Progressive Pushes "Perform or Payback" Plan

Declaration by Oswald M. Griswold III, progressive/entrepreneur/activist

By Robert S. Becker 

Since our political hubs begin to loom as business subsidiaries for the biggest banks, energy-industrial cartels, and unhinge… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

    If this be winning, what does losing look like? 

How comforting to discover, long before $2 billion evaporates in our quadrennial mayhem of misdirection, the finale! Survey says: Obama gets an encore, unless the wary one flubs big-time or a… Read full post »

Robert S. Becker

Enough with that down-home, baseball glove moniker for Willard. Let’s identify Mitt the unfit with his most compelling doppelganger, that paragon of phoniness so fully satirized by Sinclair Lewis he's America's icon for narrow-mindedness: Babb… Read full post »

Two verse satires, a call by me and a response by Paul Kibble were spawned after these words in last week’s column: “All in all, Romney works as political vampire, the bloodless fiend who gets vitality by predating the life force from less affluent victims. Just as vul… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker 

Finally, erratic Obama wordsmiths have slogged their way to the ideal slogan: "Forward," aptly safe and succinct and vacuous. What if it echoes MSNBC's "Lean Forward," itself no powerhouse of punch? Less is certainly more these days, and this president notches o… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker    

I take it back, conceding Karl Rove (a.k.a. Turd Blossom) must be smart. Perhaps W.'s nickname is telling, as in laying "an egg." Didn't this PR con artist mastermind the re-election of our most illiterate, incurious, wastrel president -- whose h… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

Here's showered leg skin examined by geologist James Kirby. Under regular light, the skin seems clean, but ultraviolet light reveals orange blotches --dispersant-mixed oil muck.  Tampa Bay Times/James Kirby photo

If you care about s… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

"Circus" is too orderly a metaphor for today's unhinged politics. "Entertainment" overstates, considering so many labor to hear Obama finish a speech or Romney a sentence – before gagging. "Mayhem" underplays the massive right-serving payola that informs both party's texts… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

 What’s a vexed, reactive incumbent to do when his best-laid plans go awry, put upon by lying hordes after his job, then that pugnacious posse at the Supreme Court (SC)?  Of course, hark! find a sure-fire insurance policy. Ho… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

Is there a more incendiary, compact, unapologetic cover for domestic vigilantes than "Don't Retreat, Reload"?  Though domestic terrorism occurred before and after Palin's pandering war cry, her loaded gun imagery decoying as political rhetoric, gave itchy-fi… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

What if disruptive fringes, propelled by delusions they “won” battles like the debt ceiling, figure the time was never better to smash through remaining 20th C. stop signs? Got a better explanation for the deluge of regressive throwbacks who defy learning from failur… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker 

In the brilliant movie Chinatown, the cornered, luckless hero (Gittes) demands the villain’s motivation:  

Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?
Cross: Oh my, yes!
Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What c… Read full post »

By Robert Becker

Scene: Large Washington hotel room full of Democratic staffers.  

Speaker:  Savvy PR operative, speaking bluntly.

Message: People vote their prejudices, so public relations rule.

Americans still buy the myth that national elections engage… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker   

My dear Santorum:

Though your pious crusade will flee my endorsement, I want you to know I earnestly, even wickedly stand behind you.  Allied for years with the Rightwing Chaos Party, I had been advising Newt Gingrich, that loose… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

  _{What, sheeple plagued by conspiracy?/Miami Herald} 

So it comes to pass that "stay paranoid" captures the core primary message from the GOP comic-horror show: something or someone nasty is out to get you. Already has, per Tea Party whining:… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

If you missed the last two, fantastic episodes of the Newt Gingrich circus, check out his deluded, anything-but-concession theatricals.  Here and here.

No doubt, as electioneering grows uglier, more divisive, and far more expensive, everyone longs for a… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

Calling Sister Sarah, whose travesty of "going rogue" comes down to dishing dirt.  Or Sen. McCain, ex-half-a-maverick – shuffle that walker to the side. Time for has-been, media mavericks to make way for Newt Gingrich, the gutsy, grandstanding "real rogue for r… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

Working as both mirror and impetus to our deranged discourse, the rightwing primary continues to bless us with stunning revelations worth every single cringe-worthy moment. And this eye-popping field sets the record, establishing unbeatable red… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

Enduring question for 2012: why were the Bush-Cheney political corpses from 2008 never fully interred, but allowed to live on as undying, ever-dangerous vampires?  It wasn’t for lack of widespread scorn (to this day) towards this conspicuous, evildoing… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

Carl Sagan, science genius, deserves better.

Stay ‘til the end – and a rich payoff of Carl Sagan’s gemlike insights.  A little clean-up work first, to clear the palate.

I don’t regularly read Wash. Post’s Charles Kraut… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker 

  Higgs boson, God's sub-atomic handwork/Cern.ch

Is "Higgs boson" a creative particle or energy field?   Can we thus infer an "anti-God particle," as anti-matter opposes matter, or dark energy… Read full post »

Note: I gave up trying to take Newt Gingrich seriously enough to write satiric prose for, like Kissinger per Tom Lehrer, he's moving beyond being an object of satire.  But I found a thesis and inspiration from that famous lyric celebrated by heavy drinkers.  

By Robert S. Becker… Read full post »

By Robert S. Becker

My ex-brother-in-law, who fancies himself part of the ruling class by writing speeches for overpaid CEOs, often rushes when hitting his email “To” button.  So I get unexpected, highly revealing tracts to his fat cat clients, in this… Read full post »