John McCain on Tuesday declared he would send U.S. special forces into Nigeria "in a New York minute" to free hundreds of school girls held hostage by Boko Haram. McCain's enthusiasm in unsurprising, given his past support for deploying American forces almost anywhere for almost any reason. Except, it turns out, to the place that […]

And now for today's quiz: When is $10 billion greater than $310 billion? When Republicans control the House of Representatives. Yes, the American people got another lesson in GOP math this week when House Republicans refused to budge on a $10 billion, five-month extension of unemployment benefits for 1.3 million long-term jobless workers while the […]

There are tragedies and then there are scandals. The killings of four Americans in Benghazi, as investigations by the State Department and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have already confirmed, was a tragedy, and likely a preventable one. But the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture was both a tragedy and a scandal. The […]

In the face of protests from some students and faculty, former Bush National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew as featured commencement speaker at the upcoming graduation ceremonies for the Rutgers University class of 2014. Predictably, conservatives were apoplectic, complaining "College campuses essentially operate on mob rule at this point." Former House […]

In the 20 months since four Americans were killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, two official investigations reached pretty much the same conclusions. The State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) looking into the tragedy attack each found an opportunistic […]

On Monday, Tennessee Republican state Sen. Stacey Campfield posted a message reading, "Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory [sic] sign ups for 'train rides' for Jews in the 40s." As it turns out, the only thing more horrifying than Campfield's casual […]

For over 30 years, it has been the Republican Party's uber lie. Ever since Jude Wanniski first sketched Arthur Laffer's curve on the back of a napkin, conservatives have claimed that "tax cuts pay for themselves" because the extra economic activity they incentivize will produce tax revenues at least as great as they otherwise would […]

Still in the throes of Bridgegate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has another crisis on his hands. With only two months remaining in the Garden State's current fiscal year, Christie faces a whopping $800 million shortfall. In response, Chris Christie is doing what Chris Christie always does. After being warned by the legislature's nonpartisan budget […]

"Waterboarding," would-have been GOP vice president Sarah Palin told a cheering NRA audience Saturday, "is how we baptize terrorists." On Monday, she defended the comments even her most ardent supporters called "sacrilegious," calling it "utterly absurd for MSNBC to suggest that I could put our beloved troops in harm's way." But MSNBC has plenty of […]

Last year, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) sponsored a bill prohibiting the Internal Revenue Service from implementing or enforcing any part of the Affordable Care Act. "The IRS," Grimm charged, "has proven to be a scandal-ridden organization that has abused its authority by targeting individuals and organizations." Two years earlier, he called for the repeal (though […]