As the carnage and chaos grow in Cairo, there are no easy answers for the United States in Egypt. But once upon a time, Republican leaders and their allies in the conservative commentariat had a simple answer indeed for the Middle East. Waiving their purple fingers in early 2005, the likes of David Brooks, Charles […]

As has been thoroughly documented, until 2011 no political party had both the votes and the intent to block an increase in the U.S. debt ceiling and thereby trigger both a U.S. default and a global economic catastrophe. Now, despite plummeting annual federal budget deficits, a stabilization of the debt as a percentage of the […]

I have good news and bad news for Colorado Republican state senate candidate Jaxine Bubis. The bad news is that her would-be constituents now know that she authored a series of erotic novels under the name Jaxine Daniels, including the not-so-classic Beantown Heat. The good news is that publishing soft core porn is no barrier […]

Every July 4th, Americans gather at picnics, watch parades and shoot off fireworks to celebrate the birth of the United States. But some years are more notable than others. In 1826, Founding Fathers and former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson marked the nation's 50th anniversary by dying on that same Fourth of July. In […]

In a campaign email to supporters Tuesday, Texas Governor Rick Perry announced he would reveal "exciting future plans" next Monday in San Antonio. But if Governor Perry is planning to pass up a fourth term in order to wage a second campaign for President, he will find he already has plenty of company from inside […]

Next month, veteran Washington Post reporter Dan Balz will release Collision 2012, his book on last year's presidential campaign. But in an account supposedly jam-packed with never-before heard details, Balz apparently reproduces one of the tallest tales manufactured by Team Romney. Despite the overwhelming evidence that he never stopped running for President of the United […]

Memo to the good people of Tulsa, Oklahoma: If you hope to have any chance of becoming the smallest city ever to host the summer Olympics, don't start your campaign by insulting the rest of the country. Sadly, that's precisely what the committee organizing Tulsa's incredibly long-shot bid to capture the 2024 summer games has […]

God, it is often said, works in mysterious ways. Just ask Mike Huckabee. After all, the Baptist minister turned Arkansas governor turned Fox News host responded to the Supreme Court's marriage equality decisions this week by lamenting, "Jesus wept." But back in 2008, Huckabee had a different reaction to the passage of Proposition 8 that […]

During his confirmation hearings in 2005, John Roberts made three promises to the American people. Less than a decade later, he's broken them all. For starters, the future Chief Justice proclaimed his fidelity to precedent, a commitment he shattered so quickly that a Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) lamented he and his colleagues had been "hoodwinked." […]

As the New York Times documented last week, the choices and pricing of private health insurance will vary widely from state to state when the Affordable Care Act's exchanges launch this fall. In state-run marketplaces in California, Colorado and Oregon, residents will have a wide array of providers and plans to choose from. But in […]