If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Our national politics increasingly resembles a party in which your crazy uncle got hold of the karaoke microphone and won't give it back until he finishes a paranoid rant. Maybe if you pour him another Manhattan, he'll pass out before all your guests leave.
Imagine a Washington, D.C. where Republicans came to work each day fired up with renewed passion and zeal. A Congress where energized Republicans legislated in bi-partisan fashion on behalf of the American people.
Greenpeace is offering to testify about being the target of politically motivated audits in 2004, because regardless of which party holds power, these abuses are egregious and must stop.
While support for legalizing hemp's distant cousin, marijuana, remains controversial, hemp is not marijuana. Legalized industrial hemp production could emerge as a prolific cash crop and a clean-burning alternative fuel.
It's not difficult to imagine a few years from now a political landscape controlled by a Democratic dynasty, where the only Republicans left in office come from states and districts where the small minority of folks who voted for them share their ignorant, intolerant 1950's ideals.
Even a minimal "vision" of an America that can still accomplish something would appear to be far more uplifting than the austerity snake oil the current crop of Republican politicians keep pushing.
The Republicans have exercised so many spin control muscles that those muscles have started to act involuntarily and instantaneously. Like the heart at the core of any wild animal, the GOP has developed an instant if not repetitive spin for everything.
Why is it that store-bought penny candy never gives you the same high when you're reintroduced to it as an adult? Is it because corporations keep finding cheaper ways to produce it, using lesser ingredients than they did back then? If so, how come it's still so darn expensive?
If you want to see why the public approval rating of Congress is down in the sub-arctic range all you have to do is take a quick look at how the House and Senate pay worship at the altar of corporations, banks and other special interests at the expense of public need.
The April 17 Senate debate was a public embarrassment in which a minority employed insults to logic to thwart the will of a vast majority of the nation.
Each of us, if we have smartphones, can record and transmit video with more independence and greater reach than the top-tier broadcasters of a generation ago. We have the power to expose wrongdoing, and we also have the power to hasten the destruction of privacy.
In an historic vote yesterday, the Senate voted to safeguard a fundamental American liberty, the right to be killed.
Speaking of Ding Dongs and the New York City mayor's office, Anthony Weiner is now exploring his own... um.... chances of winning the mayor's race, apparently. Late-night comics everywhere are rejoicing, one assumes.
Ninety percent -- a super, super, super majority -- becomes a narrow minority as a result of gerrymandered districts, a flood of money into the political system and the misuse of the Senate filibuster. And this isn't the only issue where this happens.
If the IRS or DOJ were serious about ensuring that so-called social welfare organizations are not abusing their tax-exempt status by engaging in political activities, they could start by taking a close look at IRS forms 990 and 1023.
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