One thing I can say about this Barack Obama guy; he kicks my cynical ass every time. No way an African-American, liberal, neophyte can even show up to a fight with the Clinton machine, much less defeat it for a shot at the most powerful post in the land. Really? No way this guy can turn around and beat a white, right-wing military veteran in a mostly center-right and still annoyingly xenophobic nation. No? And there is no way in my lifetime there will ever be any sort of national health care reform, never mind a single piece of significant sweeping social legislation with the kind of national debt, unemployment and rabid anti-government fervor throughout the land. Guess what?

In a few days from the writing of these words, there could be an actual passing of a bill through Congress that will in some way ultimately affect—one side argues completely, the other slightly—17 percent of the United States economy.

Agree, disagree, whoop it up or gnash your teeth, this is a big one. As far…

Spring is finally approaching, and Chris Daughtry is back home in North Carolina taking advantage of the last few days he has left in town before getting ready to hit the road once again on a headlining tour with friends Lifehouse and Cavo. Today, after asking permission to put me on speakerphone, we are chatting it up while he drives to an appointment nearby. It takes him 30 minutes to arrive—that, or he was graciously indulging me while sitting stationary in his car at some point. Only being able to hear his voice and the sounds outside of my own bedroom window, it remains a mystery. It’s surprising that he’s even out, considering he has been spending the majority of his time at home in his sweatpants, never leaving the house, which he divulges with a chuckle (having a beautiful wife of 10 years and two children, I don’t blame him for being a temporary homebody). Oh, the splendor of well-earned free time and relaxation. For someone of Daughtry’s caliber, such leisure is no doubt…

Perhaps the most glaring lunacy of the tea party movement—a questionably grassroots endeavor that takes its name from the Boston Tea Party—is that some factions plan to boycott the U.S. Census. If the substantive idea behind the name is “no taxation without representation” and the purpose of a census is to determine the number of representatives from a particular state, then I would argue they’d be the first in line to be counted. Right?

Not exactly.

Gallup polls show government trust is at historic lows for the President, as low as 1973 when the OPEC oil embargo began, and the lowest ever recorded for the U.S. Congress. D.C.-area wacko Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) last year suggested the census should be boycotted and it is what helped put the Japanese into internment camps during World War II (as if that has any bearing on the current census). Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Bachmann have later gone on record stating the only legal constitutional (see below) requirement of the census is the amount of people who…

Here we go again; more political agenda masquerading as public outrage with cheaply framed ham-fisted watchdog techniques. As boring and antiquated as James Madison’s smear campaign against John Adams during the 1800 presidential campaign against his boss, Thomas Jefferson, its methods reek of American tradition, often misunderstood in its time by neophytes and professional chicken littles as uncharted calamitous abuse of power, treason and other grade-school malarkey passed off as editorial comment.

This week another in the long line of innocuous watchdog groups, made legitimate merely by its Internet presence, decided to take on the Justice Department for its failure to release all nine names of lawyers hired by the federal government despite their history of defending members of al Qaeda, in so doing ostensibly putting into question their patriotic loyalty. An ad run on YouTube by Keep America Safe, founded by so-called journalist and full-time whiner, William Kristol and the unfortunate offspring of the polluted Cheney genes named Liz, strongly suggested a cover-up, neatly dubbed The Al Qaeda 7.

Ignoring the fact…