All over the world, and now here in the United States with the so-called "fiscal cliff" accounting crisis, ordinary people are being told that they must tighten their belts. Why? In order to pay the bills of wealthy elite individuals and corporations that enjoyed almost all of the profits of the boom times and indeed are continuing to live lavishly today.
Based on an actual conversation between me and another member of the human race, this cartoon is a commentary on the shrinking attention span of the American public. Quite literally, I had a college educated friend fail to understand one of my tweets because he skimmed it rather than read it. You know society is about to collapse when 140 characters is simply too much.
A little noticed aspect of the fiscal cliff deal between congressional Republicans and the White House involved the establishment of a new way to calculate the federal inflation rate. Now we will have the so-called "chained consumer price index." The chained CPI literally assumes that, as products increase in price, we don't have to actually counts them as having increased in price because consumers can replace those more expensive items with cheaper substitutes. This allows the government to claim that inflation is lower or nonexistent, thus denying recipients of Social Security and other federal entitlement programs their right to a cost of living increase.
In the fiscal cliff deal, congressional Republicans and Democrats agreed not to raise taxes on all Americans earning under $400,000 a year – in other words, everyone gets a tax cut except the top 0.5% of income earners. Even if you are an unmarried couple earning $800,000 a year, you qualify for a so-called "middle class tax cut." In what country could someone earning that kind of money he considered middle-class? Only in the United States in the year 2013. Everybody is middle-class, from the homeless to the middle classy. As for those who earn over $800,000 a year as an unmarried couple or $400,000 as an individual, well, hell, we never see them anyway.
The US Supreme Court is currently considering allowing police to draw your blood involuntarily without a warrant in the event that you refuse a breathalyzer test if you are suspected of drunk driving. It is an incredibly invasive procedure, but the authorities and the courts are siding with the cops because, incredibly, they complained that sometimes it is too difficult to get search warrants for your veins and arteries quickly enough before your blood alcohol level dissipates to legal levels.
Laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increased use of biofuels have contributed to soaring food prices and land shortages in Third World countries like Guatemala. What are the people affected to do? Maybe if we're going to put their food into our gas tanks, they can put our gas into their stomachs.
The president's defenders told liberals and progressives that Obama would burst out as a liberal during his second term. But he renewed 99.5% of Bush's tax cuts for the rich. He nominated Chuck Hagel, a homophobic Republican, as Secretary of Defense. For Treasury Secretary he picked a veteran of Citibank who bet on the housing market to collapse. What's going on? Maybe Obama will turn into FDR in his third term.
After a bunch of school children are killed, American police track the killer to Pakistan. There they run into some legal problems: not only did the killer use a drone instead of an assault rifle, he had a full-fledged legal opinion drafted by a full-fledged Pakistani lawyer justifying his drone program. And he won't let the cops read the thing. Oh well, nothing to do.
President Obama's second term cabinet is being criticized for not being diverse enough. Clearly, for example, victims of American drone attacks would much rather get killed by a secretary of defense who was African-American or Latino than an Ivy league-educated white male.
Americans hardly give a passing thought to the drone program that is unleashing death every single day in countries like Pakistan. What if the Pakistanis did the same exact thing to us?
Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced that women will be allowed to serve actively and openly as combat troops in America's ongoing wars. It's always nice to see women get the same rights as men to go out and kill innocent Muslim people.
After decades of Republican aggression and Democratic passivity, the 50-yard line of American politics has shifted so far to the right that what passes for the debate takes place only between the far right and the even further right.
President Obama's second inaugural address was a barnstormer: aggressive, expressing a strong liberal vision, even merely progressive. Where was this man four years ago, when he actually had a chance of enacting the policies he said that he favored? Back then, he was a right wing accommodationist. Nobody really knows what's going on inside his head, but it's a fair guess that like a lot of other Democrats he only fight hard when he knows he can't really win.
Writing in the Washington Post, a veteran who served in the occupation of Afghanistan reminisced about killing innocent civilians, including children, and wondered aloud whether such killing was wrong. He justified his actions based on the military's escalation of force guidelines. Of course, every military has had such guidelines in order to justify doing whatever it is that they felt like.
In an interview, Pres. Obama said that he would have to think long and hard before he sent a son off to play football because of the high risk of head injuries. Which prompts the question: would Obama let his son go to war? Now that his girls could become combat troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, in just three years, the question is no longer academic.
Demographics are changing. Angry old white men are dying. Since they were the base of the Republican Party and younger voters tend to be more liberal on social and other issues, how should the Republican Party adapt? Party stalwarts worry that the GOP might sell out its long-held cherished principles just in order to win elections. On the other hand, the Democrats did that years ago.
NBC News has leaked a white paper based on the secret memo used by the Obama Administration to justify assassinating American citizens with drones. Left unspoken is why it's more controversial to kill an American citizen than, say, a Pakistani.
The president's lawyers say he has broad powers to launch preemptive cyberattacks against other nations. The problem, as a White House official says, is selling the American people on the threat from "deadly dangerous computer code."
22 veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces commit suicide every day.
After a LAPD officer reported a partner for kicking a homeless man, he was fired for filing a false report. Then Officer Christopher Dorner went on a rampage, shooting four people before being forced to commit suicide in a burning cabin. A tragic end, but what's the alternative for people ground down by an unfair system?
55% of Liberal Democrats agree with Obama's decision to keep Guantanamo concentration camp open. 77% agree with his use of killer drones. Both are policies that liberals deplore - when the President who exercises them is a Republican.
After the confirmation hearing for John Brennan as CIA Director elicited discomfort among media and Congressional elites about targeted assassinations of US citizens, some suggested the creation of a "drone court" similar to the rubberstamp FISA court, in order to issue pseudo-judicial death warrants for victims placed on the president's "kill list."
Studies prove that employers discriminate against the unemployed, viewing them as incompetent and undesirable. What should someone who got laid off a couple of years ago do? Hire a company to hire them, and leverage their fake credentials to get the job of their dreams.
Every time Democrats argue for increasing the minimum wage, Republicans trot out the same old arguments: it will increase unemployment, employers will move overseas, and it will increase the barrier for entry for new workers. Studies repeatedly show that none of these things are true, of course, but yet they persist to be argued and reported.
The Pentagon has established a new distinguished warfare metal that actually ranks above both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, rankling those who have actually served in combat as opposed to merely piloting a drone plane.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejects a lawsuit against the government's secret spying program against Americans because its victims can't prove they're being spied upon...because it's secret.
According to a new Pentagon study, drone operators suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome at the same rate as real soldiers who fight in, you know, combat.
One year ago, Congressional Democrats and Republicans put into motion a time-bomb that would force them to come to terms over the federal budget: "the fiscal cliff" of across-the-board federal budget cuts, harsh austerity, just when the economy might be starting to recover.
The bottom 99% of wage earners in the United States lost 0.4% of their income between 2009 and 2011. The top 1% gained 11.2%. So the one percent grabbed 121% of the income gains from the so-called recovery. Can America afford much more recovery like this?
Burger King at the airport is like Burger King minus the full menu. TCBY express is like TCBY but less so. Similarly, the United States under austerity is an institution that never offered many services in the first place and is now even worse.
Automatic budget cuts known as the Sequester mean that the government will no longer be able to afford, for example, as many killer drone attacks.
As head of the Jesuit order in Argentina during the 1970s, Pope Francis was silent as Jesuit priests were arrested and tortured by thugs working for the US-backed dictatorship at the time. Of course, he was a man of faith – probably too much faith.
Senator Bob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, has opposed gay marriage. Now he has changed his mind. Why? Because his son came out as gay. The path to a politician's heart, it turns out, is through his DNA.
Won't you reach out and help our brave wounded warriors as they come home from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Both major political parties agree that deficit-reduction is suddenly the nation's top priority. As budget cuts risk plunging the economy even further into recession/depression, no one stops to ask: why now?
According to an internal GOP report, Republicans lost the 2012 presidential election because they came off as smug and uncaring. Maybe they can learn from the Democrats.
The villains who lied the American people into invading Iraq are prospering. The Iraqis they killed, not so much.
Whether it's OK to use killer drones to blow people up depends on their citizenship and geographic proximity to the Good Old USA.
Will the next generation of killer drones have extra features to win over hearts and minds in the war on terror?
Gay marriage seems to be a historical inevitability. Let the self-congratulatory gladhanding begin! Who cares if we can't make real progress on truly important issues?
Third parties can't win because people won't vote for them because they can't win because people won't vote for them.
Republicans with gay family members are coming out for gay rights, saying that familiarity breeds respect.
No doubt, critic Roger Ebert had a remarkable passion for film. His brutal final cancer years couldn't crush his enthusiasm for the form. Lost in the misty-eyed remembrances, however, was his awful taste. More than any other film reviewer, Ebert reinforced the hollow sentimentality and arrogant exceptionalism that compose the nasty side of the American character.
They say Maggie Thatcher revitalized England's economy and unleashed market forces. But her legacy is much nastier than that: she destroyed the social contract and the idea that people should help each other.
Remember when pro-Obama forces argued that an African-American president would inherently represent radical change? Now pro-Hillary Clinton forces are saying the same thing about a woman president. Will liberals fall for the same line?
Immigration reform: it's not amnesty, it's "path to citizenship" - in other words, amnesty plus a lot of bureaucratic BS.
Will your massacre get 24/7 media coverage? Depends where it is and who carries it out.
What if Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier of mahor league baseball, played as lamely as Obama?
Corporations that outsourced jobs from the U.S. to Mexico to China in search of low wage employees are now off to Cambodia. Where next?
It's got to be tough to be the son or daughter of an infamous mass murderer. In every group, however, there's always a star.
Lots of coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, but the media can't provide the context or analysis to give it meaning or relevance other than as a random act of cruelty and tragedy.
The Boston Marathon bombings have prompted Republican calls to delay immigration reform and tighten the border. But self-radicalized Muslims can be born here. The solution: conduct background checks at the womb.
Three times Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times opinion caused Thomas Friedman has a question for the Boston Marathon bombers: if you were upset with the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, why didn't you go out and build a school?
What if people in other countries used the same cheesy patriotic and nationalist rhetoric that Americans used?
Most inmates at Guantanamo Bay concentration camp are entering their third month of a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention. Guards are now force-feeding them.
A Pentagon study estimates that 26,000 victims were sexually assaulted in the military during 2012. And the top Air Force officer in charge of preventing sexual assault has been charged with attacking a woman in a parking lot.
Turns out that President Obama's threat against Syria on chemical weapons being a "red line" in the civil war there was a rare unscripted moment - one that has brought the U.S. to the brink of a rare war it doesn't want.
The IRS admits that it targeted the Obama Administration's right-wing political foes for extra scrutiny when they applied for non-profit status. You can't trust government - except when they're droning people.
As the Republicans talk about impeaching Obama over Benghazi, the IRS and AP scandals, we see the difference between the two parties: guts.
More active-duty soldiers killed themselves in 2012 than died in combat.
According to an analysis by Congress, Apple evaded $13.8 billion in US federal taxes using complicated foreign shelters and loopholes.
It's not the size of your teacher, it's how heavy she is.
Bangladesh isn't some crappy Third World country like the United States, where capitalists can crash the economy and get away clean - and loaded.
Obama’s speech appeared to expand those who are targeted in drone strikes and other undisclosed “lethal actions” in apparent anticipation of an overhaul of the 2001 congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against al Qaida and allied groups that supported the 9/11 attacks on the United States. In every previous speech, interview and congressional testimony, Obama and his top aides have said that drone strikes are restricted to killing confirmed “senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” plotting imminent violent attacks against the United States. But Obama dropped that wording Thursday, making no reference at all to senior operational leaders. While saying that the United States is at war with al Qaida and its associated forces, he used a variety of descriptions of potential targets, from “those who want to kill us” and “terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat” to “all potential terrorist targets.”
Apple's sleazy tax dodge is saving lives and keeping America safe. Don't give those billions to the feds - they'll just use it to buy killer drones! Cash is much safer in the Caymans.
Manufacturing is dead. The Internet is unmonetizable. Next comes an economy based on fear. But when does the bubble burst?
Losing your health insurance isn't all bad. For one thing, you can finally afford to see a doctor.
By a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the police can forcibly take the DNA of suspects arrested for serious crimes and add it to a national DNA database. This supposedly does not violate the Fourth Amendment restriction on unsreasonable searches because DNA swabbing of inside the cheek is "not very intrusive." Yet if you stuck your finger into a stranger's mouth, you would be arrested...and presumably swabbed.
According to classified records obtained by NBC News, the CIA doesn't know the identities of drone attack targets one out of four times.
According to NSA documents leaked by CIA analyst Edward Snowden, 29, the NSA is reading and storing every text message, email, phone call, etc. in the United States. This Orwellian surveillance state can see literally everything — but there's still one place they will never be able to look inside, the place where self-radicalization occurs.
The number of Americans who die in terrorist attacks is comparable to the number crushed to death by their televisions. So why are we building a vast surveillance state and conducting a violent drone war to prevent such a trivial threat?
In quotes adapted from published reactions by Americans to the outrageous revelation that the government is spying on all Americans, let's wonder what it would take to stir up anger or surprise.
President Obama says the NSA's surveillance programs against American citizens are "transparent." Indeed, there is a legal veneer — memos that validate them, secret courts that supervise them, a few Congressmen who are briefed — but true legality cannot be the result of secrecy. Welcome to the Age of Legalish.
What if we devoted a proportional number of financial and other resources to threats other than terrorism?
The Taliban has opened a new office in Doha, Qatar, and the U.S. has agreed to meet for negotiations. 13 years into America's longest war, against a nation with 14th century technology, it's a humiating comedown for the United States.
The reaction of the American mainstream media to the National Security Agency leak scandal – personalizing it by disparaging leaker Edward Snowden – has exposed cable news and other mainstream media outlets as government mouthpieces that allow for very few points of view to be aired. This was exceptionally ironic as one of the talking points against Snowden was that he went to countries with less than stellar records of press freedom, such as Russia, China and Ecuador. After all, it isn't as though the United States offers diverse opinions on its airwaves or in its print outlets.
President Obama hid and lied about the fact that the NSA and FBI are spying on the emails and phone calls of ordinary Americans. But now he claims he wants to set up a national conversation about it. Given how Edward Snowden is being pursued as a criminal, and how Pfc. Bradley Manning was viciously tortured, one imagines that his idea of a national conversation begins with Snowden in a government secret prison trying to talk from underwater.
After the 9/11 attacks, Americans reasoned that if they had to give up a little extra time at the airport in exchange for security, that was a bargain they were willing to make. As the NSA revelations demonstrate, however, that devil's bargain led to a slippery slope.
After the Stonewall riots, the gay liberation movement was militant, agitating for more freedom and radical ways to live. But AIDS led to increased conservatism - and now, after gay marriage was effectively legalized, one had to ask: whatever happened to the thrilling gay movement of the 1970s?
Obama is cool, calm and collected - but he has an Achilles' Heel: contempt for young people, as demonstrated by his condescending comment describing NSA leaker Edward Snowden as "a 29-year-old hacker."
Who are you afraid of more? A few terrrorists have a world away? Or an all-encompassing police state?
If the US declares the military coup in Egypt to have been a military coup, it would be forced to suspend its "foreign aid," which isn't aid at all. From coups to torture to FISA, the English language is the number-one victim of enhanced interrogation techniques.
Six months after being confirmed as National Security Advisor, Susan Rice orchestrated the military coup that toppled Egypt's democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. She's leaning in!
The Pentagon has unveiled an incredibly strong and agile humanoid robot. But don't worry, it claims that this new "robo sapiens" is purely to help old ladies find their way through Nordstrom.
After an all-white jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin in a racially-charged case, white liberals who didn't share their friends' outrage had tp ask themselves some difficult questions.
Why do some liberals spend so much time advising the GOP how to do better in elections? Why do they expect Republicans to listen?
Nordstrom department store experiments with creepy tracking software, is transparent about it, and stops it upon request. Why do we expect less in the non-Nordstrom world?
Why does Obama make speech after speech calling for change but not proposing any policy changes? Because there's nothing the President of the United States can do to change anything.
Now that Congress is starting to ask the NSA about their spying program, they're trying to protect their privacy - about spying on us.
Does Barack Obama even know what President Obama is up to? It's not clear based on his speeches.
Another day, another revelation about another NSA program. This time it's about how the NSA can search every e-mail in America.
Under the NSA's "three-hop analysis" policy, they mine the records of 2.5 million Americans for each suspected terrorist. It's the miracle of math!
If Bradley Manning had murdered Iraqi civilians as a soldier, he'd be a hero. Instead, he revealed proof that his superiors killed Iraqi civilians. It's all about understanding your role in the heirarchy that keeps our society together...which we should all want for some reason.
Barry has a problem. He's accumulated so much data it's ruining his country. Can fabulous clutter consultant Edward help him dig out?
Once again, the US government says it picked up "terrorist chatter" online that prompted it to close U.S. embassies around the world. What exactly goes on in Terrorist Chatrooms? Here's everything you need to know to navigate the world of jihad online.
Days after Congress comes close to banning the NSA's recently revealed program of spying on Americans, the NSA says Al Qaeda is planning to attack the US - and that they found out using the program that Congress was about to ban.
The Obamas head off to their annual vacation in Martha's Vineyard. But they insist it's a working vacation. Too bad for the drone victims!
The NSA says we shouldn't worry because they only "touch" 1.6% of Internet traffic on the Web. As it turns out, that really means all of it.
Americans are complaining about illegal new Palestinian "settlements" on the West Bank of the Hudson River. But Palestinians point out that New Jersey is culturally undeveloped. Will throwing rocks help?
PFC Bradley Manning is sentenced to 35 years behind bars for exposing crimes committed by men who walk free.
We gave up our privacy to corporations. But that was voluntary. And it wasn't to the government - the organization that runs concentration camps.
The Department of Homeland Security has developed BOSS (Biometric Optical Surveillance System) in order to track US citizens from surveillance cameras as they walk around. But maybe there's a way to keep Homeland Security from following you.
If you're a typical country like Syria, the "international community" (the United States) has gamed the arms control norms so that you can't possibly win.
The Obama Administration prepares to launch a military strike against the government of Syrian President Assad, but openly says it does not want the rebels in the civil war there to defeat him.
Credibility counts. You can't threaten someone with violence without carrying it out.
President Obama says the chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of Syrians was an "attack on human dignity." Why is it worse to die from chemical weapons than by, say, a drone?
The United States has repeatedly used chemical weapons, including against its own people. Will we act?
It's a little rich to watch the US — which routinely uses tear gas and pepper spray to crush peaceful protests (which are cordoned behind razor-wired "free speech zones" — protest the use of chemical weapons, and the crushing of political dissent — in Syria.
Pundits are opining that, if Congress rejects Obama's request for a resolution authorizing the use of military force against Syria, he could become an impotent president, unable to pass legislation on other issues. All this testosterone-filled rhetoric prompts a question: Could it be Low P?
While consideribg Obama's request for a Congressional authorization to use military force to attack Syria, Congressional Republicans are forced to choose between their hatred of him as a black man and their desire to blow up Muslims.
Many pundits asked how the proposed cruise missile strikes against Syria would affect, not the Syrians, but the American presidential election campaign of 2016. Why doesn't anyone ask the Syrians?
After a gunman shot 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard, gun control advocates wondered aloud: what will it take for America to pass common-sense gun control legislation? But the questions they asked about the shooter — why didn't anyone stop him despite his history of violence? — could just as easily apply to more prominent figures than the lone gunman.
According to a study by UC Berkeley, 95% of income gains since 2009 went to the top 1%.
Americans kill themselves over a spot in the mall Santa line. Russians fight to the death over philosophy. What does it mean? Discuss.
On October 1, 2013, Americans are supposed to start shopping for insurance under new Healthcare Insurance Marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act. But there has been no attempt by the government to explain what people should do. And the system is buggy and complicated. Here's an "easy" guide to make it simple for you.
What if there were radical liberals pushing a left-wing agenda, and willing to do whatever it takes to get it enacted? The current "double-barreled showdown" over the federal budget and raising the debt limit is a reminder that American politics is a contest between the right and the further right.
Anyone in America could be a terrorist. That's why the NSA is spying on all Americans. Because every American could be an American.
The budget impasse has shut down the federal government. But it isn't all bad.
According to a new poll, Americans are increasingly pessimistic about their future and that of their children. Half of Americans doubt they'll get as raise or a better job within the next five years. But hey, we're Americans. We'll adapt!
If you have a great idea in the age of the Internet, you need to push it out via social networks! But what if, after you've publicized your great idea, there's no time left to execute your great idea?
The Republican Party is threatening not to raise the debt limit unless President Obama and the Democrats accede to their list of demands, which includes defunding the Affordable Care Act. Economists believe that this would precipitate an economic downturn. Effectively, then, the GOP is holding economy hostage. So why don't most Americans seem scared? Because for them, the downturn began years ago, and is merely continuing.
Everything you need to know about how a bill becomes law - or not - in today's dysfunctional Congress. From signing statements to invisible filibusters to debt limits, it's the best system of government anyone ever came up with.
Pundits say the US is politically polarized between the Democrats and Republicans. But the two parties are more similar than alike: ideologically far to the right. From assassinations to preemptive wars to drones to kowtowing to business to backburnering the environment to torture, the Democrats and Republicans embrace extremist right positions.
As the United States government comes within breathing room of default on its credit obligations due to the Congress' refusal to raise the federal debt limit, it's a reminder that the "full faith and credit" of the government isn't the only thing at stake in a society where uncertainty and broken promises have been normalized.
Hours before the U.S. government would have gone into default, the Republican-dominated Congress raised the federal debt limit. But only for a few months, in exchange for relatively trivial concessions. Is this the new normal?
You'll be taxed unless you buy for-profit insurance under Obamacare. But the websites you're supposed to use to sign up don't work. They crash. You can't check if your local hospital or doctor participates in a given plan. You can't find out if you'll get a subsidy.
Enterprising Afghans are selling their voter cards for five bucks. Which is more than many Americans get for their votes. Democracy works - in Afghanistan!
Dick Cheney says he worries that terrorists could kill him by hacking into his artificial heart, which can be controlled via a wireless Internet connection.
President Obama works hard to maintain his spirituality. How does that square with his murdering?
Back in September, Obama Administration officials said that Syria's chemical weapons represented a grave threat to the United States and that they could never be eliminated without going to war. Now it's November, and Syria is meeting its obligations to do so...yet the U.S. never went to war. Could it be that war is not always the answer?
Republicans say Obama's attempt reform healthcare is too complicated. So they've come up with a simple alternative: nothing.
The bad news is, the government is listening to us. The good news, the government is listening to us.
In a new book, President Obama admits that he's "really good at killing people" and "didn't know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine." We all have it in us - but we don't have his remarkable ability to compartmentalize his humanity from his work.
Just think how many more victims the tyrants of the past could have racked up had they had the same toys and tools as President Obama and the NSA!
George W. Bush's biographer says "he truly loves and relishes life." Just not Muslim life.
The Affordable Care Act is the ultimate gravy train for insurers. They get 50 million new customers, all of whom have to buy their product at whatever they choose to charge them. Too bad the rest of us can't get the same deal. Or can we?
The US government argues that it possesses "absolute control" over the memories of Guantánamo torture victims because what happened to them was classified — yet it released those "CIA memories" to Hollywood filmmakers. Sure, it's like something from a Philip K. Dick story. But don't complain. Content is king again!
Drones work with deadly accuracy. The NSA has a limitless budget. Why not let these agencies that perform their duties well step in to help with the beleaguered Obamacare rollout?
JFK was assassinated 50 years ago today. And I was there! Gather near, cartoon readers, and revel in the thrilling account of what I was doing at the time.
The U.S. has committed at least 15,000 combat troops and billions of dollars to extend the war of Afghanistan another 10 years, to 2024. Imagine what Americans would have thought if Bush had told them what was in store after 9/11.
U.S. combat troops will remain in Afghanistan until 2024. This means that it will have been possible for three generations of soldiers to have served from the same family in that losing war.
President Obama promised to bring back all U.S. troops in 2014. Now he's pressuring the Afghan government to allow tens of thousands of soldiers and mercenaries to stay in Afghanistan at least another ten years.
Democrats say Obamacare will be awesome after the website works, people select their plans and get signed up. But it's taking an awful long time. And now the White House is missing its self-imposed December 1st deadline...which replaced its previous self-imposed October 1st deadline.
Welcome to the paradox of falling labor participation rate: as people drop out of the workforce, we're moving closer to a time when unemployment is zero at the same time that there are no jobs left.
The Democratic megablog Daily Kos is leading a witch hunt against anti-Obama lefties. They targeted me, using the excuse that my drawings of him were insulting. What would make them happy? Here we go with a new caricature that should make them shut up and go away.
When Obama began arming and financing the anti-Assad rebels in Syria, Assad and objective observers warned that the West would regret establishing an outpost of radical jihad in the Levant. Two years later, their worst predictions have come true — and Obama is considering reaching to Assad so he can kill the rebels who were armed and trained by the United States.
Nelson Mandela is credited for sheperding a peaceful transition from apartheid to a democratic South Africa. But his South Africa and his African National Congress were hardly democratic — and he left the essential work of the revolution unfinished. Today, poverty among blacks remains much higher than among whites. The system never really changed.
There are lots of reasons to dislike Obama — but his dead-end Democrat supporters insist that the only true motivation for opposition is racism.
Nelson Mandela was on the U.S. terrorist watch list until 2008. Under President Obama, terrorists are subject to summary termination by drone strike. What would have happened to Mandela had Obama been president before 2008? Boom!
Currently, conventional wisdom says that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie could never be elected president. Nice wishful thinking, but history shows that all sorts of candidates who didn't stand a chance — and shouldn't have — can win. Which is too bad for us.
President Obama gives one speech after another on important issues: Guantanamo, the NSA, jobs and the economy, race relations. But then...nothing. No bills are proposed. He just talks...as if talking were enough. In other words, he governs the way he campaigned — purely based on platitudes. And apparently it's enough.
Republicans and Democrats both voted for a bill that eliminates unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans. Now Democrats are whining and complaining and grousing about it to give themselves political cover. It's a ridiculous ploy — and it would be funny if there weren't so many people suffering as a result.
Democrats keep saying that Republicans keep blocking Democratic legislative initiatives. But...what initiatives? Democrats don't bother to actually propose them. They float them in the media rather than propose them in the halls of Congress. But does theoretical legislation really count as having been blocked by obstructionists?
America can't take any chances to protect itself from terrorists — and that includes suspiciously timed bogies originating in the North Pole sector.
As you open your presents and approvingly watch your president kicking back at the beach this holiday season, think of the blessings being spread by American drones in places like Yemen and American torturers at Guantanamo.
65% of Americans say they agree with Pope Francis I's critique of capitalism. But because we're not allowed to publicly voice our opposition to capitalism, we resort to a sort of "dog whistle" — a "pope code" — in which we express our approval of the pope as an acceptable way to transmit our closet sympathies for socialism and communism.
While Americans were distracted over Christmas, Congress and Obama quietly passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which beefs up the President's right to put anyone, including US citizens, on a Kill List or hold them indefinitely without trial or representation by a lawyer. There's even a new unit to funnel NSA spy data to the Pentagon so it can target US citizens.
Democrats voted overwhelmingly to cancel unemployment benefits to 1.3 million Americans. Now they're launching a ferocious campaign against Republicans for supporting the same exact bill.
