Archive
Record Bank Profits and the American Dream Foreclosed
All of us will be hurting for years because Washington is refusing to make the banks eat the debt bubble they created. Instead, the bailed-out banks are walking away with record profits and fat bonuses.
Selling a City’s Soul, for Chicken Feed
KFC, the fast-food chicken chain, has already gotten permission from Indianapolis to whiz on its hydrants. As part of an advertising blitz, KFC has plastered the city’s water taps with a smiling photo of corporate founder Colonel Sanders, along with a slogan promoting the chain’s new “fiery” chicken wings.
Next, We’ll Sell Senate Seats to Exxon Mobil and AT&T
I think we should do away with the charade of elections, at least for the Senate. Let’s replace them with an auction. I mean a real auction, with an auctioneer and gavel.
New American Crisis
You might have some idea if you’ve ever found yourself facing foreclosure on your home; or worked at a company that was downsizing and laying people off; or enrolled in a college where the tuition keeps doubling; or faced salary freezes year after year, even while the cost of living rises. Most of us know how those things feel. It’s the feeling of losing control over your destiny. Get used to that feeling. It has just become what it feels like to be a citizen of the United States of America.
Boondoggle Sidetracks Crops for Renewable Energy
The U.S. Department of Agriculture skipped the crop establishment program and instead launched a minor provision intended to help develop new collection, harvest, storage, and transport methods by matching the price paid for delivered biomass, up to $45 a ton. The USDA didn’t draft rules or put them out for comment, but instead issued a simple notice of funding availability with few restrictions.
Let’s Pretend to Do Something about Climate Change
More than 190 nations have now agreed: Climate Change is bad and we ought to do something about it…let’s meet again someday to decide what. Naturally, low-lying islands want quicker action. So do lands whose life-giving glaciers are melting, or whose rivers are drying up, and whose wells have gasped their last.
Free at Last
Afghanistan: This War Won’t Work
The recent Taliban attacks on Kabul provide another wake-up call about why this war in Afghanistan simply isn’t going to work. It won’t bring security to Afghans. It won’t turn Afghanistan into a democracy. And it won’t make us safer.
Robbing Grandma to Reward Wall Street
When I grew up in Texas, the dance we all learned was the Texas two-step. But times have changed. The next big dance these days could be called the Social Security double shuffle. A good number of senators are waltzing to the music of the “let’s cut Social Security” crowd by trying to sell a solution to the deficit designed to hack apart the government-guaranteed retirement plan we’ve had since the 1930s.
A Global Game that Never Ends
Yemen? Yes, boys and girls, it’s time to look at our world atlas again, to see where America’s tax dollars and troops are headed next.
