For the first time in years, passage of the farm bill is producing conflict and controversy on Capitol Hill. But even as House Republicans demand $20 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that would remove five million people from the food stamp rolls, the Government Accountability Office offered yet another example […]

Florida Senator and obvious 2016 GOP White House hopeful Marco Rubio used a Fox News op-ed last Thursday to publish one of the most comical acts of budgetary extortion in recent memory. Demanding that Congress shutter the federal government rather than pay for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in its next short term […]

Former Vermont Governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean may like to claim he represents "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," just not on health care. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the one-time 2004 frontrunner turned K Streeter warmed conservative hearts by declaring "the Affordable Care Act's rate-setting won't work." Sadly for […]

The past week brought two big waves of Obamacare news. In the first, Maryland became just the latest state to announce that its new health care exchange will deliver lower than expected insurance premiums beginning in 2014. In the second, a slew of contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination took the op-ed pages to […]

During the 2012 campaign, Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan proposed what might be called "tax cuts for cowards." That is, Romney/Ryan proposed slashing tax rates for the wealthy and corporations, partially offsetting the trillions in lost revenue by promising to close some of the hundreds of loopholes and tax breaks that cost Uncle Sam […]

With Congress set to adjourn for the summer, Republican leaders are hoping to reprise the recess of 2009, when furious Tea Partiers armed with incendiary signs, bogus GOP talking points and occasionally guns (though not the truth) ran roughshod over town hall meetings nationwide. But along with their streams of sound bites and planted questions, […]

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican John McCain famously struggled to explain at what point an American could be considered rich. When Pastor Rick Warren asked McCain at the Saddleback Church presidential forum "where do you move from middle class to rich," the $100 million man who had lost count of how many homes he […]

The conservative campaign to brand Barack Obama "Race-Baiter in Chief" over his remarks on the Trayvon Martin tragedy continued uninterrupted over the weekend. Joining ranks with Sean Hannity, who said the young Obama resembled Martin because "he smoked pot and he did a little blow," were former Bush press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Dana Perino. […]

This week, millions of Americans struggled to understand how an unarmed 17 year old African-American kid stalked by an overzealous community watch volunteer came to be blamed for his own murder. Millions more wondered what all the fuss was about. And like many Americans across the country, I naturally expected our President--who also happens to […]

Just days after playing a key role in ending the log jam over Republican filibustering of President Obama's executive branch nominees, Arizona Senator John McCain put a road block in the front of the anticipated confirmation of Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey. McCain announced he would put a "hold" on Dempsey's second term heading up […]