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 […]

On Wednesday, House Republicans will keep half of their grandstanding promise to "repeal and replace" the 2010 health care reform law. But the easy part ends there. As the Washington Post explains, GOP leaders are still far offering anything to replace the Affordable Care Act they hope to kill in whole or in part. Worse […]

In the run-up to November's midterm elections, David Leonhardt of the New York Times presciently warned, "In their Pledge to America, Congressional Republicans have used the old trick of promising specific tax cuts and vague spending cuts," adding, "It's the politically easy approach, and it is likely to be as bad for the budget as […]

For years, Republicans have deployed the word "uncertainty" to stymie any public policy with which they disagreed. A decade after President Bush declared "scientific uncertainties remain" about global warming, virtually the entire Congressional Republican caucus has proudly joined the deniers' camp. Last month, GOP leaders revved up the uncertainty myth over taxes, falsely claiming that […]

On the day of his booking on conspiracy and money laundering charges five years ago, convicted felon and former House Majority Leader Tom Delay proclaimed, "Let people see Christ through me." Apparently, Delay's Jesus didn't believe in turning the other cheek, but instead accused the Romans of "criminalizing politics." Appearing on NBC's Today Show Thursday […]

With today's memorial service in Arizona, Wednesday is a day for all Americans to mourn the victims of Saturday's deadly shooting spree in Tucson. Sadly, with her aggressive defense of her past incendiary rhetoric, Sarah Palin has made it all about herself. Worse still, Palin has marked the attempted assassination of the first Jewish Congresswoman […]