In a recent piece about how the GOP seems to be bent on blowing off the Latino vote, Shaun Mullen sees the Latino answer to the GOP as being “¡Muéranse!” or drop dead. I believe that the GOP begets — deserves — such a reaction because the GOP has, for years, been telling Latinos exactly the same. According to the New York Times, seven Republican presidential candidates are telling Latinos...

I have pointedly refrained from commenting on the OWS protests now transpiring worldwide, prior to this date. The Antisemitic  ”Antisemitism” smear from the RNC last week There is a good reason for this: generally when I write about a topic, I like to know something about it. I like to THINK about it. The early reports and coverage presented us with a wealth of information, but a paucity of knowledge. Now,...

Of all my articles to date, the one that has drawn the most attention made the simple claim that in the political and economic histories of nations, “phase changes” happen, and that one might be about to happen here in the USA. A phase change, which may happen once every few generations, causes a country to move down a dramatically different path that had been predicted by no one. I wrote, We cannot see...

Occupy Wall Street organizers, such as they are, can thank police overreaction as much as anything for keeping the nationwide protests going. There is a question as to how long the protests can be sustained with colder weather arriving in northern latitudes and snow predicted this weekend in some areas, but the movement got a timely boost this week when Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran who served...

If Halloween by itself wasn’t frightening enough, this Oct. 31 has been set by U.N. demographers as the official day when the 7 billionth person will be born, as TIME says, “on a planet already strapped for resources.” No one knows where this 7 billionth person will “officially” be born, albeit TIME says he or she may be born in India, “which will be the world’s most populous nation by 2030.” Halloween...

America is a gun-sick country, a place where people can legally possess and in some cases carry weapons specifically designed to kill large numbers of people. Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between, as James Carville famously remarked, and the Dixie-like legislature is so in love with guns that they are easier to obtain in the Keystone State than a driver’s license or —...

Democrats offer a $3 trillion debt reduction of tax increases and spending cuts, including as much as $500 billion in savings from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs to revive the Obama-Boehner Grand Bargain on the debt ceiling that Eric Cantor and his Tea Party House cohorts torpedoed last summer. The proposal would include as much as $300 billion to stimulate the economy, but this would require Republicans...

When it comes to the Tea Party and OWS, I have been both sympathetic with the goals of both groups and critical of some elements of the movements. But it does sound like a double standard is in play. Obviously we need to wait and find out the facts, but if the Tea Party is required to pay fees and provide porta potties, insurance, etc to stage a protest and OWS is allowed to do so for free, that is wrong. Doesn’t...

And you can bet safety is the more likely loser. AP says that one out of every five Americans lives in a community that pays a for-profit company to install and operate cameras that record traffic violations. That’s 700 communities in nearly half the states have for-profit deals. USA Today: Some contracts restrict police from doing things like lengthening the yellow signal and leave taxpayers holding...

Texas has been toying with the idea of issuing a so-called “vanity” license plate that contains the Confederate battle flag. A vote on this controversial issue could come as soon as next month. A previous vote on this issue this past April ended in a 4-4 tie. “The plate has been proposed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an ancestral history group involved in previous dust-ups over displays of the...

At least a dozen demons answer to the name Anonymous. At one time these demons had names, but they’ve lurked so long under the cloak of anonymity that their names have simply been forgotten. They abide in just about every corner of the blogosphere. Mean spirited comments attached to meaningless user names. Wickedness with a handle. Sin with a disembodied avatar. In the internet age we know more than...

IF CAIN BECOMES PRESIDENT, GET READY TO PAY MORE FOR STAPLES I am not an economist nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I have enough smarts (barely) to understand that the tax proposals being pushed by Republican president wannabes are, for the most part, flapdoodle in service of coddling the rich while further screwing the middle class and poor. That, of course, is exactly what Representative...

NO, NOT THAT AMAZON ! It is hard to believe that Amazon is now 15 years old and keeps on growing. No, make that growing relentlessly as it announced last night that its third-quarter earnings were up a staggering 44 percent to $10.88 billion. I used to feel a bit guilty about spending my dinero at Amazon and not a local mom and pop store, but when you consider that the last half dozen things that I have ordered...

Kathy Gill points to RSAnimate on the book I’m reading now, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World… In this new RSAnimate, renowned psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist explains how our ‘divided brain’ has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society. Taken from a lecture given by Iain McGilchrist as part of the RSA’s free...

Asked recently if the U.S. could build the Hoover Dam today, historian Michael Hiltzik doesn’t hesitate to say that it probably could not. The Hoover Dam, of course, was built at the depths of the Great Depression, a magnificent monument to modern engineering, the bravery of its fearless hardhat builders and the “Can Do” ethic that not even the depression could vanquish. Today America is...

by WALTER BRASCH We know the names of every one of the 4,479 Americans who were killed and the 32,200 who were wounded, both civilian and military, between March 20, 2003 and Oct. 21, 2011, the day President Barack Obama, fulfilling a campaign promise, declared the last American soldier would leave Iraq before the end of the year. We know Second Lieutenant Therrel Shane Childers was the first American soldier...

Anti is a revolutionary prefix. When joined with the right name, system, or organization, it can change the course of a nation. Anti topples entrenched regimes and tyrannical dictatorships. Anti unites diverse factions under a shared purpose; a purpose often rooted in anger and frustration. Anti is seldom a solution for the future. Instead, it is a judgement on the past. Anti might not know how to solve...

A few months ago, I commented on a piece by Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts at the Miami Herald calling birthers “morons,” ”jackasses,” “imbeciles,” “idiots,” “doofuses” and “pinheads.” He also called the birther movement “not just claptrap, but profoundly racist claptrap.” I said, “While I agree with Pitts on the claptrap,...

I will reveal here a controversial assertion that is — if not explicitly denied, then most assuredly implicitly trampled upon in common practice — as deceptively and seductively simple as it seems: words actually mean something, and what they mean matters. Note the Liberty [Phrygian] Cap on pole I will grant the Opposition’s case that in point of fact words are useless and as often used to...

I don’t remember anymore when I first started to seriously lament and write about the dearth of recognition received by our heroes whom we sent into harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan and who “gave it all,” including, at times, their lives. With the award of several Medals of Honor, President Obama has started to more justly recognize the many instances of ”conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity...

As inured as I should be to Republican obstructionism at this point, it still boggles my mind that with 14 million Americans unemployed and the economy taking only baby steps toward a recovery, the GOP continues to block President Obama’s job creation bill despite its overwhelming popularity among voters. With that in mind, the president sets out today on a three-day tour of Western states with a new...

President Obama today announced an expansion of the program to help homeowners who need to modify their mortgage. Specifically the program will now allow those who are significantly underwater on their loans to qualify for the program. Previously the program only allowed those who were within 25% of value to participate. This left many out in the cold in states like Florida, Arizona, Nevada and California because...

“The bodies of Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and former Defense Minister Abu Bakr Younis had been held in cold storage in the port city of Misurata since the dictator and members of his entourage were captured near his hometown of Sirte on Thursday. Gaddafi and Mutassim were captured alive, with some injuries, but died in unclear circumstances later that day. “Libya’s interim leaders have promised...

Bill Day, Cagle Cartoons This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Bexar County is pronounced “Behar” just as “Texas” ought to be pronounced “Tehas,” which undoubtedly explains the cluelessness of Fox News as they ejaculated their fear all over the airwaves this week. click here for YouTube I happened to be, literally, right across the street at the time that the TERROR scare was happening.