Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that over 44,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, in a complete reversal of both logic and the truth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that it is the availability of a public insurance option which could prove fatal. […]

One week after its devastating documentary ("The Warning") on federal regulator Brooksley Born's unheeded warning in the 1990's about the potential disaster in the offing for the U.S. financial system, on Tuesday the PBS program Frontline aired an episode which portrayed the subsequent recession's harsh impact on the residents of an Upper East Side New […]

On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced that the U.S. economy expanded at a surprisingly strong 3.5% rate. But despite Q3 GDP growth which exceeded consensus estimates, the outsized impact of one-time programs including the Cash for Clunkers incentives and the tax credit for first-time home buyers suggests the pace of economic expansion will slow in […]

Rush Limbaugh is like a faulty septic tank, always overflowing and spewing s**t everywhere. In addition to his frequent racist diatribes, Limbaugh's effluence routinely contains such on-air vulgarisms as "grab the ankles" and "bend over." Now, the right-wing radio host has branded President Obama a "man-child." And as it turns out, it's not the first […]

Among the more comic story lines of the Republican war on health care reform has been the Party's side-splitting defense of Medicare. After all, the GOP not only tried to block the program in the 1960's, but tried again to gut it thirty years later. But after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats were […]

In the wake of its shocking assessment that employer-provided health insurance now covers only 54.6% of the American people, Thomson Reuters released a disturbing assessment of wasteful spending in the U.S. health care system Echoing the estimates of Obama OMB chief Peter Orszag and others, the analysis concluded that the United States wastes up to […]

While the Obama White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats debate among themselves whether a so-called "opt out" public health insurance option will be included in reform legislation, Minnesota Governor and GOP presidential wannabee Tim Pawlenty has already weighed in. Asked if he would "lead a charge" in his state to opt […]

In recent days, Republican leaders have scored a series of political victories in their eternal quest for tort reform. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that an onerous package of malpractice curbs he championed could save the government an estimated $54 billion over 10 years. That came on the […]

Back in September 2007, George W. Bush revealed his plans for life after the White House. First, Mr. Bush said, "I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers." The following July, Kathryn Jean Lopez, one of his bath water drinkers at the National Review, suggested, "Wouldn't George W. Bush make an awesome high-school […]

In a surprise to many, South Carolina narrowly topped Oklahoma in the first BCS standings released this week. Not, that is, in college football's Bowl Championship Series, but in the Battle of Crazy States. Oklahoma dropped to the #2 spot after a late South Carolina rally led by two Palmetto State GOP county chairmen who […]