Bits & Pieces
Articles with unfiltered opinions
Where Are the Jobs?
Election year is a favorite time to lament slow job growth. The vast majority of voters are at the mercy of the job market and rightfully expect their elected officials to foster a thriving economy in which they can find and maintain gainful employment. In fact, new poll data says that today’s bleak employment...
Don’t Buy the Bullshit
Unless you threw your TV out the window (not a bad idea, by the way), you know that the fights for Congress this year and the White House in 2016 are already heating up. With the Democrats and Republicans locked in a fierce struggle, the nasty chatter from the political right and the propaganda...
Dirty Tricks Alert
If you thought the campaigns against President Obama were vicious, the next national elections are shaping up to be even worse. Republican campaign strategists and activists are already rolling out deceptive tactics like phony websites to subvert Democratic campaigns and spreading disinformation to suppress the minority vote. The only way to fight the coming...
America’s Challenge
Ask a million different people what America’s number-one problem is and you’ll probably get a million different answers. But at the root of most of our troubles is one thing: lack of education. People cling to false beliefs and become susceptible to propaganda and deception when they haven’t developed the skills to critically examine...
The Unseen Obscenity
Back in 1977, I wrote an editorial proclaiming that the real obscenity of our time isn’t pornography; it’s war. That hasn’t changed. In some ways warfare has become more brutally impersonal and indecent than ever. Consider our country’s expanding policy of covert operations with military drones. Scores of civilians abroad are being killed and...
An Unhealthy Attitude
In a glaring example of how divided our nation has be come, almost half the country is still refusing to comply with the law of the land. At this writing, 21 of the states in our Union have enacted laws and measures to opt out of or oppose provisions in the Affordable Care Act....
Cruel and All Too Usual
A recent study by the American Civil Liberties Union found that over 3,200 people in this country are serving life terms without parole for nonviolent crimes. The vast majority of them have been locked up for victimless, drug-related offenses—and most of the prisoners are African American. This trend of gross injustice results from the...
Year of Reckoning
Election year 2014 is upon us, and the time has come to call our representatives to account. In 2013 Republicans in Congress delivered a shameful, unprecedented spectacle of disregard for the American people that cannot be excused or forgotten. This is no longer a matter of a few Tea Party wacko birds. The government...
Order in the Court
I know from personal experience that the most important thing a U.S. President can do is use his power to appoint judges to our country’s most powerful courts. Long after the chief executive has left office, the justices will still be there, making decisions that will affect every aspect of our lives. That’s why...
Why You Should Vote the Democratic Ticket
Your job has just begun. Every citizen’s number-one duty is to vote. But after you do that, it’s not over. Democracy is a daily struggle. No matter who’s in the top job, you have to keep the heat on. Make your voices heard. Protest injustice, take back the political process and see to it...
Take Out the Trash
I have a history of exposing politicians, particularly when it comes to their private lives. A juicy sex scandal used to result in a politician being disgraced out of office. His or her political career would be dead. It was a good way to clear out the trash every once in a while. But...
The Real Surveillance Problem
It’s a damn shame we have to rely on dubious characters like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange to ignite a real debate about our Fourth Amendment right to privacy. The ones who should be raising the alarm are our elected representatives in Congress, not some ham-handed whistleblowers. The problem is not that we have...
Justice, Not Vengeance
At press time, Joseph Paul Franklin—the serial murderer who confessed to shooting me in 1978—was scheduled to be executed in Missouri on November 20. People ask me if I’m glad to see him die. I confess, I do feel a certain amount of satisfaction at the idea. But that only confirms my view that...
Don’t Be Ashamed
The recent trend of firing teachers for previously working in the adult industry or posing nude is outrageous. One of them, Olivia Sprauer, was even canned for just being a swimsuit model. This kind of policy belongs to the era of sexual repression, not the 21st century. It’s time to keep backward morality out...
Hands Off Social Security
For those of us who took President Obama’s pledges of “hope” and “change” seriously, his administration has been a disappointment. But few of his concessions have been as painful as his recent budget proposal to cut Social Security benefits by lowering cost-of-living adjustments. The new measure—dubbed the Chained Consumer Price Index—would hit the most...
