The Republican presidential contest is a lot like The Wizard of Oz: no brain, no heart and a whole lot of cowardly lyin'. And perhaps on no issue is the GOP's field's misguided cruelty and duplicity more profound than illegal immigration. After all, while Michele Bachmann wants to deport all 11 million current illegal aliens […]

A devastating new DNC ad this week has once again highlighted Mitt Romney's gymnastic flip-flops on the issue of abortion. Rushing to his defense, conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker claimed his opportunism was instead deeply principled, declaring "Romney's own change of heart evolved not from personal experience but rather from a purposeful course of […]

Last year, Republicans successfully waged a scorched-earth campaign to preserve at all costs the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans. Back then, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl defended the Treasury-draining, $70 billion a year windfall for the wealthy by proclaiming, "you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision […]

For weeks, rumors have been swirling that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing his cabinet towards a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. In the U.S., such a move enjoys the backing not only of the usual neoconservative suspects, but virtually all of the Republican presidential candidates. But while would-be GOP President Mitt Romney […]

When Newt Gingrich proposed his 15 percent flat-tax scheme in October, the plan like the former House Speaker himself was viewed as an afterthought in the GOP presidential race. But now that Gingrich is the new Republican frontrunner, his tax cut proposal is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves. Because like fellow flat-taxers Herman Cain […]

"If I'm president of the United States," Mitt Romney declared during a recent GOP presidential debate, "My first foreign trip will be to Israel to show the world we care about that country and that region." As it turns out, Romney's pledge isn't just his latest transparent ploy to win over Jewish voters. Mitt's Israeli […]

Remember when President Bush forgot to thank God in his 2008 Thanksgiving address? Neither do the conservatives now apoplectic that Barack Obama's 2011 remarks contained no reference to the Almighty. Nevertheless, the usual suspects on the right are frothing at the mouth over the perceived slight from the man many still pretend is a secret […]

On this the fourth Thanksgiving since the start of the Bush recession, families across America are still struggling with persistently high unemployment, underwater mortgages and stagnant wages. But as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reminded us this week, Americans can be thankful for the 2009 stimulus. Despite Republican mythmaking that the American Recovery and […]

The Wall Street Journal greeted the failure of the Congressional debt super committee with an editorial titled, "Thank You, Grover Norquist." That gratitude should have surprised no one. After all, Norquist's anti-tax pledge led handcuffed committee Republicans not just to oppose even modest tax increases on the richest Americans, but to demand another tax cut […]

As the GOP presidential field gathers once again for the CNN national security debate, Mitt Romney has already identified Iran as the place to contrast himself with the current commander-in-chief. "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon," Romney declared at the last Republican foreign policy shindig, adding, "If you elect me […]