WhatFinger


Michael Bates

Mike Bates is the author of Right Angles and Other Obstinate Truths. Michael's articles have appeared in the Congressional Record, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Mensa Journal. As a lad, Mike distributed Goldwater campaign literature and since then has steadily moved further to the Right. In 2007, he won an Illinois Press Association award for Original Column.

Older articles by Michael Bates

Most Recent Articles by Michael Bates:

The futility of trying to train a pig

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is an intelligent, insightful man. An example of that came recently when he was asked why he won’t hire clerks who have substantive philosophical disagreements with him: “It’s like trying to train a pig. It wastes your time, and it aggravates the pig.”
- Sunday, July 31, 2011

Social Security Checks Won’t Go Out. Again.

Talk about grim tidings on the debt ceiling. According to the Washington Post:
“Yesterday a worried Treasury Secretary . . . sent a letter to (the) House Speaker . . . listing the consequences if the debt bill was not sent to the President immediately. Social Security checks totaling $8 billion already in the mail would not be cashed and other checks for civil service retirement, veterans payments and government operating costs would not be honored as of today, he said.”
- Thursday, July 14, 2011

Fifty years ago, Kennedy and Nixon changed our politics forever

On September 26, 1960, Senator John Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon appeared in the first of what came to be called the Great Debates. How great they truly were is subject to dispute. But there’s no doubt they altered American politics permanently.
- Saturday, September 25, 2010

Barack Obama:  GOP Man of the Year

It wasn’t so long ago that the Grand Old Party was rapidly headed toward becoming the Grand Dead Party. Democratic victories in the House, the Senate, state capitols and, of course, the White House made it disheartening for those who subscribe to archaic concepts like limited government, a modicum of fiscal prudence and the Constitution.
- Monday, September 20, 2010

The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Guilty

These days, Barack Obama would rather talk about his birth certificate than use the word “stimulus.” At the press conference that wouldn’t end last week, Obama was asked if his latest and greatest spending proposal amounted to a second stimulus. He answered, “There is no doubt that everything we’ve been trying to do is designed to stimulate growth and additional jobs in the economy,” but adamantly avoided the dreaded s-word.
- Sunday, September 12, 2010

Where are the apologies?

Glancing at a newspaper in the Age of Obama can be hazardous to your mental – if not physical – health.
- Sunday, September 5, 2010


On Mammogram Guidelines, No Fact Checks for Sebelius or Durbin

When outrage erupted this week over a government panel's recommendation that women have fewer mammograms, health and human services secretary Kathleen Sebelius was prepared with the Obama administration's favorite talking point: It's all Bush's fault. Appearing Wednesday on CNN's The Situation Room, Sebelius told anchor Wolf Blitzer:
- Monday, November 23, 2009

If ObamaCare Wins, Obama Loses

“It’s like déjà vu all over again,” noted philosopher Yogi Berra is credited with saying. And so it is.
- Thursday, August 20, 2009

The “most trusted man in America” reconsidered

Just as the media – with the exception of Larry King – were finally getting over the passing of Michael Jackson came the news that former CBS newsman Walter Cronkite died. Cronkite was an iconic figure amongst his brethren and media encomia were suitably lavish.
- Sunday, July 19, 2009

I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message

Cook County board president Todd Stroger has an almost $12,000 lien on his house for unpaid federal taxes. Illinois treasurer Alexi Giannoulias bought a $26,000 hybrid SUV with money from the state’s college savings program. Former governor Milorad Blagojevich likely will be parking his hairbrush in a federal facility in the foreseeable future.
- Thursday, May 14, 2009


Obama: Yet Another Sorry Democratic President

Watching Barack Obama this past week was painful. The new president went out of his way to display his fresh style of leadership. It won rave reviews from many foreigners, the mainstream media and others who hold the United States in contempt.
- Tuesday, April 7, 2009


Why I Quit The Reporter

The Reporter, a suburban Chicago newspaper, included on its commentary page last week this editorial announcement:
- Monday, February 2, 2009

Include me out

It's numbing. The adulation, the elation, the mirth, the idolatry, the reveling in every possible facet of Obamaness. And that's just the response of the mainstream media.
- Wednesday, January 21, 2009

President Kennedy and the Mob

Plans are moving forward to complete the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. Known also as the Mob Museum, it will be an interactive attraction “dedicated to the history of organized crime and law enforcement.” One of the displays, in the organized crime section of the museum rather than the law enforcement area, should feature President John F. Kennedy.
- Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Roland will fit right in

Senate majority leader Harry Reid can be such a tease. On Sunday, the Nevada Democrat suggested that Illinois Gov. Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to replace The One in what is facetiously called the world’s greatest deliberative body might not be welcomed with open arms.
- Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Requiescat in pace, Uncle Sam

2008 will be known as the year the United States set aside any pretense of free enterprise. A nation that had flourished with the concept of limited government economic intervention turned to the seductive allure of massive federal intrusion. Washington will now more than ever redistribute wealth in the name of compassion, pick winners and losers, and decide how the fruits of your labor will be spent.
- Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Roddy, We Hardly Knew Ye

Our president-elect said in 2002: “. . . right now, my main focus is to make sure that we elect Rod Blagojevich as governor. . .” Obama’s White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has bragged that he, Obama, and two another party loyalists “were the top strategists of Blagojevich’s victory.” Like other major Democratic politicians, Obama had absolutely no doubts about the character of the man they made governor. That’s their story and they’re sticking with it.
- Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Sponsored