In the wake of the Duggar molestation scandal and now the quirky case of Rachel Dolezal, one thing is clear: We as a public don’t know what child abuse looks like. The CDC estimates that one in four American children experience some form of abuse and yet we’re not quick to spot it or identify… Continue reading →

In 1915, Polish immigrant, Nathan Handwerker, bought a hot dog stand in Coney Island and went about undercutting the boardwalk’s other restaurants by half. These five-cent sandwiches were so much cheaper than other offerings consumers were leery of their content. To counter this, Handwerker famously hired actors to wear lab coats and eat his hot… Continue reading →

I’ve never quite understood why Republicans will jump to trash talk big government—gleefully calling to eradicate the IRS, NSA, EPA, CIA, etc.—all while embracing the death penalty. As the abundant field of GOP presidential hopefuls all vie to woo the same group of hyper-conservative white evangelicals which make up the party’s base, not one of… Continue reading →

This week in Nevada, Jeb Bush accidentally declared he’s running for president to reporters. He was supposed to say, “if I run” and instead said, “I’m running for president!” So now that it’s official, I feel it’s my duty to explain the Bush years to younger/amnesiac Americans who may not remember what life was like… Continue reading →

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina announced this week she’s running for president. She’s not the first woman ever to dive into the GOP’s Also-Ran Industrial Complex and (wink) attempt to become the (wink, wink) next president of the United States. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll last time around. So far, Carly’s the… Continue reading →

While running for president in 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was chatting up some students at Otterbein University about how they could get ahead in this world. He offered that his friend, Jimmy John, borrowed $20,000 from his parents to start a sandwich shop. “This kind of divisiveness, this attack of success, is very… Continue reading →

I had a deadbeat dad. The kind of slacker so egregious—so blatant in shirking his responsibilities—that he and his generation of counterparts inspired a series of draconian laws to combat their “free spiritedness.” My father (I wince to refer to him as that) exists as a transitional fossil in the evolution of child support in… Continue reading →

It’s firmly in the Christian ethos to identify as being persecuted. Jesus stood up to the establishment and was tortured and murdered for it. To be a Christian is to worship a martyr. So it’s been easy for America’s religious leaders/politicians to convince the devout they too are under assault. That in a country of… Continue reading →

This week, the junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, kicked off the 2016 Republican primary season at a university founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell. Liberty University’s students were mandated to attend Cruz’s announcement speech, so Senator Cruz enjoyed a packed house of attentive students accustomed to being preached at. “Imagine,” he asked, “a president who… Continue reading →

It’s no secret the GOP hates Attorney General Eric Holder. If you want to start a fight with your Fox News-o-phile uncle, just say, “The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus!” as Rep. Louie Gohmert famously did during a House Judiciary hearing on the Boston Bombings in 2013. This was after Holder… Continue reading →