BY JOE CONASON With President Obama’s signature affixed to the economic stimulus bill, his landmark victory can be put in proper political context. Regardless of that bill’s manifest imperfections and the messy legislative process, the new administration achieved a difficult objective on the tightest possible schedule. His Republican opponents congratulate themselves for remaining unified in […]

BY FROMA HARROP Open most any urban newspaper to the foreclosure notices, and you’ll find the list heavy with Hispanic names. Times are tough for Americans of every demographic, but for Latinos they are grimmer still. Is this the end of the Latino-American Dream? The answer, in Spanish, is “no.” President Obama has just unveiled […]

BY JIM HIGHTOWER I don’t mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win. One big reason that Barack Obama now occupies the big chair in the Oval Office is that he embraced the public’s rising indignation at the blatant greed of Wall Street bankers, striking the proper populist tone in last […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH The purpose of being a columnist is not to win friends. It is not to provoke silent nods of agreement. The goal is to strike a chord, hit a nerve – which is to say, at least sometimes, make people mad. Controversy is good, not bad. So you write what you think, […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH Why would someone risk his life by, as the LA Times described, “extending his body away from a motorcycle and grabbing the seat as the motorcycle is upside down, then pulling back aboard as the motorcycle is righted before landing”? Or not. In which case, as it was with 24-year-old Jeremy Lusk, […]