Congressional Republicans are trying to keep alleged White House “scandals” simmering well past al dente doneness. As facts unfold, it’s more like vainly trying to keep a wave upon the sandy beach.
Let’s remember last year’s GOP presidential primaries. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) made a seemingly intoxicated tirade about a tax return the size of a postcard.… [Read more]
The taxman is the Rodney “No Respect” Dangerfield of government employees. The latest hubbub over alleged Internal Revenue Service “targeting” of government-critical conservative groups is the latest ‘Tempest in a Teapot’ only Congressional Republicans could wail about. You’d think the President dug up ole Geo. Washington’s sacred bones and used them for White House Halloween decorations.… [Read more]
The continuing Benghazi debacle on Capitol Hill has all the marks of a Cecil B. DeMille Hollywood blockbuster. Starring the Marx Brothers.
“Impeachment,” hinted Sen. James “Lousy Okie Pilot” Inhofe (R-Okla.) as he made another pass at Runway ‘X’ and as construction workers scurried to safety. Inhofe is still mad at the Federal Aviation Administration for questioning his airmanship skills.… [Read more]
April has come and gone, and virtually all of us have dutifully filed a tax return or an extension. The anti-tax mob hasn’t gone anywhere. Somebody’s going to have to pay the tab, according to their means. Despite the sequester that wasn’t supposed to be, replete with “For special friends of Rick’s” special interest mulligans, the bugaboo of taxation hasn’t left us.… [Read more]
One has to have a sense of humor to be President of the United States. We saw with Tricky Dick Nixon how anger becomes paranoia, and “All The President’s Men” turned into a gaggle of bumbling cat burglars out of the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges. Has-been conservative firebrand G. Gordon Liddy probably has an understandable aversion to dining off metal trays from his inmate years.… [Read more]
In the aftermath of the recent Boston Marathon bombing, Republicans now complain why we “ignored” warnings from Russian intelligence about the alleged culprits. How times change. Just as the Reagan Administration cozied up with the Taliban as “freedom fighters” as long as they were killing Russians, offshoots such as al Queda went from “partisans” to pariahs when the sponsored attack dogs started biting the hands that fed them.… [Read more]
Hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen, currently under the microscope for alleged insider trading and getting underlings to take the rap for more sleazy deals in the pursuit of mo’ money, is probably relieved that similarly named Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen (D) draws the limelight from financier Cohen’s less savory activities for tweets about how hot fifty-something punk rocker Cyndi Lauper still is.… [Read more]
All who serve this nation overseas do not wear uniforms. State Department Foreign Service officer Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was one of five Americans killed by a car bomb blast in Afghanistan Saturday.
She served her nation with distinction.
Not all who give their lives are trained warriors. The four U.S. soldiers who also made the ultimate sacrifice in the attack were likely well armed.… [Read more]
“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.” – Jimmy Buffett
As an expat native of the Empire State, I recall introducing Appalachian mountain people in newsprint to the often comical twists of New York politics as a sidebar. In 2010, New York’s gubernatorial race featured a conservative Republican named Crazy Carl Paladino, who proceeded to run the hapless Rightie ticket into the electoral dirt of defeat in a Blue state.… [Read more]
In the United Nations despised by many conservatives, a strange thing happened on the way to the General Assembly by Manhattan’s East River last week. The international treaty on reducing the unfettered flow of arms the National Rifle Association and its paid shills on the GOP side of the aisle in Congress are fighting tooth and nail found the gun lobby odd new allies in the international body.… [Read more]
When the news wires revealed that a Mississippi Republican state representative apparently shot herself to death Sunday, the hurried rush to look for possible scandal was tempered with the restraint passed on to current day scribes by journalists before us,
I am a political columnist. That means I’m one of the writers inhabiting the great Washington swamp chronicling the food chain in action. … [Read more]
Last year was particularly hard on the fortunes of Tea Party doyenne Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) After a flop at seeking the Party of No nod for President, and Bachmann’s months of proudly proclaiming her childhood Iowa roots, voters in her 6th Congressional District in Minnesota noticed their Congresswoman was off politicking for the White House, playing Tea Party ideologue, and AWOL from her constituents. … [Read more]
Part of the fallout from our current recession has been the growth of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), neé ‘Food Stamps,” participation throughout the nation. This Federal program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Food & Nutrition Service and the states, provides non-cash food assistance to households in impoverished financial distress.
Republican conservatives regularly use SNAP as a poster child for lambasting ‘welfare’.… [Read more]
I can remember back, even in the “go-go” defense spending days of an administration which proved a matinee cowboy actor could get elected President, when this writer was a Navy Supply Corps officer. In my “beans, bullets, and black oil” portfolio came the responsibility of competitive bidding in procurement from private industry. By statute, regulation, and policy, we were to shop the marketplace for the best deal for mission effectiveness and value to the American taxpayer.… [Read more]
“If standing for the Constitution, standing for liberty, standing for conservative values makes one a wacko bird … then I am pleased that birds of a feather flock together.” – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Little Havana)
Viewed as a 2016 rising star, the freshman senator from Florida accomplished in one short speech, calling liberals “freeloaders,” what unsuccessful 2012 Presidential wannabe Mitt “Mitt WHO?” Romney (R-Bain) labored several years to get ineptly caught at with his infamous “47%” secretly videotaped, campaign scuttling, fundraiser remark.… [Read more]
Remember the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)? Yes, the billionaire Koch Bros./Corporate America shadowy group feeding Right-wing boilerplate bill language to “help” write legislative bills. In their favor, of course. For all their money, they still aren’t omnipotent.
Last week, in Georgia, far from being a bastion of liberalism, a bill fronted by ALEC shill state Rep.… [Read more]
It appears many of the Republican “true believers” aren’t observing Ronald Reagan’s famed Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Add one more to the discarded pro-choice and sensible gun control missives of the Matinee Cowboy’s purged lines.
In the spirit of “Beware the Ides of March,” there’s a tempest in the G.O.P.… [Read more]
Talk about bad timing. Late last week, when we honored International Women’s Day, across the wires came the story of an Air Force general quietly nullifying a Lieutenant Colonel’s recent court-martial conviction and prison sentence for aggravated sexual assault.
Members of Congress, headed by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), angrily protested, demanding answers from senior Air Force officials as well as the newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.… [Read more]
Yesterday was International Women’s Day. Looking at the events and purpose of the day, I now propose we men take a sensible step back from the underarm-applied testosterone supplement bathroom mirror world view of our receding hairlines to reflect on some still unfinished business. In this country, we need a renewed push for the still unenacted Equal Rights Amendment.… [Read more]
Those of us in the political pundit class tend to be big fans of Frank Capra’s 1939 Jimmy Stewart classic Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Some of us keep replaying the film often enough to keep the lines fresh among the decaying political plant fiber in the Washington swamp.
Before the fabled filibuster was reduced from rare drama to daily droll by Senate Republicans under Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), once upon a time, filibustering was a marathon talking event.… [Read more]
