There’s an epidemic in America: due to the rapidly expanding homophobia tolerated, and rewarded, in our political sphere and due to more tolerance of bullying, LGBTQ teens are taking their own lives in despair and mistaken shame. America is rapidly reaching double-digits in teen suicides in the past few weeks, and these are the ones we know about. Why won’t Barack Obama speak out?

Discussion of the virtually extinct species once known as Rockefeller Republicans – those individuals known for being liberal on many social issues but conservative on economic issues.

It’s been nearly 35 years since we’ve had a “tax and spend” political party. During the 1970s, the Democrats gave up fighting the Republicans about the “tax and spend” label, and the Carter Administration tried to escape from that charge by making very serious attempts to balance the budget. During the 1980s, more and more Democrats emphasized their concern for reducing deficits and balancing budgets as a way of distinguishing themselves from the Reagan Administration’s unprecedented peacetime deficits. This didn’t work for them during Reagan’s time, but they finally were able to use the balanced budget old-time religion game to get George Bush to violate his no new taxes pledge, which both contributed to the Bush recession and, as a further consequence, was a big reason why Bill Clinton was elected.

Tax policy and tax cuts in particular are elements central to the Republican Party’s economic philosophy. Republicans have made tax cuts one of their primary tools for fighting the Great Recession and returning America to prosperity. When advocating cuts, many on the Right have waxed nostalgic for the Reagan era tax cuts and their supposed economic benefits. The “record” of those cuts is held up as a justification for extending the Bush tax cuts beyond their expiration date and likewise for cutting taxes generally. All of this as an ideological counterpoint to what the Obama Administration has done in addressing the current downturn. Thus when economists who describe themselves as free market advocates, Libertarians, Republicans and even conservatives call extending the Bush era tax cuts into question one can only take note and inquire further as to why those whom we would expect to endorse tax cuts count themselves among the opposition.

A new poll from The Pew Research Center reveals that 18% of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, a shocklingly high percentage for such a moronic notion. It’s one more piece of data that confirms what author and social critic Morris Berman has been writing about for years – that American society is declining into a period analogous to the Dark Ages.

Schorr’s defiance of the powerful and his independence, standing up to his boss Ted Turner at CNN, marked him as a real journalist.

The Left finally makes an effort to debunk the historic “successes” of the Supply Side Economic theory.

That’s what I heard. Palin will announce her candidacy for President in 2012 at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. At his Library.

Who is more conservative – Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama?

Stewart Acuff, chief of staff for the Utility Workers Union of America, says in his new book, “Getting America Back to Work,” that increasing employment requires reinvesting in America and its workers. That would mean the banksters and other financial elites get less of the wealth generated by the economy and workers get more. To take wealth from the richest people in the history of the world requires power, he says in this interview.