The Smithsonian magazine highlights — and supports — evolution in the cover story of their January issue. Online, they go even further, with additional information and links.

Cue the TheoCon heads exploding in five, four, three . . .

Gosh — preachers who have no problem railing about marriage equality and racial issues suddenly fall mute when they ponder preaching about the current economic mess. Can you say “Veal Pen Preacher”? Sure you can . . .

Add in a duplicitous visiting scholar from the Heritage Foundation who thinks Jesus preached predatory capitalism as the way of salvation, and you’ve got a nasty combination.

Whatever your thoughts on religion, that combination is truly toxic.

We’re Americans. We can dismiss the possibility we live in a banana republic as nonsense, right?

As the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs was holding a hearing on veterans’ healthcare, we sat down with Iraq vet Kris Goldsmith of Long Island who chose to take his own life rather than be “stop-lossed.” Kris puts a face on the latest, horrific, government statistic, namely, that deaths from suicide may exceed combat deaths among soldiers who’ve served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Watch this interview sitting down, then get up and DO SOMETHING.

Americans are working more, real wages are going down. American wealth inequality is greater today than in the pre-World War One age we called the Gilded Age. How did it get so lop-sided? We ask our roundtable participants, Ed Ott, Saru Jayaraman, and Tamara Draut.