It's traditional to count our blessings at this time of year, but given the general state of affairs and Washington's whole lot of talk and no action, it's hard to get into the holiday spirit.

It's harder still if you're one of the many in the unemployment lines or one of the many who are cleaning out the shelves of the charity food pantries so their children don't go hungry.

The national treasury is pretty much empty, and our line of credit with our traditional allies, formerly known as Red China, is drying up. We still have plenty of paper and ink, though, and the Treasury's printing presses are running 24/7 with no sign of a respite. The dollars they crank out are sinking like the Titanic, and gold is at $1,300 an ounce and rising fast. » read more

President Barack Obama has yet to decide where we're going and what we're doing in Afghanistan, but if the flood of leaks this week is any indicator, he at least has decided what he isn't going to do.

He isn't going to be rushed into making such an important decision.

He seemingly is unwilling to buy a pig in a poke from any of the players — not from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, who wants another 40,000 to 80,000 American troops; not from his own national security wizards who've proffered four different pigs in four different pokes; not from Vice President Joe Biden, who wants to leave the fight to Special Forces and unmanned Predators. » read more

Veterans Day has come around again, as it does every fall, arriving with a new crispness in the air, the woods painted in glorious color and the days of a year that seemed new just yesterday now dwindled to a precious few.

If none of those signs had signaled its arrival, the advertising of big sales at the malls would have reminded those without more personal and less commercial ties to military service.

In this year, the last living British veteran of World War I died. The last American combat veteran of The Great War died in 2007 at age 108. The last of the Greatest Generation veterans of World War II, who once numbered some 15 million and changed the face of this nation, are slipping away fast now. The veterans of Korea, the forgotten war, are fading away, too. The ranks of more than 3 million who served in the Vietnam War are thinning out, as well. » read more

You may remember all those Obama campaign cheerleaders for change chanting, "Yes we can!" during last year's campaign events.

This year, in the 10th month of his presidency, it doesn't really seem that they can, or that he can. Nothing much has changed except the size of the federal budget deficit and the National Debt, both swelling and swollen by the humongous bailout of Wall Street and the big banking corporations.

Any hope that we'd witness and celebrate a return to the rule of law after the departure of George W. Bush and his unindicted co-conspirators has long gone a' glimmering. President Barack Obama would rather face an uncertain future than look back at an ugly past. » read more

There are times when less is more and more is the wrong answer, and right now in Afghanistan would seem to be one of those times.

There are a lot of theories and proposals flying around as President Barack Obama and his national security advisers debate what our military and civilian arms of the government can do with the eight-year old war in Afghanistan.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander on the ground, wants another 40,000 to 45,000 American troops thrown into the fight to reinforce the 68,000 in country by late November. » read more