Two weeks ago, House Speaker John Boehner protested that the characterization of his Republican Party as "servants of the rich" was "very unfair." But after the GOP torpedoed any debt reduction deal from the Congressional super committee including "any penny" in new tax revenue from the richest Americans, Boehner's complaint seems all the more pathetic. […]

In the wake of its clashes with police in cities across the country, some media (for example, here and here) are beginning to question whether the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is becoming counterproductive. But lost in those debates is the undeniable victory of the Occupy movement, or at least this first phase of it. […]

Memo to Republicans: (1) Until President Obama appears on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit and an oversized cod piece, no conservative can ever accuse of him of taking too much credit for any national security success. (2) When it comes to Iraq, no one who has been as consistently […]

For years, what passes for Republican economic policy has been dominated by "necessary lies," that is, statements which conservative ideology requires to be true despite being demonstrably false. Despite decades of GOP mythmaking, tax cuts don't pay for themselves or increase revenue. Employment and the overall U.S. economy grew faster when America's so-called "job creators" […]

Suppose you are a candidate for President of the United States. Suppose further that you know that over the past 40 years, the per-beneficiary cost of Medicare rose 40% less than private health insurance. Say you also know that studies consistently show that the Veteran's Administration (VA) health care system provides "the best care anywhere," […]

Here in a nutshell is the state of play in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes: alleged serial sexual harasser Herman Cain is being surpassed by confirmed serial adulterer Newt Gingrich. With Mitt Romney stalled and Cain hemorrhaging support from women voters, polls from CBS and Marist show the former House Speaker has surged into a […]

"Reality," Stephen Colbert famously told President Bush to his face, "has a well-known liberal bias." That inconvenient truth is at the heart of the expanding Republican war on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Increasingly frustrated by CBO analyses showing that the 2009 economic stimulus worked as designed, that the Paul Ryan GOP Medicare rationing […]

Without any action by Congress, on January 1, 2013 the Bush tax cuts will expire. That would not only return the top income rate from 35 percent to its Clinton boom-era level of39.6 percent. It would also produce almost $4 trillion in new revenue over the next decade, easily dwarfing the $1.2 trillion target now […]

It's awfully tough to be a presidential candidate worth $250 million when income inequality and poverty are at record levels. Of course, it's tougher still when you're Mitt Romney. After all, in words and in deeds, Romney for years has consistently reminded Americans of "the guy who laid you off." Now, a week after the […]

Back in 2005, Republican strategist and Mitt Romney adviser Michael Murphy created quite a stir when he declared of the Massachusetts Governor, "He's been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly." Over the last few weeks, Romney has once again confirmed what might be called Murphy's Law. The one-time Planned Parenthood donor who […]