Where’s Woody when we need him? This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie, and in these hard times of tinkle-down economics, we sure could use some of his hard-hitting musical stories and inspired lyrical populism.

Meet Lt. Col. Danny Davis, a 48-year-old career Army man who fought in our two Iraq wars and has had two year-long deployments in the Afghanistan war.

Every day on the job, hundreds of miners descend deep into the earth. And every time they go down, each of them wonders: “Will I make it back to the top today?” These days, though, miners and their families are wondering if federal prosecutors will...

Yes, we certainly need to cut unnecessary and even frivolous federal spending, because, well, because it’s unnecessary and frivolous. So, Congress has targeted unnecessary oil subsidies and frivolous tax giveaways to billionaires, right? Uh, no. Instead, our learned solons have chosen to whack the Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.

Oh to be in Afghanistan again, when the poppies are in bloom! For a symbol of how America’s decade-long war is going in this faraway land, look at the beautiful fields of red poppies flowering so bountifully there. Unfortunately, that bounty symbolizes a failure of an ambitious Western initiative against the Taliban forces.

In my state of Texas, things tend to be bigger — bigger hats, bigger money and bigger thievery by political con men.Last year, the gang of GOP hucksters who control our state government pulled off a huge heist, covering it up with an equally huge boast: “We balanced our budget. Not by raising taxes but by cutting government spending,” bragged the gang leader, Gov. Rick “Oops” Perry.

Last year, during an intimate chat and chew dinner with some Silicon Valley high-tech barons, President Barack Obama posed a question to Steve Jobs, baron of the Apple empire.

Justice Kennedy, meet Sheldon Adelson — a product of your cluelessness about how real politics work. For years, this casino baron has spent lavishly on right-wing front groups to advance his personal agenda, including pouring money into Newt Gingrich’s campaign.

Why do congressional Republicans hate unborn babies? Yeah, I know they profess to love the unborn, even considering them “persons” from the very moment of conception. Yet, whose interest do you think these same politicos have chosen to protect when it comes to regulating an especially nasty industrial toxin that wreaks holy hell on unborn babies?

The Powers That Be constantly try to pull the wool over people’s eyes, but sometimes the wool blinders are so itchy that people rip them off and clearly see the scam.