Bennet Kelley

Tom Hayden, who is now the Carey McWilliams fellow at The Nation, has weighed in on one of California's hottest Assembly races just before the June 5th primary. Unfortunately, Hayden's column appears to be nothing more than a machine hatchet job, which is both a disservice to California...

Last week in Geneva the Internet elite gathered to celebrate the inaugural class of inductees for the Internet Hall of Fame at a very fitting moment. The Internet is experiencing a coming of age as not only has it surpassed television in terms of daily consumer usage, but...

With Mitt Romney's recent primary victories in Illinois, Maryland and Wisconsin, the inevitability factor has begun to set in and Romney is now the presumptive nominee having prevailed over an embarrassingly weak GOP field of candidates. The good news for Republicans is that by embracing Romney the brutal primary fight...

After Pope Benedict reiterated the Vatican's long-standing condemnation of the United States' 50-year-old embargo of Cuba, I noticed some chatter in social media that maybe the remarks could lead to a change in U.S. policy. After double-checking to make sure that pigs were not flying outside, I resigned myself to...

Pennsylvania's recent enactment of the so-called "Amazon Tax" via a press release from the Department of Revenue may be seen as a deft political move by Governor Tom Corbett to close a budget gap without enacting any new taxes, but viewed from afar the action is a cause for alarm...

History can be savagely poetic and may be on the verge of doing so again. As the Republican Presidential Circus reaches the doorstep of the Iowa Caucus, Newt Gingrich is inching up in the polls ready to emerge as the right wing's flavor du jour. Who better to be at...

Within two months of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. auto industry began converting all of its production to the war effort and ultimately was responsible for 20% percent of all war time production. That was then.

Months after American's second Pearl Harbor on 9/11, Stanley Tools, a major government contractor founded...

In its controversial decision to downgrade U.S. bonds, Standard & Poor's embraced the "conventional wisdom" calling for substantial cuts in government spending. Conventional wisdom, however, usually is more of a reflection of prevailing dogma than actual wisdom and, in the words of John Kenneth Galbraith, merely "serves to protect us...

While Los Angeles braces for the upcoming Carmageddon, the sense of horror felt over not being able to use 10 miles of freeway for a weekend is amplified by the fact that those who manage to survive will face yet another crisis a fortnight later when the U.S. government reaches...

Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger are just a few examples of how bank robbers have been glamorized in American pop culture; but they are mere poseurs compared to the legends of larceny. It is time we recognize the true rock stars of robbery -- the banks themselves...

Last May, I responded to Sarah Palin's "Christian Nation" and other controversial comments by suggesting that she take a bus tour to meet "real Americans," which would include stops at landmarks such as Antietam and end in Providence where Roger Williams established the first colony founded upon the principle of...

Republican budget guru Paul Ryan boasts that the budget passed by House Republicans is this generation's "defining moment" and "keeps America exceptional." Ryan is 100 percent right because the GOP plan makes the United States exceptional... as the only developed nation in the world that aspires to be Kazakhstan.

A...

As Republicans revel in their victory in Wisconsin in stripping state workers' collective bargaining rights and other Republican governors seek to duplicate Wisconsin's power grab, what they perceive as the culmination of the "Reagan Revolution", may instead be its twilight. It is an ironic moment since the radical right, which...

Last March I posted a column "America's Year of Living Dangerously," in reaction to the deterioration of our political debate "from rancorous to poisonous" and the acts of political violence against Democrats such as Gabrielle Giffords following passage of health care reform. I was shocked that someone would...

The 2010 election will be remembered as the Seinfeld of American politics. With one exception, the election results are a lot like the sitcom which was famous for being about nothing. The one exception is the economy where voter discontent is "real and spectacular" but there was no mandate as...

With the increasing chance of Republicans taking control of at least one house of Congress, I hereby invoke the little-known right of a columnist to channel R&B singer Aretha Franklin to deliver a simple message to the voters of America on this important election:

Think!

From the prodigious...

TO: CBS Sports

Re: Assumptions re Los Angeles Viewers

Like all football fans, I welcome the start of a new season with excitement. The excitement, however, quickly evaporates once I discovered that, while most the nation has regional match-ups with playoff caliber teams such as the Patriots or Colts, Angelenos...

Once upon a time there was a king who promised to create 5.5 million new jobs by cutting taxes for the rich. Years passed and then Prince Boehner appeared in the Forest City and said that renewal of the tax cuts was required to have "real economic growth."

The...

The plight of the aging baby boomers can be summarized by an old joke about how to get a small fortune: "Start with a large fortune."

The children of the Greatest Generation inherited an economic and military superpower unrivaled in history. Sadly this "fortune" has decayed and is falling...