This week, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) became the latest Republican to give his party credit for the improving U.S. economy. After the Commerce Department reported American gross domestic product (GDP) jumped by 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2010, Cantor attributed the gains to the December tax cut deal and supposed Republican fiscal […]

In a 1999 episode of "The Simpsons," theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking says to Homer, "Your theory of a donut shaped universe intrigues me." Sadly, the same can't be said of Sarah Palin's call for a donut-based economy for the United States. Palin's boost for the American breakfast snack sector came in her jaw-dropping […]

They say it's better to be lucky than good. But on Thursday, Fox News host Glenn Beck may have been both. The night before, his pay-for Insider Extreme web site premiered "Rumors of War," an incendiary pseudo-documentary designed to drum up support for conflict with Tehran by claiming, among other things, "now the Iranians are […]

From war taxes and the First Amendment to Reagan's Iran/Contra scandal, how much energy her home state of Alaska produces and so much more, Sarah Palin doesn't know what she doesn't know. As her response to President Obama's State of the Union address showed, that long and growing list now includes the history of the […]

As the Washington Post and the New York Times reported, the rapidly developing unrest in Egypt is just as quickly posing a major challenge to U.S. foreign policy in the region. On Tuesday, Secretary of State declared "the Egyptian government is stable" even as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Cairo. […]

This week, former Minnesota Governor and obvious GOP White House hopeful Tim Pawlenty debuted a glitzy new ad to promote his new book and his upcoming candidacy. As it turns out, Pawlenty's timing in releasing his big-budget video just hours before the President's 2011 speech to Congress is altogether fitting. After all, Pawlenty's words sound […]

Two new surveys released today are just the latest signs the U.S. economic recovery is gaining steam. While a USA Today panel found "nine of 10 economists said they're more optimistic than three months ago," the National Association for Business Economics reported that "more firms expressing positive hiring plans than in over a decade." But […]

This week, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced they would deploy Rep. Paul Ryan to give the Republican rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address. But while Boehner is now touting Ryan as "uniquely qualified to address the state of our economy and the fiscal challenges that face […]

On Thursday, Georgia Republican Congressman Paul Broun insisted he would not sit with Democrats during next week's State of the Union address when "Barack Obama spews his venom." That's quite a charge, coming as it does from a man who equated health care reform to the "War of Yankee Aggression", compared President Obama to Adolf […]

In the run-up to Wednesday's vote by House Republicans to undo the Affordable Care Act, the McClatchy papers asked, "Will it last? Health care repeal debate takes on civil tone." The answer, of course, was no. The Republican Party that brought America bogus charges of "death panels," the "government-takeover of health care," and "job-killing" plans […]