I’ve been watching politics for several decades and there are trends I have noticed that stay pretty consistent. When George Bush Sr. was campaigning against Michael Dukakis I heard my father coin the term “Political Fairy Dust.” It was his dismissal of a strategy that he noticed every election cycle; Republicans always promise “lower taxes,”…
Category: Gary Kroeger
Wasted, Exhausted, and Murderous
The Mosque of Zero
This weekend I was in a conversation with a politically conservative friend and we discussed the former controversy surrounding the Islamic Cultural Center built in the area of Ground Zero. Even though the controversy more or less subsided after it opened last September to very little protest and many conservatives have submitted that it was…
Tea For Too (sic)
I keep thinking that I should be able to put the Tea Party to bed. For some reason, I get it in my head, from time to time, that the fever pitch of tea bagging is over and that history has already recorded it as a temporary, reactionary, populist wannabe movement from a frightened fringe. …
Bruce Braley for Congress!
We have a very important race for Congress here in eastern Iowa. Congressman Bruce Braley will be challenged in District 1 by the Republican nominee Ben Lange, who barely lost to Braley in 2010. Lange benefitted from 1 million dollars from the American Future Fund to invest in negative advertising. Let me be perfectly clear: Bruce Braley has been a shining light…
Trayvon was my son, too.
I’ve been staying away from writing about the controversy surrounding Trayvon Martin because I wanted to hear all of the facts first, but today I realized that any new information that may come out is irrelevant to how I feel about this tragedy. There is a serious illness in our society that is growing more…
Fixing a Flat
Taxes. What a concept. Is there any way to satisfy those who believe progressive taxation is a more fair distribution of burden, those who believe the only fair formula is that everyone should pay the same percentage, and those who think that we should abolish federal taxes altogether and pay as we play? Personally, I believe…
Welfare Queens and NyQuil
I had a dream where America settled down for a day. We all took a collective breath and did some research about social spending along with doing a little math. My dream was inspired by a news report that I saw, as I was nodding off, about how a big part of the budget controversy,…
From a Lump of Clayson
There is a columnist in town who has a weekly op-ed in the Waterloo Courier that, intentionally, serves no other purpose but to degrade liberalism and to raise conservatism to the rank of flawless and divine wisdom. Week after week I dismiss his rambling demagoguery as merely venting from a confused mind, and even though…
All You Can Eat (Warren) Buffet
“Higher taxes mean fewer jobs,“ proclaimed Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Romney was opposing what is being called “The Buffet Rule” which would end the tax loopholes that bring his tax rate down to around 15%. Romney is hoping that the average American, who pays over 20%, still hates math and won’t investigate the matter too…