The resignation of Washington Post blogger David Weigel is as ironic as it is sad. On Saturday, the Post's ombudsman wrote a piece titled "Blogger loses job; Post loses standing among conservatives" for a paper which regularly features not one but two former Bush speechwriters (Michael Gerson and Marc Thiessen) among its columnists. More ironic […]

The past week has brought a lot of heat if not light to the ongoing battle over health care reform in the United States. On Tuesday, President Obama unveiled a "Patients Bill of Rights" touting new consumer protections. Meanwhile, even as polls show the Affordable Care Act is becoming more popular, House Minority Leader John […]

In one of the most disingenuous claims yet by the Republican born-again deficit virgins, House Minority Leader John Boehner claimed two weeks ago that the Bush tax cuts were not to blame for the massive deficits now plaguing the federal government. On Wednesday, Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse set the record straight. The U.S. […]

For America's ultra-rich, two stories this month have been dominating the news. Thanks to Republican obstructionism, the one-year lapse of the estate tax is producing a windfall for the heirs of the nation's most well-off, including, as we learned two weeks ago, the heirs of Texas billionaire Dan Duncan. That was followed just days later […]

On Friday, Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan penned dueling op-eds on the federal budget deficit. While Greenspan warned that the "urgency to rein in budget deficits" is "none too soon," Krugman countered "many self-described deficit hawks are hypocrites, pure and simple." Which is exactly right. Only now, nine years […]

Over just the past few months, Republicans on Capitol Hill have defended predatory health insurers, corrupt Wall Street bankers and criminal coal mining companies. Now with word that President Obama has secured a $20 billion, independently administered escrow fund from BP to help pay for its devastating oil spill in the Gulf, leading lights of […]

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Meg Whitman and John McCain have quite the mutual admiration society. During the 2008 campaign, McCain parroted her claim that "1.3 million people in the world make a living off eBay" as the basis for his recession-fighting strategy. And now with the revelation that Whitman paid […]

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and so it is with the foul stench emanating from Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. After years of proclaiming "I am not a journalist," Beck told USA Today he is in fact a journalist, albeit one without "formal training." And after grappling with whether to […]

Over the weekend, President Obama wrote Congressional leaders urging action on a $50 billion aid package for the states designed in part to avert "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters." Which is exactly right. Because while the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has worked as intended to boost employment and GDP, the dire […]

"Reagan," Dick Cheney famously said in 2002, "proved deficits don't matter." Until, that is, a Democrat is in the White House. And it so was on Friday, when House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) insisted the Bush tax cuts did not help produce a hemorrhage of red ink from the U.S. Treasury. Of course, the […]