When most people hear "combat veteran," they think firefights with the enemy. But the military defines combat veteran differently -- as soldiers who served in a combat area.

Which brings us to Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), one of the GOP's most recent stars. It was Sen. Ernst who was...

If you'll excuse my descending into cliche, the issue that began in Ferguson, Mo. is moving beyond racism to the present-day penchant of police departments to apply military thinking to civilian life.

This thinking leads cops to expect and insist on instant obedience in any interaction. If they don't...

The big story of this year's primaries is that the Tea Party is being creamed.

Meanwhile, the GOP's mainstream and Tea Party candidates are trying to paper over their differences, all the while keeping up what Democrats must find an entertaining brawl.

In the first round of elections,...

In the name of expanding right to life politics in the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court may have leveled the notion that we are all subject to the law.

That's because the real issue now isn't abortion. By giving a corporation the same civil rights as natural...

Governments are created by society's most powerful members to protect themselves from each other. That's why even libertarians say defending the validity of contracts is a bedrock government function.

To do that job, government has to be stronger than any entity, or group of entities, so that when it says...

The behavior of the House GOP in the current showdown -- whether or not they reach some sort of deal -- makes them guilty of sedition. Whether they're indicted, arrested, and imprisoned for it, America should not forget or forgive this come election time.

Here's the why and how of...

There is no reason for the president or the Democrats to compromise over the Affordable Care Act/defunding/default issue.

Over and above any claims made about the ACA by those trying to destroy it -- almost all of which have been found to hold no water at all -- it...

Republicans claim higher salaries mean lower corporate earnings that crimp jobs and jobs creation. This is usually wrapped in the minimum wage or global competition and applied across the board.

But, you know -- reality: The Census Bureau's Table H-3 says that adjusted for inflation, median incomes have...

Now that George Zimmerman got off for killing Trayvon Martin, the right wing is predictably trying to smear Trayvon's memory to twist the facts and the law -- in hopes, apparently, of hoodwinking the American People into thinking he got what he deserved.

America should not let that stand. The...

Washington and the media are up in arms about any number of so-called scandals, but in my own opinion, while the American republic may be in some danger, the danger lies less with the trench warfare in Washington and its attendant noise than with the trends now facing us that...

Want to straighten out the nation's finances, eliminate poverty, and end the income tax?

Easy.

Tax financial trades.

As it happens, a bill to do that was introduced last week in Congress by Tom Harkin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Bernie Sanders in the Senate, and Representative Peter DeFazio...

On Friday a Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D.C. showed just how far, and recklessly, conservatives are willing to go to get what they want, and hang the impact on the nation.

The court ruled that four recess appointments made last January by President Obama were unconstitutional and...

At bottom, the National Rifle Association is a marketing shop. They sell guns to America by claiming they stand between us and a government plotting to take away our rights and establish tyranny. In the old days they did their job by emphasizing hunting and gun safety, but I guess...

This week, Wayne LaPierre and the GOP proved I've been wrong about the right wing. All these years I've thought the guys on the right were smart. But faced with 27 coffins in Newtown, Ct.-- 20 of them tiny--the NRA executive vice president and his Republican friends displayed the worst...

Mitt Romney apparently violated the Ethics in Government Act in 2009 by burying an investment in his wife's name, according to a coalition of non-profits and unions. The investment didn't surface through much of the campaign because Romney refuses to release his 2009 tax returns.

The investment in Singer Associates...

"We have met the enemy, and he is us" was Pogo's famous saying from Walt Kelly's cartoon strip.

Whether Mitt Romney would listen to that is another matter, and he has plenty of enablers, on his staff and elsewhere, to tell him it's all somebody else's fault.

But...

Here's how to answer that right-wing correspondent of yours who insists the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans -- not to mention the riots in Libya and Egypt, and whatever's coming next -- are all Obama's fault.

Obama didn't do this. Gaddafi, Mubarak,...

This election is all about getting out the vote. Pretty much everybody has already made their choice; most so-called "Independents" really aren't, and the number of really undecided voters is miniscule. So the future of America is all about arithmetic.

And that arithmetic doesn't look great for the Democrats....

Plenty of Progressives, Greens and other Democrats don't much like President Obama, partly because when they pulled the lever in 2008, they'd thought he was more their kind of guy. It's not hard to find some who say there's really no difference between him and Mitt Romney -- that they're...

The United State Postal Service (USPS) was created in 1775 -- a year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In 2006, Congress forced the USPS to pre-fund 75 years of health care benefits in three years, and gave itself oversight powers.

This week, the USPS said it