look at him,” Schaller points out in his opinion piece, Tuesday, “Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul seems harmless. He’s cute/

… Read full post »

Obama: "Got it!" Boehner: "Uh-oh. What? I...this isn't what it looks like." Cantor: "You ain't gettin' this hand."

Compromise – it’s the word that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) eschewed as a synonym for “sell out,”… Read full post »

Satan smiting Job with boils, William Blake

“My worry is that for American job creators, all the uncertainty is turning to fear that this toxic environment for job creation is a permanent state.
“Job creators in America are essentially on strike.”
- Speaker of the House, John/

… Read full post »

Victory casts a veil on truth, and crushes critical thinking with an anvil. It’s as true in politics as it is in sports.  You win in American football, and all the persistent clouds over execution are overlooked by the shiny object of the victory. In politics, too, the clouds over unexecutable… Read full post »

I am of the undertow of the Baby Boomers, the last third of a generation, unwilling to let go of our ability to subvert the tide and change the world, defined for us by our older brothers and sisters. Born between 1957 and 1964, we are the President of the United… Read full post »

“…we have a phased redeployment, where we’re as careful getting out as we were careless getting in…”
- Sen. Barack Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign, referring to his plan for withdrawal from Iraq, in an interview with Politico before the Potomac Primaries, Feb. 1

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“Yesterday, I brought to your attention how offended we are at the Tea Party Express that the media would dare to continually insist that the Occupy Wall Street protests are motivated by the same issues that the Tea Party coalesced around and that they are the Tea Party of the left!”

… Read full post »

Occupy Wall Street protester, New York City, September 18, 2011. By David Shankbone (Own work) CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

The drumbeat of political progress has seized the conscience of the world since the first Arabs in North Africa took to the… Read full post »

A rally to save Troy Davis, Atlanta, GA, September 16, 2011

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It’s truly frightening when the group that is not afraid of guns and touts “Second Amendment remedies” to get what they want, has achieved such an unreasonable command of the mainstream media. The radical right of the Republican leaning Tea Party has made it clear, in the last five… Read full post »

9/11 attacks in New York City. (US National Park Service)

American resolve formed around the twisted steel ruins of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan in 2001, like 15-ton concrete blocks around re-bar. Our determination to avenge the acts of September 11 was certainly not a question. W… Read full post »

9/11 attacks in New York City. (US National Park Service)

American resolve formed around the twisted steel ruins of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan in 2001, like 15-ton concrete blocks around re-bar. Our determination to avenge the acts of September 11 was certainly not a question. W… Read full post »

“Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act III, Sc. i), by William Shakespeare

Prowl the halls of government in Washington, DC, and you will… Read full post »