It is important that this week, one year after the tragedy at Tucson, we remember those who were senselessly slaughtered there, including a 9-year old girl. It is important that we honor them by doing all we can to make sure this kind of thing never happens again, by making it at least a bit harder for criminals, terrorists and the mentally ill to get their hands on weapons that can kill in a heartbeat.

We must always respect our Bill of Rights, but we must also remember it was Christina Taylor Green's right to have her "general welfare protected," to enjoy the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It was her right to see her 10th...

Lock the doors. Pull down the shades. Bring in the exorcist, stat.

As I write this, my humble abode is being transformed into a puppet-occupied den of anti-democratic sin. Yes, my kids are watching the Muppets, with some newly-discovered zeal since the theatrical release of the film by the same...

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney -- the perfect dynamic duo for our times, if not end times. A Batman and Robin for the 1%. Defenders of truth, justice, and a Gulag Archipelago filled with child janitors and the fandango of the foreclosed.

If you're rooting for President Obama,...

So what do you do when financial analysts are warning that housing prices are headed for a "triple dip," the second largest Swiss Bank (Credit Suisse) announces it's piling 1,500 additional job cuts -- many from the US -- on top of its previously announced 2,000 (after a 12...

Although when it comes to the specific date of our mass death, Harold Camping might as well be talking Chinese nuclear development with Herman Cain, it seems a little bit harder to doubt his general prognostication of doom in the weeks after 56 exotic animals were released into the...

By Lowell Feld & Cliff Schecter

Remember how much coverage the national progressive blogosphere gave the Anthony Weiner special election in NY-09 a few weeks ago? A great deal! How about the New York 23rd Congressional District special election? Again, this one got enormous coverage...

Whether it's the bronze bull encountered by those occupying Wall Street, the fixation with a Chris Christie presidency not to be, or the ex post facto transformation of Ronald Reagan into Kratos by middle-aged Republican congresspersons who practically start to giggle and spontaneously pulsate just upon hearing his name, there...

Once again this past few weeks, the ongoing education debate in the United States occupied the headlines, bylines and cable news scrolls. NBC launched its second annual "Education Nation Summit," billed as a way "to engage the country in a solutions -- focused conversation about the state of education in...

To fully comprehend the sad spectacle that has become American politics since the 1980s, you need not peruse the politics section of major periodicals. Or the opinion, news or business pages of illustrious publications.

No, lately you'd be best served by heading on over to the obituary section.

Vampire movies and television programmes may be all the rage right now, but not one of them has anything on a good old-fashioned audience of Republican debate watchers.

In a rather shocking -- yet sadly, not surprising -- display of the bloodlust and viciousness usually reserved for members of law...

NRA lobbyist Chris Cox recently authored an op-ed for The Daily Caller in which he argued in favor of the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 822). Sadly, as is often all-too true with the arguments made by the NRA regarding our nation's gun laws, his reasoning was misleading at...

On September 11th, 2001, on what was a perfect morning-right up until the very moment a Boeing 767-223-ER slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, I stood on the corner of Delancey and Ridge Streets in downtown Manhattan.

I was working on an election campaign -- it...

If you find yourself wondering how it was you missed the whole 4th season of Walker, Texas Ranger, while forcing yourself to attend Lamaze classes with your significant other. If on cool, crisp days the aforementioned tragedy causes you to wistfully wonder how to fill the emptiness inside -- let...

This would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Listen as the NRA calls someone, tells them Hillary Clinton, Cuba and perhaps Mars is coming to get their guns--and then tries to offer condolences for "the school shooting" to their mark (a too-smart-for-the-NRA guy who recorded the pitch). When speaking to this Denverite, the NRA-paid caller of course doesn't even know which school shooting they're offering condolences for when asked--you know the one in the paper that "recently" happened--or occurred back in 1999.

No shame--not during LaPierre's tenure. They'll use a fake compassion over a school shooting and a manufactured galactic conspiracy if it will get cash to arms dealers and help pay LaPierre's $1.27 million salary per...

Towards the beginning of the original Terminator film, Kyle Reese, who has come back to the past to save Sarah Connor -- whose spawn will save mankind -- lets her know what she's facing in her new cybernetic stalker. "Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be...

To quote Lawrence O'Donnell from his show back in February, Wayne LaPierre is "Washington's lobbyist in favor...

Lately, there would seem to be a whole lot more people who have a direct channel to the Big Guy Upstairs than one could have humanly thought possible.

It is oft-said that "God works in mysterious ways". But when Michele Bachmann hears voices telling her to run for president,...

Honestly, the new video of Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn encouraging radical adherents to use U.S. gun shows to arm themselves for attacks on American citizens is not new. Terrorists have written about doing this before, and yes, they've bought guns at our gun...

Yesterday, I pulled up to a drive-through ATM and sitting in front of me in the line was a car with a license plate that simply stated, "Choose Life."

Who can argue with that? I support life, don't you?

The problem, of course, is the relationship between that phrase and the U.S. right wing. You know, the ones who are petrified of everything from black presidents to black helicopters to Black Sabbath.

Yes, they piously claim to be "pro-life", but it is a simple platitude, for -- to paraphrase Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride -- I do not think that word means what they think it means.

To those not steeped in U.S. politics, being pro-life might seem like it means what one would expect -- to oppose policies and endeavors that duly result in a loss of human life. But in the US political arena, it means something quite different. Generally, it is a way of telling everyone that it's your business to give a woman her marching orders -- that she must eventually carry a three-day-old embryo to term, even if it's the result of rape or incest.

Or its corollary, that you're some kind of Nietzschean Superman for ensuring that 91-year-old patients in terrible pain due to pancreatic cancer must stick a tube in any empty orifice to force themselves to stay alive and suffer, even against their own wishes.

The sad reality is that, to be pro-life in the U.S. today, which is to be conservative in almost all cases, is to love thy enemy by supporting illegal wars -- or just plain stupid ones -- that kill hundreds of thousands of innocents, cutting health-care benefits and nutrition programs for children and the poor, and turning the other cheek... of the person you're torturing.

It is also to cut funding for bridges that are falling down to make room for slashing the tax on yacht shoes, make a best faith effort to ensure criminals, the mentally unbalanced and terrorists have access to assault weapons and explosives, and to love thy neighbor -- to love them so much as to give him or her a lethal injection if you think they killed someone.

"Think" is the operative word here, as it seems the conservative Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, may be about to put an innocent man to death. Shawn Hawkins, the man in question, is to be executed on June 14, 2011. This, even though there are serious enough concerns he may be innocent that on May 11, the Ohio Parole Board unanimously recommended that the governor grant him clemency due to increasing doubt over his guilt.

But hell, what's a little faulty eyewitness testimony, evidence destroyed before it could be DNA tested, and lack of placing the defendant in possession of the murder weapon between friends? So, in other words, the morning-after pill is murder, but taking a human being who very likely might be innocent -- and killing him -- that is just so pro-life!

The truth is that those on the U.S. right are about as "pro-life" as Arnold Schwarzenegger is pro-wife. Or Dominique Strauss Kahn is pro-maid.

It is an empty phrase they throw around to attract a core demographic of foaming mouths, those who hate the very idea of a woman choosing to have sex and having any control over her body. Because presumably, Jesus, who talked about love and brotherhood, would have taken the time to stop walking on water and curing the infirm to rabbit punch any woman contemplating a life of self-determination.

This is not to say there are not legitimate concerns with late-term abortions. I have these concerns. Or underage girls making this decision without adult guidance. I have those ones too.

But this is not what this particular battle's about. Because if it were, I probably wouldn't have once argued on a television show with a conservative, who in one sentence told me that abortion was murder, and in the next that we should eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency (the guys who, you know, make sure we can breathe) -- and turn Iraq into a "glass factory." (See: sand and extreme heat.)

Now maybe you're reading this and asking: "I already know all of this, why is he wasting my time?" Well, perhaps this is just my way of saying I'm tired of the platitudes, particularly on the license plates of portly, pale, Rush Limbaugh-imbibers who take way-too-much time at the drive-through ATM because they're still working their way through fractions.

You can pick whatever political slogan you want. But pro-life is pro-life in any language. And you're probably a bit closer to actually being pro-life if you care about how a pregnant woman will get health care, and aren't the guy trying to cut it, while wearing your wife-beater t-shirt and holding up the Obama sign with the Hitler mustache.

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A slightly different version of this column first appeared at Al Jazeera...

I had a client a few years back named Onvia. Onvia provided better and more timely information than the federal government, regarding where stimulus dollars were going and how they were being used:

The Obama administration promised openness regarding stimulus spending because many critics said the $787 billion package...