In the run-up to Thursday's White House health care summit, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein documented "the six Republican ideas already in the health-care reform bill." Among these is the GOP's favorite whipping boy, tort reform. But the Senate provision which "encourages states to develop new malpractice systems and suggests that Congress fund the most […]

As the Scooter Libby affair showed, no one circles the wagons like the Republican Party and its conservative allies. Now that Bush torture architects John Yoo and Jay Bybee barely escaped disbarment in the final version of the report from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, the right-wing counterattack and near orgasmic celebration is […]

With its estimate Tuesday that the $787 billion Obama stimulus package created up to 2.1 million jobs in the last quarter of 2009, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) joined in the near-unanimous chorus of voices proclaiming the package's success. Of course, it wasn't just the overwhelming consensus of economists which concurred that the stimulus saved […]

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility final conclusion that Bush torture team lawyers should not face misconduct penalties has triggered triumphant celebrations in right-wing circles. The Wall Street Journal rejoiced in "Vindicating John Yoo" that the "Bush lawyers are found to have acted ethically, unlike their accusers." In the National Review, former Bush press […]

On Monday, the daughter of Austin IRS suicide pilot Joseph Stack proclaimed her father a "hero." By joining the anti-government agitators, white supremacists, militia groups and other right-wing extremists in lauding him for standing up to the "injustice" of "the system," she like them dishonored true heroes like Vietnam veteran Vernon Hunter killed in Stack's […]

After his dismal performance at this weekend's CPAC conference, Minnesota Governor and 2012 White House hopeful Tim Pawlenty might want to ask for a mulligan. Before finishing a distant fourth in the CPAC straw poll, Pawlenty's speech was panned by the conservative faithful he sought to impress. Worse still, his painful Tiger Woods "9 iron" […]

For Democrats wavering in their resolve to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, shocking new data from the IRS should hopefully stiffen their backbones. Between 2001 and 2007, the 400 richest taxpayers doubled their annual incomes to an average of $345 million, while their effective tax rate plummeted to only 16.6% from […]

Thursday's suicide airplane attack on the Austin office of the Internal Revenue Service by a disgruntled tax protester has once again focused attention on dangerously inflammatory anti-IRS rhetoric. To be sure, the language was threatening. "Gestapo-like tactics." "The IRS is out of control!" "Which would you prefer: having your wallet or purse stolen or being […]

Back in January, a CNN poll revealed that "nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted." But one year after the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was signed into law, the numbers - and the overwhelming consensus […]

Last week, former Bush speechwriter and full-time torture apologist Marc Thiessen introduced perhaps the most comically hypocritical talking point in the perpetual Republican jihad against the Obama administration's war policies. In "Dead Terrorists Tell No Tales," Thiessen fretted that under President Obama, the United States is killing its enemies before getting a chance to torture […]