Somewhere in America, a psychology graduate student is doubtless preparing the definitive thesis of the modern conservative mindset. After all, the Bush years produced a cottage industry of analyses on the roots of Dubya's "dead or alive, bring 'em on" macho talk. And now that Sarah Palin has added "impotent" and "limp" to a right-wing […]

A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation forecast that family health insurance premiums will rise by only 3% in 2010. Sadly, the good news from the Employer Health Benefits 2010 Annual Survey ends there. Coming on the heels of several reports showing financially-strapped Americans dramatically cutting back on needed medical treatment, the Kaiser survey […]

On Thursday, NPR offered a tour of the neighborhood around the proposed Islamic center in lower Manhattan. But while Brian Reed offered a tour of the Starbucks, some Indian restaurants, a tobacconist, a strip club, a Christian Science Reading room, some churches and an Off Track Better OTB) facility near Ground Zero, another battle over […]

In the wake of President Obama's speech last, the neoconservative architects of the Iraq War predictably reemerged to claim credit for the national disaster they portray as success. But one of them, Bill Kristol, allowed that the address was, "on the whole, not a bad speech by the president," adding that it was "unrealistic for […]

In her predictable Facebook pre-buttal to the President's primetime speech on Iraq, Sarah Palin demanded that Barack Obama "admit you were wrong about the surge." But in insisting that "the more honest you are about the past, the more likely it is you will gain the support of the American people," Palin exempted President Bush […]

"At that price," the shopper says, "even if you don't need it, it's a bargain." And so it is with the Iraq War, at least according to Fox News. Citing numbers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress […]

In his pivotal address to the Southern Baptists in 1960, John F. Kennedy cautioned those suspicious of his Catholic faith, "Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril." But with his furious […]

On Saturday, Glenn Beck and tens of thousands of his Tea Party faithful descended on Washington supposedly to "restore honor" to America and defend the Constitution of the United States. Or, more accurately, parts of it. After all, once they get past their enthusiasm for the Second and Tenth Amendments, the same right-wing die-hards would […]

Back in the 1970's, the British comedy troupe Monty Python introduced the expression "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" into the popular culture. Now, with the prospect of the GOP retaking control of the House of Representatives, everybody expects the Republican Inquisition. That is, the Party that decried the "criminalization of politics" in every scandal from […]

With Democrats proposing to set the top two income tax rates at 36% and 39.6% respectively, Republican leaders waged a ferocious battle on behalf of the wealthiest American taxpayers. Former House Majority Leader and current Tea Party moneyman Dick Armey warned, "This program will not give you deficit reduction." Ohio's John Kasich cautioned, "It's our […]