Snake Oil Fraud
Thursday, November 3rd, 2022Leadership requires correctly identifying problems and developing solutions. Demagogues often recognize when others are in pain, but they then exploit the pain for personal gain. This technique helps the politician gain, and solidify, power. Demagogues behave exactly like snake oil salesmen. Before the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), capitalists crisscrossed the country offering a […]
Did You Get the Goldmine or the Shaft?
Thursday, October 27th, 2022I used to love listening to country music in my dad’s pickup. He had an eight-track that played all of his favorites. Dad also knew where to find all his country stations on the radio. I had a steady diet of 60s, 70s and 80s country hits. Dad always liked the playful songs from Johnny […]
Life and Death in Texas
Wednesday, October 19th, 2022Texas Republicans want you to prepare for the next schools shooting. Greg Abbott is sending school children home with fingerprint and DNA kits. Abbott wants to make it easier for you to identify your child’s dead body. Republicans have controlled Texas Government for the past two decades. They have cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires. […]
Straw Man
Thursday, October 13th, 2022Boxers and soldiers often train fighting dummies. It is easy to understand why. Dummies don’t fight back. Eventually, however, a good fighters needs to train against another human as an opponent if they want to win a real fight. Debates work similarly with words. Some debaters only fight straw men; others, preferring a challenge, argue […]
I Wish I Were A Rich Man?
Thursday, October 6th, 2022I am always struck when I come to the end of the Good Samaritan parable in the gospel of Luke. The parable ends with the rich man begging Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers. Abraham ridicules the rich man. Abraham said “If they do not listen to Moses and […]
Solutions, Not Fear
Thursday, September 29th, 2022Conservatives politicians make two promises. They promise that government can’t work when they are elected. They promise to run government like their personal business. Why are we surprised when things turn out good for them and their friends but bad for us? Conservative politicians are on television complaining about everybody else except themselves. They have […]
Is That An Elephant in Your Uterus?
Thursday, September 22nd, 2022When a woman walks into a doctor’s office should Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton walk in too? Should national Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy and Ted Cruz watch a woman’s exam? Should these politicians make medical decisions for women? Republican politicians in Austin and Washington think they should. Pregnancy is one of […]
A Republic, Not A Monarchy
Thursday, September 15th, 2022The death of Queen Elizabeth II reminds me how lucky we are as Americans. We don’t have a monarchy. We have a Republic. The American Republic belongs to all the people, not a single person. Our Republic, however, owes much to the history of the English monarchy. American constitutional history often traces its origins back […]
Public Service vs. Private Profit
Thursday, September 15th, 2022Conservatives have been pretty clear about one aspect of their governing philosophy. They say that they will run government like a business. Liberals, however, see government as public services. The results are dramatically different. Liberal policies shaped American politics after the Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt provided a role model for creating government services. The […]
Let’s go Joe!
Thursday, August 25th, 2022Between January 20, 2001 and July 14, 2008 prices at the gas pump rose from $1.47 per gallon to $4.11 per gallon. During that extended price rise, two Texas oil men sat in the Oval Office and made decisions. Dramatically, gas prices fell to $1.61 by December 2008. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney created […]
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