“People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates,” said fraction-term governor and noted Putin-watcher Sarah Palin on Fox News’ Hannity this week. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s beefcake boudoir photography featuring his naked torso alongside… Continue reading →

Say you’re philosophically opposed to food stamps. Let’s say you feel better about yourself by calling those who’ve hit hard times freeloading parasites. Suppose the very idea someone somewhere may be cheating the system is enough for you to support snatching all subsidized sandwiches out of the hands of your fellow Americans. Imagine that right… Continue reading →

The charge of rape is a successful way to smear your enemy. When political agitator Andrew Breitbart was met with Occupy protestors one year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he started screeching, “Behave yourselves and stop raping people!” Russian President Vladimir Putin used this slander brilliantly when asked if gay athletes would be safe… Continue reading →

The problem with our debate about same-sex marriage is in many ways language. The term “marriage” is a religious one. All the dictates as to what a marriage is and who gets to be in a marriage (and how many) are bible-based. We have a religious idea that’s sanctioned by the state in the form… Continue reading →

I believe the Republican Party’s psychic break happened the moment their “compassionate conservative” economic philosophy melted the world’s economy. President Bush, the champion of deregulation, bailed out the banks and then offered: “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” I know when I first heard it my head exploded. It sent… Continue reading →

When our government was framed, religion was granted freedom in hopes it would return the favor. Call it the Great American Gamble. Give something authoritative in nature free reign and have faith it won’t take over. Here’s the primary debate of a free country: When does my freedom trample on your civil liberties? And when… Continue reading →

Brace yourself America””Republicans have discovered poverty! Right here, right under their noses, 48 million Americans are, as Senator Marco Rubio puts it, “soon-to-haves.” Because nothing says you understand institutional and generational poverty like using corporate-ese to describe it. Now that Republicans have acknowledged one-fifth of the wealthiest country in the world is impoverished, they’re debating… Continue reading →

As the dust settles over A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson’s interview in GQ, I’d like to offer a challenge to all who defended his right to wax nostalgic about how happy black people were before the civil rights era (also stating that Shintoism is basically Nazism and homosexuality is basically bestiality). To all those… Continue reading →

In this season of fighting over the true meaning of the season, I offer my short (and admittedly incomplete) list of things which could make the world a better place all year round: 1. End the War on Christmas and end it now What does a truce in the War on Christmas look like? How… Continue reading →

During the 2008 election, candidate Barack Obama was derisively referred to as “The One.” His opponent’s attack ads implied he was the Messiah. “He has anointed himself ready to carry the burden of The One,” went the infamous TV spot. Some wondered if this wasn’t a dog whistle to the Apocalypse-minded Americans who weren’t put… Continue reading →

A hundred years ago the business tycoon Samuel Insull consolidated smaller utility companies to form the behemoth (albeit public charity-sounding), Commonwealth Edison. Because of the infrastructure needed to provide energy to an increasingly power-hunger public, Insull and others argued that Commonwealth Edison was a natural monopoly; inherently one company had to dominate the market. This… Continue reading →

When Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November to be the federal holiday, Thanksgiving, he invited his fellow citizens to use it as a day of atonement; a day to pray for orphans, widows, mourners and sufferers of what he described as the “lamentable civil strife.” This is the 160th anniversary of that proclamation. Somehow… Continue reading →

We turn up our collective noses at the brutality of Ancient Rome’s gladiatorial combat games. These bloody, brutal and deadly contests were decadent displays of an indulgent, yet morally primitive culture, we tell ourselves. Athletes were slaughtered for the entertainment of the Roman citizens””sacrificed for their amusement. Every gasp in disgust at what the ancient… Continue reading →