Injustice Department

Injustice Department

It isn’t so much that I’m against balancing the budget. It’s that I think firing public employees is a lousy way to create jobs. I’ll say this for that strategy though: it beats throwing grandma from the train, which is the other big...
Budgeting for Ignorance

Budgeting for Ignorance

Will Rogers said that when Congress is in session, the public gets the same panicky feeling as “when the baby gets hold of a hammer.” Rogers’ observation can also be applied to the mayhem that has broken out in various smash-happy state legislatures....
Power Plays

Power Plays

Flip on that switch, Who cares the source; We’ll get gouged For it, of course. Energy production is too vital to be left to private industry’s tender mercies. Therefore, sensible nations run that sector of the economy themselves. Unfortunately, there...
Sleazy Corporate Holiday

Sleazy Corporate Holiday

My father, long dead, spent his working years in tool and die shops in Detroit, an experience from which he crafted a political, economic, and social philosophy of life. “They’re all in it together,” he would say. That was the very core of the...
Massey Energy’s Man-Made Hell Hole

Massey Energy’s Man-Made Hell Hole

West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch coal mine was a disaster even before it exploded into an underground inferno last year, killing 29 miners. A new investigative report by federal safety inspectors found that this mine — owned by the enormously profitable...