On paper Rick Santorum is not a generous man. He’s the most religious; the staunchest of the moralists; the fastest to the Bible thumpyist; the preachiest of the preachy in this race. He’s the most giant-government-forcing-you-to-be-holy of the small-government-for-corporations-only candidates. Yet according to his tax returns, he gives the least amount to charity of anyone… Continue reading →

Part of being a Democrat is acting like you’re losing even when you’re winning. Part of being a Republican is acting like you’re winning even when you’re losing. The phrase “silent majority,” that brilliant bit of Nixonian rhetoric, is a way to augment Republican numbers and voices. “Nearly all people agree with me and they’re… Continue reading →

“Gen X” was popularized as an advertising term. Marketers used the label to describe the young people of the late ”˜80s. The focus was on how to sell goods to the MTV generation. Advertisements at that time, just as one example, started to feature unmarried couples to appeal to this group of consumers. This was… Continue reading →

One of the richest men in the country, ranking in the 0.006 percent of Americans, likes to accuse the President of creating an “entitlement society.” Mitt Romney, the heir apparent, next in line GOP nominee ” is against entitlement. When I hear “entitlement society” I think, “country club.” But When Mitt uses that phrase he… Continue reading →

Mitt Romney’s hurdle in winning the love/respect/admiration/fear of his party can be summed up in one photo: It was taken by his son, Tagg (doesn’t Sarah Palin have a kid with that name?) and put on Twitter this week. It’s of Romney and his wife Ann, presumably in a hotel basement, side-by-side pouring detergent into… Continue reading →

Who would have guessed we’d have a national conversation about urinating on corpses? And worse yet to have people with a media megaphone attempting to defend it. The video of four marines desecrating the remains of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan surfaced on YouTube last week. The first thing worth noting is this treatment of… Continue reading →

Republicans have a wide variety of conservative white males now vying to be their nominee. No really. Bear with me: They have former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich summing up the worst of the ”˜90s GOP. Not only did he shut down the government during his tenure, he attempted to oust a president for… Continue reading →

Feign shock while you read this: the latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds just 5 percent of “Likely Voters rate the job Congress is doing as good or excellent.” Yes, 5 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job. Which means 5 percent of those polled didn’t understand the question. Right after taking his… Continue reading →

We like risk and reward. The gold rush was as much a motivation to be a pioneer as was the more noted religious freedom. Poker is actually considered a sport. Yes, poker players are athletes according to the U.S. government. It’s the one sport you can train for while chain smoking in a tracksuit. But… Continue reading →

My first job was cleaning the group home I lived in. True story. I participated in the Summer Youth Employment Program part of the Job Training Partnership Act passed during Reagan’s first term. It was a War on Poverty federal program considered to be an economic stimulus and a way to keep teenagers off the… Continue reading →

A perfect summary of the Grand Old Party’s relationship with the U.S. Constitution comes from Texas Governor Rick Perry at Mike Huckabee’s candidate forum on Fox News last Saturday. Governor Perry claimed as president he could overturn a law passed by Congress by executive order (he can’t), and then to show his bona fides on… Continue reading →

“The media,” as it’s referred to, is not a monolith. We don’t just have one channel, one paper or one site with one nefarious dude pulling levers. “The media” consists of books, newspapers, magazines, television, billboards, radio, blogs, vlogs, ebooks, webcasts, podcasts and movies etc. The media is a vast and (kind of) diverse way… Continue reading →

You know what’s never been said? “We should have MORE Republican primary debates.” Why? Because there are (by my count) 734,589 debates this election cycle and not enough hours in the day (spent working harder for less money) to watch eight Republican candidates stand around agreeing with each other for two hours every night. And… Continue reading →

I asked an Occupier in DC named Rob Wohl, why the movement he’s a part of is resonating with people – why as over 3,000 Americans have been arrested in demonstrations and even journalists and vets have endured tear gas and rubber bullets, the movement is still growing. His answer? “Because we are analytically correct.”… Continue reading →