I’m asking you to support a candidate, Norman Solomon, who spent 40 days in jail. Usually, that’s a bad thing. But in some cases, it’s a good thing. Nelson Mandela was arrested on August 5, 1962. He was released on February 10, 1990. Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, and he was [...]

I have five children. Sometimes I try to explain to them what it was like to live in America in the Sixties and Seventies. When the federal government listened in on phone conversations of civil rights leaders, and bugged their homes. When the President of the United States and his henchmen plotted to kill a [...]

I recently happened to be at an event where billionaire George Soros was being interviewed. The right wing hates Soros because he is: (a) liberal, (b) rich, and (c) fearless. Soros said a lot of things, but he said two sentences that I wish that everyone could hear. This is what he said: “You can’t cut your way [...]

Yesterday, I wrote about President Obama’s announcement last week that he had signed an agreement to extend the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan for twelve more years. I said that at this point, the war in Afghanistan very much resembles what, in October 2002, State Senator Barack Obama called a “dumb war.” Which begs this [...]

In the airport in Atlanta yesterday, I happened to be standing next to some American soldiers, wearing camouflage, on their way to Afghanistan. They knew the name of the province that they were going to, but they were arguing over what part of the country that province is in. One said the east. One said the [...]

I spent the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, in the best possible place: in the park. It was a Wednesday, and no, I was not playing hooky. My junior high school science teacher decided to mark that sunny April day by leading the entire class, after lunch, to the park across the street from our [...]

I don’t know what Founding Father and President Thomas Jefferson would have thought about TV, cars, spaceships, cellphones, skyscrapers, computers or nuclear weapons. But I do know what Jefferson would have thought about the Buffett Rule. He would have liked it. The Buffett Rule is the Obama Administration’s proposal to adopt a 30% minimum tax [...]

Yogi Berra once said: “You can see a lot by just looking.” This is what you see if you look at corporate income tax revenue, as a percentage of GNP, since World War II: I came up with this chart myself (hold your applause, please), after downloading the data from the White House’s website, here. Corporate income [...]

In the old days, if a “doctor” thought that your skin looked too red, the standard prescription was . . . leeches. Fever? Leeches. Rash? Leeches. Bruise? Leeches. In fact, if you seemed to have an unfortunate tendency to get angry, the treatment for that was – you guessed it – leeches. This was not [...]

This month, we’re going to invite you all to submit videos and images to the campaign. Then we will ask you to vote on some of them. The winning video will get a $1000 prize, and the winning image will get a $500 prize. Basically, we’re crowdsourcing the campaign. Here’s why. Some of the most [...]

Now that his Presidential campaign is over, I’m trying to pin down exactly what it was that I liked the least about Rick Santorum. I know, I know. So many possibilities to choose from. Personally, I think that sweater vests are a crime against Nature. If God had wanted us to garb our torso and [...]

Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager, was shot dead by a “neighborhood watch” member as Trayvon was walking home from a convenience store. Trayvon was armed with nothing but a bottle of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. A few days ago, Alan Grayson was invited on national TV to discuss the tragedy. This is what [...]

A month ago, I wrote a note called “The Myths That Are Killing Us” – the hard myths that no Republicans, and very few Democrats, ever challenge. Here was my list: 1. The Government can’t create jobs. (Tell that to FDR, who created four million jobs in three months.) 2. Tax cuts reduce the deficit. (Doesn’t it [...]

My deliriously dippy opponent, Mark Oxner, appears to be upset that the public has tagged Oxner as a bigot for running an ad depicting President Barack Obama as the evil captain of a slave ship, holding young white girls in chains. So now Oxner has a new ad out, arguing that I’m the real bigot. [...]

In 2010, my opponent Dan Fanelli ran a TV ad arguing that white people should not be “pulled out of line at the airport,” because it’s an “invasion of our privacy,” and it’s “time to stop political correctness.” Apparently, Fanelli had never heard of white terrorists Timothy McVeigh or Ted Kaczynski. But he may have [...]

I live in Orlando, so a number of people have asked me what I think about the death of Trayvon Martin. Trayvon, a teenager, was shot dead by a “neighborhood watch” member as Trayvon was walking home from a convenience store. Trayvon was armed with nothing but a bottle of iced tea and a bag of [...]

In a TV interview on Sunday, Rick Santorum said that if he is elected President, he will file criminal charges against the distribution of pornography. Santorum specifically referred to “exposure on the Internet,” so presumably he would censor the Internet. The Internet Police. What a concept. Santorum complained that President Bush enforced “the law” (probably [...]

For most people, prison is punishment. For a few, it becomes a badge of honor. One Member of Congress told me that every few years, he gets arrested. So that people can see whose side he’s on. Eugene Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for protesting against United States involvement in World War [...]

I know something you don’t know, unless you happen to have been a Democratic Member of Congress. I know what happens in the House Democratic Caucus Meetings. Contrary to popular belief among Fox News commentators, we don’t greet each other in those meetings as “Comrade” (although occasionally, the salutations of “Brother” and “Sister” may be heard). We [...]

Half of all marriages end in divorce.  And – this is even worse – the other half end in death. Most political careers are the same way.  Half of them end in defeat, and the other half end in death (which is, of course, another form of defeat).  The only things that ever save an elected [...]