The rich truly are different from you and me – they tend to hold seats in Congress. Our nation purports to be a representative democracy, yet you don’t find many plumbers, mineworkers, dirt farmers, Wal-Mart associates, roofers, beauty parlor operators, taxi drivers, or other “get-the-job-done” Americans among the 535 members of the U.S. House and […]
Congress
Posted inOpinion
GOP unhinged by Obamacare: Laugh till it hurts
Whacking yourself on the head with a ball-peen hammer would be stupid. But doing it again and again – that’s insane. Welcome to your U.S. House of Representatives, presently led by a pack of tea party Republicans. They are so crazed by Obamacare that they repeatedly hammer themselves over the head with it, having voted […]
Posted inOpinion
The ‘helping hands’ helping themselves
The word “help” is so uplifting, conveying our best humanitarian values. How odd, then, to see it used in this New York Times headline: “Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills.” I’ll bet they did! We all know how altruistic, beneficent and kindhearted Wall Street lobbyists are – when it comes to helping themselves, that […]
Posted inOpinion
The mean team piles on jobless Americans
“Come on, team, let’s get mean!” This is not the chant of rabid football fans, egging on their favorite team to crush the opponents. Rather, it’s the raucous war cry of far-out right-wing ideologues all across the country who’re pumping up Team GOP to pound the bejeezus out of America’s millions of unemployed workers. In […]
Posted inOpinion
Congress reinterprets Jesus
Thank God for Congress, right? When things get out of balance in America, we can always count on our legislative stalwarts to recalibrate the scales of justice. Take greed, for example. Wall Street barons, whose raw greed and casino scams wrecked our real economy five years ago, are back to shoving great gobs of bonus […]
Posted inOpinion
Repeal the Patriot Act
It’s back. The Patriot Act – that grotesque, ever-mutating, hydra-headed monstrosity from the Bush-Cheney Little Shop of Horrors – has risen again, this time with an added twist of Orwellian intrusiveness from the Obamacans. Since 2006, Team Bush, and then Team Obama, have allowed the little-known, hugely powerful National Security Agency to run a daily […]
Posted inOpinion
Blanket of PR to make you want to hug a drone
In a recent senatorial dustup, Sen. John McCain called Republican colleague Rand Paul one of “the wacko birds” of Congress. McCain was giving Sen. Paul a tongue-lashing for having mounted a 13-hour, old-fashioned, stand-alone filibuster over the possibility that murderous drones could be used for targeted assassinations of Americans right here at home. McCain said […]
Posted inOpinion
Do more than the minimum on minimum wage
“In the wealthiest nation on earth,” President Obama declared in his State of the Union speech, “no one who works full time should have to live in poverty.” Right! Way to go! Not only does his call to raise America’s minimum wage put some real pop in populism, but it could finally start putting some […]
Posted inOpinion
Watch out – the drones are coming
For nearly four years, President Obama refused to admit a foreign-policy “secret” that was widely known – that the White House, Pentagon and CIA are engaged in ethically questionable and rapidly escalating drone warfare that’s killing innocent civilians as well as enemy soldiers in Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere. But by nominating John Brennan, the architect […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Spielberg’s powerful portrait of Lincoln the man
Surprisingly intimate yet dealing with moral questions of epic proportion, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is a movie befitting its subject as we know him. At once warm and folksy, at others fierce and impassioned, this is perhaps the most accessible film yet made about the Great Emancipator in terms of presenting him as a man – […]
Posted inOpinion
Mud and money
CORRECTION (10/04/12): An earlier version of this article indicated Republican Congressional candidate Rodney Davis fully supports the budget plan created by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. That is incorrect. While Davis has said he likes parts of the Ryan budget plan, he does not support it in its entirety. We apologize for the mischaracterization. David […]
Posted inNews
Springfield goes to Washington
As lawmakers in Washington, D.C., debate a far-reaching transportation funding measure that could mean jobs for Springfield, government and religious leaders here are making their voices heard in the nation’s capital. The U.S. House will likely vote on a five-year transportation bill this month, which could increase the number of transportation-related jobs for minorities and […]
