Until the GOP took over the House of Representatives in 2011, raising the U.S. debt ceiling was a routine, uncontroversial legislative activity. Almost always supported by the party in power in the House and Senate, increases in Uncle Sam's borrowing authority were usually linked to new major new spending laws. Otherwise, Congress would send the […]

The Middle East peace process being led by Secretary of State John Kerry is reaching crunch time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While his coalition partners to his left will likely walk if he abandons the process, many in his own Likud Party and among its hard-right allies will rebel if he consummates a […]

Income inequality is not a disease, but rather a symptom of a disease. For over four decades, the United States has suffered from an atrophying of the great American middle class. The decline of post-World War II American economic dominance, the rise of new international competitors, the withering (and the smothering) of trade unions and […]

Long before he became America's preeminent conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer was a practicing physician in Boston. Now, the psychiatrist turned commentator is offering a prescription for his Republican Party suffering from the blowback of its war on women. The antidote to the yawning gender gap expanded by GOP proclamations about "legitimate rape" and other "gifts […]

Along with his fellow GOP Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC), Utah's Orrin Hatch this week unveiled a new Republican plan to replace Obamacare. Due to its lack of a health insurance mandate, less generous tax credits to purchase coverage and stricter eligibility for Medicaid, the Hatch plan yet to be scored by […]

Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper concluded what many observers deemed a triumphant four-day visit to Israel. His powerful message to the Knesset that "through fire and water, Canada will stand with you" earned him the praise of conservatives in Israel, Canada and the U.S. alike. While Sarah Palin thanked Harper for his full-throated, […]

There is little question that President Obama will address the Affordable Care Act in his 2014 State of the Union address. Given its troubled rollout and the neverending Republican effort to sabotage his signature domestic policy achievement, silence on Obamacare isn't an option. Nor should it be. After all, with as many 13.5 million Americans […]

This week, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Congressional leaders that the federal government will hit its debt ceiling in late February. But just days after House Speaker John Boehner declared Uncle Sam "shouldn't even get close" to the edge of its borrowing limit, his spokesman Michael Steel warned a "'clean' debt-limit increase simply won't pass […]

During the 2012 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Mitt Romney declared that discussion of the nation's record-high income inequality should be left to "quiet rooms." As their casual comparisons of modest tax increases to the Holocaust show, conservatives would do well to heed his advice. After all, before Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins warned that […]

This was not the best of weeks for once and possible future GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. First, the Fox News host doubled-down on his "Uncle Sugar" charge that the Affordable Care Act's conception coverage mandate showed that Democrats believe women "cannot control their libido or reproductive system without the help of the government," only […]