David Sirota from Creators Syndicate

Addicted to Fake Outrage for 02/13/2009

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

I'm not sure if it's because we're strung out on "Lost" episodes, or if it's because we're still suffering from a post-9/11 stress disorder that makes us crave "breaking news" alerts, or if it's because the economy has turned us into distraction junkies. But one thing is painfully obvious after Michael Phelps' marijuana "scandal" erupted last week: Our society is a ...

Updated: Fri Feb 13, 2009

Past the Point of No Return for 02/20/2009

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Why did Barack Obama choose to come all the way to Denver, Colorado to sign the economic recovery package this week? Did he throw a dart at a map? Was he courting western swing states? Or did he just want a junket to a metropolis that Americans tell pollsters is the most desirable in the nation? My amateur guess is none of the above — I'm betting the choice (perhaps subconsciously) reflec ...

Updated: Fri Feb 20, 2009

Robin-Hood Republicanism? for 02/27/2009

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Only months after the 2008 primaries, most Americans probably don't remember Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul. But that doesn't mean the conservative populism they championed during their campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination is as fleeting as their dark-horse candidacies.

Since rank-and-file House Republicans began criticizing October's Wall Street bailout, a growing faction of ...

Updated: Fri Feb 27, 2009

The A Word for 03/06/2009

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

MEXICO CITY — Any serious scribe will tell you that writing is, at its heart, the maddening struggle to find exactly the right words. Should the overcast sky be called "gray" or "beige"? Is Rush Limbaugh best described as "an enraged Jabba the Hut," or "a deranged Stay Puft Marshmallow Man"? Are we living through a "recession" or a "d ...

Updated: Fri Mar 06, 2009

For Competition Before They Were Against It for 03/13/2009

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Despite the shock and awe of Democrats' melodramatic press releases, nobody was genuinely bewildered or surprised by the recent McClatchy newspaper headline screaming that "GOP lawmakers tout projects in the stimulus bill they opposed." We all know that politicians love to brag about bringing home the bacon — even the bacon they vote against.

Far more baffling are those s ...

Updated: Fri Mar 13, 2009

A Government of Men, Not Laws for 03/20/2009

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard likes to say that Washington policymakers "treat the people who take a shower after work much differently than they treat the people who shower before they go to work." In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this w ...

Updated: Fri Mar 20, 2009

From Newspaper to Commercial Paper for 03/27/2009

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

At Northwestern University in the mid-1990s, the journalism professor with the most devoted student following was an understated teacher who said that substantive writing and reporting isn't everything, it's the only thing. Alternately despondent and sanguine, he reminded me of Grady from the book "Wonder Boys" when he told us that he spent weekends drinking in his closet and that he ...

Updated: Fri Mar 27, 2009

This Is the Truth on Drugs ... Any Questions? for 04/03/2009

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Finally, a little honesty.

Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland, and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out of control beast in th ...

Updated: Fri Apr 03, 2009

The Best Investment Money Can Buy for 04/10/2009

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Feeling sorry for yourself? Struggling to get by? Wondering how you can get a bailout? Well, stop moping, because it's not too late!

I may not have Suze Orman's verve or Billy Mays' voice. But I've discovered a revolutionary risk-free investment plan straight from those who brought us the economic meltdown. So in this column-fomercial, I won't waste your time with Ginsu knives or cash-fo ...

Updated: Fri Apr 10, 2009

Columbine Questions We Still Don't Ponder for 04/17/2009

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's posthumous infamy turns 10 on April 20, I wish I were surprised that Columbine-like shootings are still happening, or even that our national discussion about violence hasn't yet matured past gun control and video games.

I wish I were surprised, but sadly, I'd be surprised if it were any different because we still refuse to ask the most uncomfortable que ...

Updated: Fri Apr 17, 2009

Newsflash: Populism Is Popular for 04/24/2009

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In 2006, journalist Christopher Hayes wrote a little-noticed article for In These Times magazine about a proposal in Oregon to crack down on predatory lending. The initiative had become so popular that conservative legislators supported it fearing that if it were put on the state's ballot, the resulting gusher of grassroots support would not only ratify the measure, but depose the bank-allied R ...

Updated: Fri Apr 24, 2009

With Their Magic Bullet, Dems Have No More Excuses for 05/01/2009

Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As counsel for the Warren Commission, Arlen Specter described a "magic bullet" that changed America. Four decades later as a U.S. Senator, Specter is providing another history-altering magic bullet — one Democrats will either fire off in a starting gun, or use in their suicide.

By leaving the Republican Party this week, the five-term Pennsylvania lawmaker eliminated the l ...

Updated: Fri May 01, 2009

Piggish Capitalism for 05/08/2009

Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Even if you don't dig on swine, it has become impossible to avoid them. If you're not pummeled by television reports about Wall Street oinkers, you're bombarded by talk-radio rants about congressional pork and newspaper dispatches about swine flu.

The bacon-flavored themes probably aren't purposefully repetitive, but that's OK because these seemingly unrelated story lines share a common ...

Updated: Fri May 08, 2009

Health Care's Enigma-In-Chief for 05/15/2009

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The most stunning and least reported news about President Obama's press conference with health industry executives this week wasn't those executives' willingness to negotiate with a Democrat. It was that Democrat's eagerness to involve those executives in a discussion about health care reform even as they revealed their previous plans to pilfer $2 trillion from Americans.

That was the li ...

Updated: Fri May 15, 2009

The House That Taxpayers Built for 05/22/2009

Fri, 22 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Somewhere, likely in a basement, the next great documentarian is scavenging YouTube for clips of congressional inquisitions, Wall Street perp walks, and CNBC rants for a future Oscar-winning film about the times we're living through. I'm hoping this future star calls her film "Wall Street II: Cataclysmic Boogaloo," and more importantly, I'm hoping she gets footage of New York Mayor Mi ...

Updated: Fri May 22, 2009

Democracy Needs a Bailout for 05/29/2009

Fri, 29 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Without a bailout, newspapers will lay off staff, fewer journalists will report important stories, there will be no Fourth-Estate check on state and corporate power, and the country will suffer. So goes the pro-democracy case for government and/or altruistic investors to save the newspaper industry with an infusion of cash.

Except, amid the debate about such a bailout, it seems governmen ...

Updated: Fri May 29, 2009

Whither the Sacred Campaign Promise? for 06/05/2009

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Though not (yet) having children of my own, I often consider what my future offspring won't know about and will find humorous. I fantasize that they will have no idea what gasoline-powered cars or private health insurance policies are. But I also worry they will guffaw in disbelief when I tell them politicians once knew that breaking campaign promises without explanation had consequences.

< ...

Updated: Fri Jun 05, 2009

All Politics, And Change, Is Still Local for 06/12/2009

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Colorado's Bill Ritter (D) is a typical swing-state governor in these most atypical times: overly cautious, predictably equivocal — you know the type. Upon getting himself elected in 2006, he promised to pass legislation that "provides every Coloradan with access to some basic form of health insurance and health care by 2010." One year later, with America gorging on a presidenti ...

Updated: Fri Jun 12, 2009

Daring to Dream for 06/19/2009

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Most of the great advances we remember involve re-imagination and dreams, not merely tweaks and tinkers. The Wright Brothers' plane wasn't a newfangled horse and buggy, Einstein's theories weren't a simple update of old physics, and Edison's creations didn't aspire to make a brighter-burning wax candle. It's been the same thing in politics. The Founding Fathers' Constitution didn't replicate mo ...

Updated: Fri Jun 19, 2009

Getting Off the Grid for 06/26/2009

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As you read this, I am somewhere in rural China, probably disoriented, perhaps eating a fish eye, and certainly not paying attention to the news. This column was the last thing I wrote before embarking on what's become an all-too-rare experiment in human life: I decided to see what will happen when I go fully off the grid.

Because I am completely cut off, you cannot call or text me from ...

Updated: Fri Jun 26, 2009