Despite having agreed — cowardly so, in my view — to continue Bush Era tax cuts that disproportionately favor the wealthy, it’s likely that a component of President Obama’s re-election platform will be a call to level the playing field through the so-called Buffet Rule, which would insure that no household making more than $1 million a year pays a lower tax rate than middle class families do. Warren Buffet likes to point out that despite being a billionaire, he pays a lower...

This is the sixth year that I am kicking off a new year with a post on the overall state of affairs in the U.S. Some three of these posts riffed on the cowardice of our political elite while a fourth was on what I called The End of an Error, the merciful conclusion of the eight-year Bush-Cheney interregnum, which was as visceral an example of cowardice masquerading as courage seen in my lifetime. And so looking back on the year just passed, I find myself returning once again — and with even...

Sometimes, albeit rarely, politicians speak truths. They don’t mean to do so, but the words come tumbling out. And so it was with House Majority Leader John Boehner, who in his last press conference of the year following the House’s reluctant passage of the extension of pay roll tax deductions and unemployment benefits, spoke the following truth: “Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing, and sometimes it’s politically difficult to do the right thing.” ...

Jon Swift was a satirist without peer in the blogosphere before his untimely death in 2009. Every year’s end since then, blogger Bottachio has carried on Jon’s tradition of posting a round-up of bloggers’ best self-selected work for the year. Click here for the 2011 edition.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’S MAN OF THE YEAR Barring a major development, this will be my last post of 2011, and I thought I would go out with a bang as well as a bit of back patting. While the Democrats and President Obama have not always covered themselves in glory, the bang is a one-word description of the historic mess that the Republican Party has made of things during the year. This is a toxic cocktail of disdain for the middle class and an open loathing of minorities, seniors, the poor and...

I’ve come to view late fall bird feeder activity as an indication of the severity of the coming winter and it looks like this winter will be . . . um, average. The average snowfall at the mountain retreat is about 50 inches a year and there already was a freak one-foot snowfall in late October, so the average is likely to be topped if the pattern of January and February snows holds. But it also has been a warmer than average fall, so who the heck knows? * * * * * I heated with wood for something...

The routine is now familiar: Senate Republicans are in rare agreement with their Democratic colleagues and the GOP’s House leadership is poised to do likewise, but then reverses field, prompting the party’s Senate leadership to renege on its commitment. And so in less than 24 hours, House Speaker John Boehner, having said he approved of the short-term, bipartisan Senate measure to extend a payroll tax break and unemployment insurance, turned tail and said his colleagues (read the Tea...

Following in the footsteps of Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich’s campaign seems to be imploding with the Iowa caucuses approaching as the skeletons come tumbling out of his closet in the form of attack ads by Ron Paul and a host of surrogate groups who fear that his nomination would be a disaster. No surprise here. Attack ads from LBJ’s infamous anti-Barry Goldwater daisy petals and mushroom cloud ad in 1964 on have long proven to be effective,...

The planet has gone around the sun six times since my blog, Kiko’s House, baby-walked onto the scene, and the inexhaustible supply of rich material keeps coming in torrents, making practically every day an adventure in bathos, pathos, mythos and . . . uh, hathos. Herewith some posts from the past 12 months, many of which were cross-posted at The Moderate Voice, in which I stuck my neck out. And as events would prove, occasionally got it loped off.

Former Penn State defense coordinator Jerry Sandusky has continued to declare his innocence despite a small mountain of allegations against him, but in testimony at a preliminary hearing today former assistant coach Mike McQueary put a stake through Sandusky’s claim that he merely engaged in horseplay with the 10 boys who have accused him of sexual abuse. McQueary, recalling a 2002 incident in the football team’s locker room, said he peeked into the shower several times and saw Sandusky...

Christopher Hitchens left this mortal coil on Thursday. Herewith my review of his biography, which was originally posted in October 2010. The last of the several times that I have had the pleasure of being in the same room with Christopher Hitchens was at a university colloquium on the Iraq War. The indefatigable journalist-essayist had supported this fool’s errand at its outset but eventually had come to oppose aspects of it, as well as feel deep guilt after he learned that a young California...

ROY GREENSLADE: Christopher Hitchens managed to be both inspirational and infuriating company. Inspirational because of his wit and his ability in discussions to adopt a counter-intuitive position and argue it with vigour even when it became obvious he believed the opposite. He was infuriating because he always dominated conversations and effortlessly attracted female attention despite appearing not to seek it. GRAYDON CARTER: He was a man of insatiable appetites—for cigarettes, for scotch, for...

That the true story of the 2005 massacre of 20 Iraqi civilians, including an elderly man in a wheelchair and women and children, has finally come out because an Iraqi was using transcripts of secret interviews with the Marines involved to cook dinner is a fitting coda to a nearly nine-year war that officially ended today. The events in the town of Haditha in Anbar Province were a horrific aberration, but they are described in dehumanized and almost blasé terms by commanders in the province as,...

Africa is a country. The Taliban rule in Libya. Muslims are terrorists. Immigrants are mostly criminals, Occupy Wall Street protesters are always dirty. And women who claim to have been sexually molested should kindly keep quiet. Welcome to the wonderful world of the Republican Party. ~ DER SPIEGEL Barack Obama, his back to the wall because of a recession he inherited, an opposition party happy to see ordinary Americans suffer, as well as problems of his own making, must believe in his heart of...

As bad ideas go, Newt Gingrich’s challenge to President Obama to meet him for a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates has something for everyone. For Gingrich supporters, it has them chomping at the bit to see the best of the Republican presidential pack as a debater take on a president who pretty good rhetorical chops. For Obama supporters, it raises the prospect of the incumbent disemboweling the challenger over his whackier ideas. For a public exhausted by the never ending Republican debates,...

Newt Gingrich, who is surging in the polls as the Iowa Republican caucuses draw nearer, is proposing a massive tax cut that has gotten much too little attention. That is probably a good thing for the presidential wannabe because it is exactly what most Americans don’t want and Washington can’t afford as it grapples with the aftershocks of the Bush Recession. The tax cuts are aimed at the highest earning households. Most of the lowest income families would get no benefit, while 1 percenters,...

For House Republicans determined to coddle the rich and kneecap the middle class and the poor, it’s a new week but the same old spit. In conceding that the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits be extended for another year, the GOP’s latest spending bill would cut social spending more deeply than is already anticipated under current budget caps and basically put the Environmental Protection Agency out of the business of regulating the environment. The bill would also impose onerous...

Jerry Sandusky leaving the Centre County Courthouse this morning. The disgraced former assistant football coach at Penn State charged with 52 counts of sexually molesting 10 boys he met through a charity he ran, waived his right to a preliminary hearing this morning. As the proceedings began in a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania courtroom, Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer approached the bench and told Judge Robert E. Scott that his client had chosen to waive his right to the hearing. The case will now enter...

These smiling folks are Kathy and Bill Johnson. Bill is a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arkansas. Kathy is the freaked out wife of a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arkansas. Kathy is freaked out because she learned over the weekend that Bill, who as a Christian conservative had campaigned against same sex marriage, has donated sperm to several lesbian women. The New Zealand Herald reported that while volunteering for earthquake recovery in Christchurch, Bill had used...

Maria Altman: Pursuer of looted paintings. Sai Baba: Whose guru are you? Swami Bahktipada: Naughy swami. Joe Bageant: His last deer hunt. George Ballas: Mr. Weed Whacker. Billy Bang: Viet vet jazz violinist. Daniel Bell: Engaged intellectual. Barry Blumberg: He defeated Hepatitis C. Fred Buckles: Last American WWI vet. Mike Campbell: He stood his ground. Click here to read more.