The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization which seems to masquerade as a force for public good. Effectively, it functions as a front for large corporate interests, composed of corporations, think tanks and members of state government. Its contributions accrue great benefits for the rich.…
A Senate bill sponsored by Senator Robert Menendez, NJ, would impose tougher sanctions on Iran, despite dire warnings from the White House, Iranian leaders, ten Democratic committee chairs and a host of liberal groups. It would sink a delicate nuclear agreement already in place, an agreement that prompted Tehran…
The lane closures on the George Washington Bridge during four days last September, including the first day of school and the anniversary of 9/11, had significance well beyond Chris Christie and New Jersey politics. Hanging over our heads, is an attitude, an operative mode that favors individual or corporate…
After 52 passengers were rescued from a research ship trapped in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve, right-wing fixtures of radio and TV unctuously mocked and ridiculed not only global warming claims but also the climate change scientists who tried to record its signs. Such ridicule is akin to going…
Whom will you follow? Whom will you listen to -- the red-cheeked fat man on the left or the kindly-looking ascetic wearing the pope hat on the right? Since his choosing in March of this year, Pope Francis has become somewhat of a spiritual rock star, charming Catholics and…
The chances are good that if your extended family got together for Thanksgiving dinner this year, there was a bitter political discussion. For Americans, according to Pew Research, values and beliefs are more polarized along partisan lines than at any point in the past 25 years, perhaps extended even…
Congress – as now constituted – will not serve us. We have ample evidence that all GOP allegiance is to the rich, certainly not the people. Furthermore, too many Democrats tend to serve Wall Street, let’s say are not aggressive about our basic need of jobs, a fair share…
We need a new word to describe most Republicans, one to fit a behavior that harms the most vulnerable Americans. Words already in the dictionary don’t exactly fit, so I came up with a new one. It is misGOPpath. And to follow proper form, it becomes misgoppath. I have…
Reactionaries are extremely conservative, especially opposed to social change, wanting to keep or return to past cultural values. Definitions always seem cut and dried, not allowing for nuance, but this definition perhaps lets us understand what is driven by the Grand Old Tea Party (GOTP, formerly less aptly called…
I have always held CBS’s Sixty Minutes in high esteem, that is until a few days ago when I learned that their eye-witness informant’s claim that he was there the night of the Benghazi attack, heroically scaling the 12 foot wall and encountering al Qaeda, was false. He claimed…