Historical events, it is said, occur twice, first as tragedy, then as farce. But not in the case of Goldman Sachs and the near-collapse of the American financial system. Six years before Congress released emails showing Goldman executives bragged about making "some serious money" betting against the housing market and "the poor little subprime borrowers", […]

Just days after praising Arizona's draconian immigration law as a "good tool" and 24 hours after calling on President Obama to immediately "dispatch of 3,000 National Guard troops to our border," John McCain Saturday admitted he's not sure his state's crackdown is even legal. Which means that the man who was for comprehensive immigration reform […]

The first lesson in Tea Party 101 is this: Tea Party supporters are just Republicans, only more so. They're old, white, very conservative and vote Republican. They shout the same incendiary slogans on display at any McCain-Palin rally circa October 2008. Tea Baggers and Republicans believe the same Bircher, Birther, Deather and Denier myths. And […]

It was just three weeks ago that John McCain rewrote his autobiography by proclaiming, "I never considered myself a maverick." Now, the draconian new immigration law in his home state of Arizona has highlighted McCain's tortured reversals on the issue. As even CNN noted on Friday, John McCain was for comprehensive immigration reform before he […]

In just a matter of days, the Republican effort to protect predatory Wall Street bankers has gone from the ridiculous to the sublime. Last week, Mitch McConnell endlessly parroted Frank Luntz' "permanent bailout" talking point - the day after meeting with financial executives in New York. Then on Thursday, Sarah Palin warned that "financial lobbyists […]

Urged on by Newt Gingrich, a coalition of Tea Party groups last week unveiled their so-called "Contract from America." Now, Congressional Republicans including Eric Cantor (R-VA), Mike Pence (R-IN) and Pete Sessions (R-TX) are also hoping to mimic Gingrich's winning 1994 gambit with their own "Contract with America." But after reading the Tea Party's 10-point […]

From the beginning, the so-called Tea Party movement has merely been a continuation of the failed 2008 Republican presidential campaign by other means. In April 2009, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show highlighted that truth when he told furious Tea Baggers, "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing." Now, a year later, Politico, […]

In a rare moment of Republican candor, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker debunked the talking point at the center of the GOP's campaign to protect predatory Wall Street bankers. Bucking his party's leadership, Corker defended reform provisions charging banks to create a resolution fund for winding down failing institutions, calling it "anything but a bailout." In […]

That Americans' trust in government has plummeted to near-record lows isn't a surprise. After all, as the Pew Research Center documented, distrust of Washington is an American tradition, one which tends to rise and fall inversely with the economy. But the spike in anger towards the federal government, a fury which doubled to 21% since […]

On Sunday, the New York Times revealed that Defense Secretary Robert Gates penned a secret memo warning "the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran's steady progress toward nuclear capability." Predictably, within hours of the story's publication John McCain pounced on the opportunity to bash President Obama on yet […]