Jim Fitzgerald
The easiest way to write an article is to castigate your opponents and avoid their arguments. The easiest method to deal with political differences is to deride opposition arguments as ill-informed, stupid, unsubstantiated opinions, and illogical. The easiest path to frame your opponents in a bad light is to pick out the inconsistencies in [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
We have allowed our media and politicians to present a black and white political world that reduces very complex issues into a sound bite or two. Consider the issue of illegal immigration. In the early 80’s, Reagan handled the issue without a lot of fanfare; granting amnesty, cracking down on employers, and allegedly [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, one fear that surfaced was whether Obama would implement restitution for racial minorities if he were elected. Part of that fear was based on restitution we provided to the Japanese-Americans interned during World War II. On the other hand, that fear was mitigated by knowing that we never [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
When Social Security (SS) was signed into law in 1935, the poverty rate among seniors exceeded 50%. As far as I know, there were no private retirement programs at that time. Unless a senior was wealthy, they either had to work until they died or depend upon family to care for them. I [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
You would not know it by listening to pundits but Obama’s less than two years in office has been a bittersweet experience for the left. Many progressive ideas, like an affordable public option for health insurance, have been left off of the table. Obama, contrary to what conservative pundits would have you believe, [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
I hate to be cynical but the next conspiracy theory I am waiting to appear concerns the tanning bed tax. I’m sure the spin will be that the tax was designed to be a whites’ only tax since blacks and Hispanics are unlikely to need a tan. Then the logic will leap to [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
November midterm elections may be the rout that Republicans are predicting, or maybe not. As I have said before, it is still too early to start predicting which way the fickle American public may swing when the time comes to pull the lever in the voting booth. As a supposedly concerned citizenry, we [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
The ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee apologized to BP for what he called the “White House shakedown!” Representative Joe Burton from Texas, the man who would be in charge of the Energy and Commerce Committee if Republicans were in control of the House of Representatives, told BP officials that he [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
As more tea party candidates are winning primaries across the nation, we are beginning to get a glimpse of their view of small government. I have wondered many times what conservatives mean by small government because without a sense of what government would look like after they finish reshaping it, how could you [...]

Leaning Left
Jim Fitzgerald
Forgive me if I sound confused but I think conservatives have made a philosophical about face. The very people who have shouted against big government and for states’ rights are now screaming for the federal government to stop the oil spill in the gulf. The “business knows how to regulate itself” crowd suddenly [...]