While Newt Gingrich deserves much of the blame for themodern Republican Party — an assemblage of anti-democratic, obstructionist, belligerent contrarians andkooks — Grover Norquist ought to get his due. He is therightwing anti-tax activist who famously stated, “I don’twant to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it tothe size where I can drag it…
Read more
If you are poor, you must be lazy, right? Here in the United States of America, the land of milk and honey and gold-gilded streets, the only people struggling to make ends meet are those too shiftless to work, too irresponsible to save, too dumb to make good decisions, right? If you don’t believe that,…
Read more
At long last, U.S. military installations are playing taps for the ignominious mythology of the Lost Cause, stripping the names of Confederate officers and replacing them with the names of genuine heroes and heroines. It’s about time. Earlier this week, the third-largest Army base was named for Gen. Richard Edward Cavazos, the first Latino to become a…
Read more
A few decades ago, firearms fanatics set the nation on a crazed course toward ubiquitous gun ownership, and that course has led us inevitably to where we are now: a society in which there is no safety, no sanctuary, no haven. You may be shot dead or grievously wounded in church, in school, in a…
Read more
MOBILE, Al. —— Find any rankings for the worst public education systems in thenation, and you’ll find a cluster of Deep South states bunched near the bottom. Myhome state of Alabama may not be the worst on the list, but it will be among the 10worst. So will Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina.Several years ago,…
Read more