Voters beware: You will be exposed to economic gimmicks mixed with political talking points by leaders and surrogates for both political parties the next two months. The debate, if it reaches that point, in the end is only window dressing. The winning political party may set a direction and a few rules. It does not set monetary policy for investors to stop hoarding their money and encourage them to take risks that provide businesses with capital to create jobs. President Obama kicks off the post-Labor...

Following is a text prepared for delivery on Labor Day by Republican American Tea Party U.S. Sen. Forrest Washington Flagg. Good afternoon, my fellow patriots. Thank you for that 21-gun salute. Isn’t that music to our ears? Let’s give a big round of applause to our state militia honor guard. I come to you this last day our nation will honor the proletariat working class but rather shift our worship to you, the hard-working individual freedom fighters of America. It is only fitting that this...

Or, is he? At least he went to the trouble to try and find an answer to the fear factor that is the meat and potatoes of the right-wing echo chamber.

A new oil well drilling explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, this one in shallow water, is sending shock waves to Gulf experts. Here’s one account. My reaction: Oh shit. If the observer, Bob Cavnar, is correct which he has been most of the time in the BP disaster, this one stands a much quicker chance of being capped. Of continuing concern to me is the higher than normal 5% levels of methane in the crude mix being drilled in some oil deposits in the Gulf. I take offense for those who view these...

Last June, in a rash moment of environmental fervor, I wrote that California was poised to be the first state to sharply reduce the use of plastic bags at retail outlets. The bill, AB 1998, passed the Assembly and was supported by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. They were joined by environmental groups angry at seeing plastic wrappers pollute our rivers, beaches and ocean. Their theme song sung by Hollywood celebrities such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus was that what took seconds at a grocery checkout stand...

Let’s see if I got President Obama’s speech Tuesday night right: We spent a trillion borrowed and printed dollars and 6,000 American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan on wars we could not afford based on an American economy he cannot fix. What the president avoided to say was that the big winner in this war of lies was a shift in the Middle East balance of power in favor of Iran soon to be armed with nuclear arsenals he doesn’t know how to stop. At least the troops who fought our battles and their...

Bridges have always struck mankind as engineering marvels since the days of the Roman aqueduct. Most of us have a love affair with bridges from our childhood whether it be the Brooklyn Bridge for Jewish and Italian immigrants writing about it in the 1950s to the days I spent in Oregon where the magnificent span of a Depression-era bridge arches over the Rogue River in Gold Beach. Every time the History Channel reruns its Modern Marvels segment on bridges, I enjoy watching. The bridge of my childhood...

I come before you today not to bury Glenn Beck but the awkward task of defending Glenn Beck. Me thinks we take him too seriously. Big mistake. Beck’s detractors may number more than his disciples. And the enemy is firing its best shots. Not with beebee guns. But everything from the stinging barbs of late night comedians to the howitzers of the nation’s most erudite, uh, progressives. Hours after his Hollywood extravaganza on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, Beck was taped for an interview...

I can’t wait for Labor Day, Sept. 6, and the days immediate after for it marks campaign promises that both Republican and Democratic leaderships will promote their plans for economic recovery. Let’s hold them to the fire. We need, we must, have a good, no-holds barred debate on this subject for it is killing us. Like it or not, it may influence the midterm elections Nov. 2 and perhaps carry over to 2012. The Democrats will send their A-team to the hinterlands in President Obama and former President...

Something rotten is going on, not in Denmark, but 5,000 at to 8,000 feet under the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico. I know. I know. Most people think the BP blowout well is capped but the fact is it is not, at least permanently. The capping at the wellhead 5,000 feet below the old Deepwater Horizons platform is a fragile prayer holding on for dear life. The latest round of delays since July 15 is what engineers are calling a fishing expedition to clean out debris inside the well, recap it with...

Glenn Beck has found religion and don’t you forget it. On this Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010, he hammered it home as a messiah from heaven. As I watch live on C-Span his rally “Restoring Honor” to our troops and our country, I honestly am conflicted with mixed emotions. Is this guy a carnival pitchman, rodeo clown, demagogue dressed in a collared polo shirt or Moses reincarnated .. I do not pretend to know. I am confident of one thing: Beck is a passionate showman. I am not so confident of his definition...

In case you are wondering where your tax dollars go, you are talking to one. I just mailed my forms for re-certification on MediCal. It is a perfunctory duty of limited consequences. The Medicaid version in California considers me, a single senior whose sole income is $1,165 net from Social Security, a fat cat in the world of the impoverished. By fat, I mean I earn $8 a month more than the lowest threshold for complete services rendered by MediCal. There are state funded programs offered that I don’t...

I am trying to wrap my brain around the possibility the Republicans regain control of both houses of Congress now that Nate Silver, the best prognosticator in the business, puts it at attainable odds. To embrace such an event, I think it only honest to divorce oneself with preconceived hysteria based on claptrap always heard on the campaign trails and imagine how this new Republican majority actually would govern. We may get a glimpse of that as the hotly contested races merge a tad closer to the...

For those of you who hear and believe President Obama’s job approval ratings are tanking, that his personal popularity is ebbing and his cadre of zealot young supporters are disillusioned, that memo hasn’t reached California. On the campaign trail supporting Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, Team Obama sent an email calling for money and support for Democratic candidate for governor Jerry Brown. Faster than you can say Yes We Can, Brown’s website crashed from the windfall of heavy traffic. What...

There’s an upset brewing in Alaska where Sarah Palin backed Republican challenger Joe Miller is leading incumbent Lisa Murkowski for U.S. Senate with a 40% of the precincts reporting. If Miller’s thin lead holds, it will be a major coup for Palin but a bigger shock to Alaskans who love their politicians who deliver the federal goodies from Washington. I mean Murkowski campaigned on that great strength of hers which was in tradition of the late Sen. Ted Stevens and the ever faithful pork barreler...

What is one suppose to say about John McCain winning the Republican nomination for Senate in Arizona after all he’s been through. The Republicans don’t like him because many figure he’s a sell out to their party principles. After all, the story line says, anyone who teams up with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform must be insane or senile. The Democrats would like to like McCain because they like mavericks and he would attempt to compromise with them on a variety of national issues. The thing...

I envy Florida voters who as expected have three decent choices on the Nov. 2 election ballot for their next U.S. Senator. I would be surprised if any received more than 42% of the vote, it’s that close. The guy I find most intriguing is current governor, former Republican and now Independent, Charlie Crist, both as a candidate and how he would handle himself in the Senate should fate fall his way. As candidate, Crist, unlike his two opponents, can remain true to his personal doctrine of what’s...

It’s my business to blow peoples’ bubbles to smithereens when they are not focused on the ball in play. Those primary elections and runoffs in five states Tuesday, well, the outcomes don’t mean a hill of beans. The real news — the stuff that counts — is the housing market continues to collapse if it already isn’t gasping its last breath. Sales of existing homes plunged 27.2% nationally in July. Mark my word, it will be adjusted downward — meaning worse — as was June and May. It was...

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s one and only true conservative Republican on their airwaves issued this warning to what he threatened to be his former comrade in arms. I don’t know how much courage it took Joe to make such a pronouncement but it reminds me when conservative Republicans Sens. Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater marched into the Oval Office and told President Nixon it was time to quit because of the Watergate scandal. More from MediaMatters.

I am reading about the recall of a half billion eggs from two Iowa farms that are linked to 1,300 cases of salmonella poisoning. It got me to wondering that thank God we have government inspectors looking out for our health and safety. Perish that thought. Inspectors were lax and their responsibilities overlapped. The FDA oversees inspections of shell eggs, while the Agriculture Department is in charge of inspecting other egg products. They duplicate inspections by state officials. And never shall...

Willie Brown is the shrewdest, most accomplished, most polished and by far the best dressed politician I have known in my long lifetime. He is now advancing in years but the wealth of political knowledge still flows as fluently as the water spills from the Oroville Dam in northern California down the California Aqueduct to the last farming and tiny town on the border with Mexico. Forget Willie Brown was a Democrat. His three decades as member and Speaker of the California state Assembly and eight...

There is a brotherhood of newspaper, radio and television folks in San Diego that are in a twitter (the old definition) over the face of one of the city’s oldest institutions. — Its daily newspaper. The San Diego Union-Tribune under new ownership last year chose this week to launch a Botox version of its former self. Both the print version and its on-line close cousin some knucklehead genius in the old days renamed to SignOnSanDiego.com was unveiled. The reaction was mixed. Old newspaper...

Time out, you political hacks who think you know everything. It’s time for a brief respite. Bobby Thomson is dead. He was 86. Although not the greatest player by a long shot in his time, Bobby Thomson hit “The Shot Heard Around the World.” His three-run homer for the New York Giants in the bottom of the ninth inning in the third game of the 1951 National League playoff beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4 to overcome the dreaded rival’s 13 1/2-game lead in mid-August. I was a freshman in high school...

Nothing catches the attention of the media faster than a speeding bullet as the word “boycott.” And, when the president of the Los Angeles teachers union representing 40,000 teachers threatens such action again a circulation-diminishing major newspaper like the Los Angeles Times, it could get interesting. The Times has been crusading for years against poor and shoddy performances in the Los Angeles Unified School district, the nation’s second largest, and never in its storied history has been...

Those of us living out the twilight of our lives — you know, that idiotic expression “the golden years” — have personally witnessed history repeat itself over and over again. Because it is in the news ad nausea, the latest soup de jour hysteria is a planned Muslim outreach center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. Throwing gasoline on an already incendiary proposal is our first black president who supports the project in the constitutional realm of freedom of speech and religion. As...