With his much-hyped call for the firing of President Obama's economic team, House Minority Leader John Boehner ensured his speech in Cleveland today would get a lot of attention. But sadly for the would-be House Speaker, the address also spotlighted his unique combination of political cowardice and fuzzy math. After all, while Boehner claimed to […]

The two weeks have not been kind to the ersatz deficit hawks of the Republican Party. First, the preposterous claims of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the legion of new Republican alchemists that tax cuts pay for themselves were thoroughly debunked. Making matters worse, Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and the 116 members of the House Republican […]

As Senate Republicans added blocking aid to small business to their record-setting obstructionism, Democrats this week failed to secure the needed votes for reform of the filibuster rule. But largely overlooked in the debate over the filibuster is the Republicans' unprecedented obstructionism when it comes to the confirmation of President Obama's judicial nominees. As it […]

For over a generation, Republicans and their conservative amen corner have routinely brushed off charges of their own corruption and lawlessness by accusing their opponents of "criminalizing politics." From Iran-Contra, Plamegate and Tom Delay to the U.S. attorneys purge and the Bush regime of detainee torture, Republicans survived their endless scandals by instead successfully politicizing […]

Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter has a new fetish. Three years after Americans learned of Vitter's predilection for prostitutes and diapers, Senator Vitter has announced his support for Birther lawsuits challenging President Obama's eligibility to serve. Vitter's apparent attempt at misdirection comes after a torrent of bad news for the one-time family values merchant turned […]

Last month, Florida Republican Senator George Lemieux summed up the impact of his party's successful effort to kill the estate tax in 2010. "The joke is don't go hunting with your children because right now there's no estate tax in this country this year." But the billions lost to the U.S. Treasury so that the […]

In June, an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities confirmed that gap between rich and poor in the United States reached levels not seen since 1929. Between 1979 and 2007, the yawning chasm separating the after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of Americans from the middle and poorest fifths of the […]

During the comparatively mild 1991 recession, President George H.W. Bush twice vetoed the extension of unemployment insurance because the $5.3 billion price tag would add to the deficit. After taking a pounding in the polls, he eventually made a deal with Democrats, who funded the program in part through higher taxes on the wealthy. But […]

Republicans have long touted their candidates' family values. Now, that goes double for the New York GOP. As Huffington Post among others noted this morning, Staten Island Republicans have nominated the disgraced Vito Fossella to run for his old House seat in 2010. Apparently, having a secret second family is no barrier to a second […]

No boy, no problem. For the adulterers of the Republican Party, that has long been the rule. Which makes the resignation of Indiana GOP Congressman and family values merchant Mark Souder over an affair with staffer Tracy Jackson all the more exceptional. While Eliot Spitzer, Gary Hart, Jim McGreevey and Eric Massa may also have […]