In response to the manufactured outrage over President Obama's planned address Tuesday to America's schoolchildren, the White House as promised has released portions of the text of the speech in advance. Here are excerpts from President Obama's prepared remarks: Preliminary Excerpt of the President's September 8 Address to America's Schoolchildren* For Immediate Release September 6, […]

On Wednesday, the fact checking web site Politifact deemed a "pants on fire" lie the Republican claim that President Obama planned to indoctrinate America's school children in a broadcast next week. On Friday, press secretary Robert Gibbs rightly noted that presidents Reagan and Bush similarly addressed students in speeches which, as Steve Benen pointed out, […]

The once lopsided Virginia gubernatorial race has suddenly gotten a lot more interesting with the revelations surrounding Republican front-runner Robert McDonnell's reactionary 1989 master's thesis. As it turns out, it's not just Democrats clamoring that McDonnell "can't shrug it off as misguided youth"; many of his long-time Republican allies claim the 34 year author of […]

While the Wall Street Journal editorial page can always be counted on to cheerlead the flat-earth economics of the Republican Party, on occasion the paper's reporters contradict GOP orthodoxy. And so it is today on the subject of the Obama stimulus package. Just one day after Eric Cantor (R-VA) followed the lead of John Boehner […]

If nothing else the GOP is an irony producing machine. The same Republican Party which fought to block Medicare in the 1960's and tried to gut it in the 1990's is now pretending to be the defender of the popular government-run health care program for America's seniors. RNC chairman Michael Steele is just the latest […]

In a New York Times op-ed Sunday, former New Jersey Senator and legendary New York Knicks forward Bill Bradley looked back to the future of health care reform. Citing his own role in the deal with Ronald Reagan that produced the 1986 overhaul of the tax code, Bradley optimistically insisted, "a grand bipartisan compromise is […]

One day after Newt Gingrich, no friend of the CIA, called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over his plan to investigate the agency, former Vice President Dick Cheney pronounced he was "offended as hell" by the probe. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported "Ex-Intelligence Officials Cite Low Spirits at CIA." To make its case, […]

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," President George W. Bush protested on September 1, 2005. Ultimately, Bush's feeble - and false - excuse for his tragic failure in the wake of the drowning of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina four years ago today defined his presidency. As it turns out, from […]

Traffic in Vancouver, as I learned the hard way during a recent trip to British Columbia, is a nightmare. The crisis has become so severe that the city is now home to North America's only commercial radio station dedicated 24/7 to traffic reports. But judging from the ads on AM 730, the only thing Canadians […]

Once upon a time - a time before the 2006 midterm elections consigned the GOP to minority status in Congress, a bill generally required 51 votes in the Senate to become law. But not content to rest on their record for filibusters in the 110th term, roadblock Republicans now insist even 60 votes aren't enough. […]