Category Archives: Current Events

As William Saletan notes, public opinion has largely turned around the last few years on Gay Marriage. In many states, a majority is now in favor of its legalization and in others, it's just a matter of time. But in many of those states, it's going to take a while (and a lot of ballot initiatives and such) to bring the law in line with what the people want.

Bruce Bartlett discusses the many Americans who pay no Federal Income Taxes whatsoever. As we all know, a lot of poor folks don't, though they pay a disproportionate portion of their income in sales taxes, payroll taxes and other ways. There's just something wrong though when someone whose income is over a million dollars a year can get away without paying anything in income taxes.

This was an issue that greatly bothered my father who spent most of his adult years working for the Internal Revenue Service and hating every minute of it. There was zero doubt in his mind that during the Nixon Administration, the I.R.S. went real, real easy on rich people (especially rich people who'd donated to Nixon) who paid little or no taxes, sometimes via legal loopholes — of which there were many — but sometimes just by lying and cheating. This was offset by wringing more dollars out of the poor and middle class. Many lower-class people paid more so one rich guy didn't have to pay at all. Looks like not a lot has changed.

David Frum, who was once an outspoken opponent of Gay Marriage, explains why he was wrong. This is the kind of piece an awful lot of people should come to write…but won't.

Ezra Klein suggests that we can solve the financial crisis in this country by blowing up the moon. Well, not exactly. But read it and you'll see what he means.

A lot of Republican leaders insist that government spending "kills jobs." They even say that when the government spends money hiring people. In the Wall Street Journal (of all places), Alan S. Blinder explains why they're wrong.

Oh, yeah…and did you know that expecting rich people to pay taxes is the leading cause of Sudden Puppy Death?

Did you hear President Obama's speech about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan? Well, Fred Kaplan heard it and he has much to say about it.

Matt Taibbi profiles (and warns everyone against underestimating) Michele Bachmann.

As Matt Taibbi points out, a lot of the neo-con types who used to cheerlead the U.S. rushing into war are now sounding a lot like the anti-war advocates they used to dismiss as traitors and/or wimps.

Occasional Republican strategist David Frum writes about that thing I mentioned a few items ago…about how Conservative "think tanks" shell out large sums of dough to get right-wing talkers like Hannity and Limbaugh to advance their agenda. Follow the money, indeed.

Will Wilkinson explains the cozy relationship between right-wing talk show guys like Limbaugh or Hannity and Conservative "think tanks" like the Heritage Foundation. It's all, of course, about money…telling Americans that everything they treasure will be destroyed or taken away from them unless they donate loads o' cash.

Every week, one of my e-mail addresses (one I use when I have to sign up on a site likely to send me loads of spam) receives a message from a guy that tells of some new heinous crime that Hillary Clinton has committed, how the future of America depends on putting her in prison and how he has the means and evidence to toss her behind bars if only I'll send him money. I've been getting these messages from the guy since she was First Lady and was having hundreds of people murdered — including Vince Foster, who was planning to turn State's Evidence against her.

Since this guy's been sending these out for so long, I figure they must yield enough donations to at least make it worth his time to write a new "Don't you want to see Hillary destroyed?" message every week. The racket Wilkinson exposes is pretty much the same thing except it pays better.

You know, the national debt could be gone today if we hadn't decided it was more important for rich people to pay less in taxes and for us to invade Iraq and get rid of all those Weapons of Mass Destruction that they didn't have. Steve Benen explains.

Mitt Romney thinks Barack Obama is destroying Free Enterprise and the Free Market. Steven Pearlstein thinks otherwise. Here's the money quote from Pearlstein…

Just to review: The Bolsheviks have taken over, capitalism as we know it is about to come to an end and, yet, somehow the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 47 percent since the Obama inauguration, private-sector profits are back at record levels and business investment in new equipment and software is growing at the annual rate of 11.7 percent. How weird is that?

Yeah, yeah…I understand that the "Obama is a Communist" meme comes from pretty much the same place as "Obama is Hitler" and "Obama is the Anti-Christ." You just wish Romney would realize that he's not going to win over the Republican voters who buy into that kind of crap.

Fred Kaplan, one of the few people in America who's playing attention to Afghanistan, tells us what's going on with U.S. involvement there.

One of the annoying things about Sarah Palin is her insistence that any time she says anything dumb or clueless, it's someone else's fault. Every politician and public figure says things they regret but no one else so consistently claims to have been tricked into their regrettable utterances. One of the many reasons I don't think she'll ever be the Republican nominee, let alone the President, is this inability to answer questions that aren't lobbed by people rooting for her to do well. Here's a little slide show of her claiming that any question she couldn't handle was a "gotcha" question.

It's the tenth anniversary of the Bush tax cuts. Ezra Klein and Joan Walsh discuss why they've been so bad for the economy.