In 1863, humorist Artemus Ward wrote a satire on hucksterism, making up a tale of Abe Lincoln being asked to endorse a piece of quackery about spiritualism. Not wanting to offend, the Lincoln character slyly...

“Corporate crises consultants” (yes, there are such creatures) have patented a formula allowing their wrongdoing clients to champion reform while simultaneously killing it....

“Step right up, folks, and bite into the wondrous future of meat!” Cheap meat! Ethical meat! Animal meat you love – beef, chicken, pork, fish, etc. – all produced without animals!...

Here’s our Big Word of the day: Extraterritoriality. It expresses a sketchy legal theory asserting that rulers in one state have a right to enforce their laws in another state....

I no longer receive my local newspaper, the Austin-American Statesman. Oh, the paper still comes, but it’s just paper, minus the news part –...

Bruce King, former governor of New Mexico, often baffled people with his convoluted use of words. Like the time he vetoed a loan shark bill he’d previously agreed to sign. “But, Governor,” squealed the lenders’...

Perhaps you heard about the recent surge of invasive foreigners into Eagle Pass, Texas – the Rio Grande border town that finds itself at the hot center of the US-Mexico immigration crisis....

This plot line could have come from one of Charles Dickens’ novels about upper-class depravity: “Miserly governors refuse to provide gruel for poverty-stricken ragamuffins.”...

Heeere they come again: The wrecking crew of Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts & Thomas – the six plutocratic judicial supremacists determined to force their personal political biases on all of us....

Farming can be a deeply satisfying life – you’re connected directly to nature, you are your own boss, and you do work that’s real, benefitting humanity. But then there are the pests – such as...