From the beginning, the defining irony of the never-ending debate over Obamacare is this: health care is worst in those states where Republicans poll best. The map of the states with the worst health care systems largely mirrors GOP strongholds in the Electoral College. Red state residents are generally the unhealthiest and more likely than […]

On Monday, Congressional investigators revealed that Apple has side-stepped billions of dollars in U.S taxes "through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen." Nevertheless, Tuesday's hearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations turned into an Apple love fest, with CEO Timothy Cook insisting […]

Throughout the tenure of George W. Bush, many of us to the left of center warned that unchecked presidential power was putting Americans' civil liberties in jeopardy. Now with the revelations that the Obama Justice Department seized AP phone records in one leak case and monitored a reporter's communications in another, some on the right […]

With Washington engulfed in scandals real and imagined over the Benghazi tragedy, the IRS' handling of applications by political groups for tax exempt status and the Justice Department's seizure of AP phone records, California Congressman Darrell Issa is enjoying his moment in the sun. For Republicans "energized" by the prospect of bludgeoning President Obama over […]

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that President Obama has narrowed his list of possible replacements for FBI Director Robert Mueller to two candidates. Senate Republicans probably won't be happy with either of the highly respected choices. Lisa Monaco, the White House's top counterterrorism official, is a Harvard and University of Chicago-educated former prosecutor whose […]

Until Republicans captured their House majority in January 2011, no political party ever had both the intent and the votes to block an increase in the U.S. debt ceiling. While figures in both parties have cast symbolic votes against raising Uncle Sam's borrowing authority (Senator Barack Obama among them), until 2011 neither Democrats nor Republicans […]

Revelations that the Justice Department authorized the seizure of Associated Press phone records have produced condemnation from Congressional Democrats and other Obama allies. But while Capitol Hill Democrats decried the tactics as "inexcusable" (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid), "troubling" (Senator Pat Leahy) and having "impaired the First Amendment" (Rep. Zoe Lofgren), Congressional Republicans have been […]

On January 7, 200--two weeks before Barack Obama took the oath of office--the Congressional Budget Office forecast the federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 at $1.2 trillion. Now, the CBO is projecting the deficit will be only $642 billion for FY 2013, $200 billion less than the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper estimated as recently as […]

Revelations that IRS civil servants used biased criteria to target conservative groups seeking tax exempt status is rightly drawing bipartisan outrage. President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Investigations Subcommittee Chair Carl Levin (D-MI) voiced their strong support for probes of what Obama deemed the "outrageous" […]

For Republicans, Benghazi is the scandal that must not die. Despite the testimony by Obama administration officials including Hillary Clinton and the blistering findings of the State Department Accountability Review Board she endorsed, the GOP is determined to bludgeon the current president and the woman who might be his successor. So, the Republicans' talking point […]