In Praise of Bureaucrats

Brad Johnson at The Wonk Room calls out the “Climate Peacocks” in Congress who are ostentatiously shaking their tailfeathers in mock outrage over the very idea that the Environmental Protection Agency might actually act as agents of environmental protection: Earlier this month, 47 senators — every Republican and six Democrats — voted for Sen. Lisa […]

Welcome to The State of Hate: Armed Nazis To Patrol AZ Border

The racist outrages are coming so thick and fast out of Arizona these days that was probably only a matter of time before some Nazi group took advantage of the situation to put itself on the media map. And — whaddaya know! — here they come, right on schedule. According to Stephen Lemon of the […]

The True Cost of Freedom — Progressives, Sacrifice, and Civilization

As I write this, it’s Memorial Day down in the US. All over the country, the flags are flying and the high school bands are playing and the parades are queuing up. (So are the shoppers, hitting the sales at the mall.) And of course, it wouldn’t be Memorial Day In America without old veterans […]

Glenn Beck’s Common Nonsense: An Interview With Alex Zaitchik

America has this long tradition of twisted, odd, widely beloved and yet darkly dangerous right-wing cultural impresarios that pop up out of our landscape like cultural tornadoes, leaving huge swaths of derangement and destruction in their wake. Aimee Semple McPherson. Father Coughlin. Joe McCarthy. Once in a while, when the cultural cross-currents intersect just so, […]

Glenn Beck’s Common Nonsense: An Interview With Alex Zaitchik

The change agenda at America’s Future NOW! Alexander Zaitchik will be featured on a panel entitled “Tea Parties, Beck, Bachman and Blarney” REGISTER NOWfor AFN 2010 America has this long tradition of twisted, odd, widely beloved and yet darkly dangerous right-wing cultural impresarios that pop up out of our landscape like cultural tornadoes, leaving huge […]

Tuesday’s Primaries: Tea Party 0, Democracy 5

Suppose they gave a tea party and nobody came? That’s pretty much what happened on Tuesday, as the first wave of Tea Party primary candidates all went down to abject humiliation at the hands of the voters. Skippy the bush kangaroo surveys the catastrophe (note: evidently, kangaroos don’t use shift keys. And in the interest […]

America’s Carbon Addiction: This Is An Intervention

George W. Bush — who knew a thing or two about addiction — was right about one thing: America is addicted to fossil fuels. Looking at the recent headlines, it’s becoming clear that history, Gaia, and our neighbors have all had enough. Look around the room. Look at their faces. They mean it: they’re staging […]