Despite the Obama administration's 4% increase in the Pentagon budget, Republican leaders and their conservative echo chamber are predictably issuing dire warnings about draconian cuts in defense spending and "disarming America." Of course, critics of Secretary Gates' strategic shift of resources to boost the nation's ability to fight current wars and future counterinsurgencies neglect to […]

Despite the predictable cries of "socialism" and "class warfare" from the raging right, support for President Obama's plan to return upper income tax rates to Clinton-era levels continues to enjoy overwhelming public support. That is one of the headlines from the latest CBS/New York Times poll which showed 74% back a tax increase for households […]

When it comes to foreign policy, George W. Bush was right - once. During the 2000 campaign, then candidate Bush declared the world would welcome America's role if the United States was not arrogant, but a "humble nation." But now that Barack Obama in London, Paris, Prague and now Ankara is practicing to near universal […]

The slaughter of three Pittsburgh policemen by an assailant who "didn't like our [gun] rights being infringed upon" has again highlighted the growing danger from incendiary Republican rhetoric spawning right-wing terror. After all, just days ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announced, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous." Fox News host Glenn Beck warned […]

Barack Obama, in the telling of some Republican leaders and their amen corner in the media, is "declaring war on Catholics." So says former Bush speechwriter turned Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson in parroting the wishful thinking and trumped-up controversy of conservatives in a diatribe this week. Sadly for the right-wing echo chamber, both with […]

Just five months after George W. Bush asked, "What's the G-20?," President Obama is drawing rave reviews for his leadership at the group's crucial summit in London. But while Obama's nimble diplomacy and deft touch is helping America and the world forget what was, it's worth contemplating what could have been under a President John […]

In 2001, President Bush waged a largely successful campaign to curb the estate tax. But eight years after denouncing that scourge of the ultra-rich, Republicans have resurrected their "death tax" talking point, complete with its repeatedly debunked claims about the impact of estate levies on small businesses and family farms. Even as they decry the […]

It may be April Fool's Day 2009, but the Republican Party is playing the same joke on the American people. After brushing off last week's calamitous Republican "road to recovery" blueprint as a "marketing document," Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP's alternative budget in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. In it, Ryan offers the same […]

"Reagan," Dick Cheney once famously declared, "proved that deficits don't matter." Not, that is, when a Republican is sitting in the Oval Office, as the tripling of the U.S. national debt under Ronald Reagan and doubling under George W. Bush confirmed. Now with the mystery budget unveiled to great fanfare - and even greater laughter […]

Across the right-wing blogosphere, red meat reactionary Andrew Breitbart is being hailed as a visionary hero for his call to arms, "online activists on the right, unite!" In his jeremiad, Breitbart warns that a "digital war has broken out, and the conservative movement is losing" and insists the right's "embrace of Judeo-Christian ideals" has prevented […]