Hinessight

Do you want a puppet to represent you in Congress or be your President? Wouldn't you prefer to have someone who thinks for himself or herself and acts in the best interest of the country, rather than a robot who jumps whenever strings are pulled by a behind-the-scenes controller? Republicans are those puppets. Grover Norquist is the puppeteer. His rigid anti-tax pledge is the strings. Columnist Dana Milbank reports that it's been signed by all but four House Republicans, most Republican Senators, and Mitt Romney. Read his column, "Grover Norquist delivers the GOP's marching orders." Then make your own independent,…

I'm sure the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 555, had other reasons to endorse a proposed 2012 ballot initiative here in Oregon -- the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, which would legalize and tax marijuana consumed by adults. But when I saw the Portland Business Journal story, all I could think was: Smart move for a food group. Munchies! There's also some marijuana legalization news from Washington state today: The other ballot measure is Initiative 502, which would essentially legalize marijuana, regulate it, and tax it. Washingtonians seem to like pot even better than gay marriage, as the initiative is…

A few years ago Oregon raised taxes on businesses and high-income individuals. Tax-hating conservatives screamed warnings about how bad this would be for the state's economy, and how the "job creators" would be moving out. Not happening. Here's a couple of recent headlines from the Oregonian. Oregon economy growing at nation's second fastest rate"Oregon's economic growth outpaced all but one state in 2011, driven largely by double-digit manufacturing gains." Oregon payrolls continue to grow in May, but monthly figures cloud hiring picture"Oregon employers added 6,900 jobs last month, according to the state's monthly report. That's equal to 10 percent of all jobs…

After Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker survived his recall election last Tuesday, I was disappointed but not depressed. Democrats took back control of the state Senate and there were other reasons to not feel like the progressive sky was falling. Now I'm feeling even better. Joshua Holland helped boost my spirits with his "8 Ways Delusional Right-Wingers Are Blowing Wisconsin Out of Proportion." Thanks, Joshua. In the aftermath of the vote, conservatives, proving typically magnanimous in victory, spun the results like a top. They claimed the outcome spelled doom for Obama this fall, marked the death of the labor movement and…

What goes up, comes down. A loss today often presages a win tomorrow. The only certainty in politics is that nothing is certain. I'd hoped Governor Scott Walker would lose today's Wisconsin recall election, but polling showed that the prospects of this happening were low. His win is disappointing to me, not depressing.  I feel for the legions of hard-working progressives in Wisconsin who worked long and hard to recall Walker, collecting more than a million signatures. After subscribing to the Twitter feed of Wisconsin activist Kelly Steele, every day I enjoyed reading his passionate tweets about the ups and downs…

Not as many jobs were created in May, 2012 as were expected. This is bad news for the unemployed. But Obama isn't to blame, notwithstanding Republican glee over the misery of Americans without a job. As I noted before, the question to ask is whether the United States is better off after the past several years of Republican obstructionism, where the #1 goal of the G.O.P. has been to stop Obama from winning a second term. So it doesn't make sense to blame Obama for a weak recovery, since after the 2010 election he hasn't been able to get key…