In 2009, Politifact declared Sarah Palin's "death panels" fraud its "Lie of the Year." As it turns out, the Republican Party is the Home of the Whopper. Its followers, especially those most deeply steeped in the Tea Party's toxic brew, continue to believe claims about Barack Obama's faith, national origin, and tax cuts (just to […]

Last month, Florida Republican Senator George Lemieux summed up the impact of his party's successful effort to kill the estate tax in 2010. "The joke is don't go hunting with your children because right now there's no estate tax in this country this year." But the billions lost to the U.S. Treasury so that the […]

In June, an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities confirmed that gap between rich and poor in the United States reached levels not seen since 1929. Between 1979 and 2007, the yawning chasm separating the after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of Americans from the middle and poorest fifths of the […]

While Republicans continue to block jobless benefits for those they deem undeserving, a different morality play is at work in the nation's foreclosure crisis. As the New York Times reported this morning, the biggest defaulters on mortgages are the rich. Even as U.S. income inequality hit levels not seen since 1929, wealthier Americans, whose recovery […]

When my family left Cleveland in the early 1970's, it had about 725,000 people; in 2009, what was once the 8th largest city in the nation had shriveled to 431,000. Now as basketball superstar Lebron James prepares to announce his next stop on the road to becoming a $1 billion, one-man brand, the one-time Best […]

Back in February, Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan defended his "Roadmap for America's Future," which among other things would privatize - and inevitably ration - Medicare. "Rationing happens today!" Ryan revealingly protested, "The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?" Of course, he omitted the real culprit, private […]

During the comparatively mild 1991 recession, President George H.W. Bush twice vetoed the extension of unemployment insurance because the $5.3 billion price tag would add to the deficit. After taking a pounding in the polls, he eventually made a deal with Democrats, who funded the program in part through higher taxes on the wealthy. But […]

On Friday, Gallup became just the latest pollster to confirm the obvious: "Tea Party supporters overlap the Republican base." Despite the fact that the Tea Party movement is simply a continuation of the losing 2008 GOP presidential campaign by other means, the Washington Post today examined how its members marked the Fourth of July. But […]

Republican leaders are calling for Michael Steele's head in the wake of his remarks calling the conflict in Afghanistan "a war of Obama's choosing" which is destined to fail. But it's hardly the first time the GOP threatened Steele with the chopping block for bucking the party line. Last year, when the RNC chairman rolled […]

One day before Friday's dismal jobs report confirmed the pace of the U.S. recovery has slowed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the extension of unemployment benefits to "injects demand into the economy." But while the Republicans who have blocked the $112 billion package including the jobless benefits mocked her for it, Americans don't have […]