Posts by Hines Brian

When Americans talk about gun control, as, thankfully, we're back to doing after the horrific murders of twenty children and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut, plus the killer's mother at her home, two irritating features of political discourse in this country bug me. First, too many people approach social problems with a religious sort of attitude. Meaning, they cling to supposed transcendent principles without grounding them in here-and-now reality. Example: talking about the Second Amendment and gun rights as if these were unalterable sacred truths, rather than choices made by fallible humans. Second, too many people refuse…

Today its being reported that 26 people, including 18 children -- eighteen children, NRA! -- have been killed at an elementary school by a gunman. This follows two people, plus the shooter, being killed at a mall here in Oregon a few days ago. But, hey, we keep hearing, "It's too soon to talk about policy implications, about ways to reduce gun violence, about stronger gun laws." Including from the White House. Like I've said before, and will keep saying, because it's an unarguable fact: Guns kill people. People don't kill people. This is a lie: "guns don't kill people;…

Raising the federal debt ceiling should be automatic. That's how things worked before the Tea Party crazies got into Congress. Consider the facts, from Wikipedia: Every President since Harry Truman has added to the national debt expressed in absolute dollars. The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1962, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W. Bush and three times (to August 2011) under Barack Obama.  ...The process of setting the debt ceiling is separate and distinct from the regular process of financing government operations, and raising the debt ceiling neither directly…

I loved this column by Maureen Dowd.  A Lost CivilizationThe Republican tribe is being wiped out, and not by plague, drought or Conquistadors. I'll miss them. Sort of. Well, not very much. OK, actually not at all. But hopefully there will be a few specimens kept around in a political zoo so we can remember what they looked like, way back when.  Some excerpts: Too bad the Republican Party didn’t have my mom to keep it on its toes. Then it might not have gone all Apocalypto on us — becoming the first civilization in modern history to spiral the…

Tax wisdom from Jill Lapore in her November 26, 2012 piece, "Tax Time", The New Yorker. Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine.  During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for…

Just when I thought the Republican Party couldn't get any crazier, their political insanity ratchets up another notch.  I can almost understand why the not-so Grand Old Party disdains minorities, the poor, homosexuals, abortion rights advocates, secular humanists, and other people who don't fit in the small confines of who modern day Republicans consider to be morally acceptable. But disabled people? That's a new low. Which was reached yesterday when the Senate failed to ratify a United Nations treaty that protected the rights of disabled people -- including disabled American veterans who, along with Sen. John McCain, strongly favored the…

Wow. I've come to expect an amazing amount of Republican two-facedness after watching Mitt Romney, the GOP's annointed presidential nominee, change his position on just about everything (abortion, global warming, Iran, etc. etc.) to wild acclaim from the right-wing faithful. But I have to give the Republicans credit. They've surpassed my expectations for GOP amnesiac hypocrisy by embracing a position on Medicare that, a mere month after the election, is exactly opposite to what Romney and Ryan campaigned on. Remember all those Republican ads castigating Obama for his supposed $716 billion in Medicare cuts that Romney promised to restore to…

I've got a great plan for handling the fiscal cliff crisis that is causing massive headaches for both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. I'm calling it "Chill" in honor of the Sirius satellite music channel I was listening to as the plan came to mind while I was driving home from downtown Salem tonight. Appropriate, because if there's anything our country needs right now, it's a chilling of the feverish right-left political arguing. Today Obama presented a fiscal cliff proposal to GOP leaders. They freaked out over it. Apparently Republicans haven't gotten the news that President Obama was resoundingly re-elected after…

It's been eight days since I posted "Susan Rice vindicated about her Benghazi comments." Now, reports have surfaced that make her even more vindicated, and her ridiculous Republican attackers even more wrong. I'm following this issue because it provides a fascinating look into the reality-denying right-wing brain. It's been obvious for quite a while that Ambassador Rice was simply conveying talking points prepared by United States intelligence agencies. Driving around today, I heard GOP Senator Lindsey Graham interviewed by George Stephanopoulus. Graham was asked exactly that: isn't it true that Rice was conveying talking points approved by intelligence officials? He…