If nothing else, Republicans over the past few weeks have delivered an important civics lesson to the American people in general--and Democrats in particular. Facing a growing mountain of irrefutable evidence that the incompetent, out-of-his-depth GOP president of the United States has been enmeshed in a network of ties to Russian business and government interests […]

As the new year begins, press, pundits and politicians alike are saying 2018 could be the year of the "blue wave." Led by a historically unpopular first-year president and still smarting from embarrassing losses in Virginia and Alabama, many Republicans are talking out loud about "bloodbath" in next November's midterm elections. While Democrats are fielding […]

This year represents the 25th anniversary of one of the great enduring memes of modern American culture and politics. In his thundering speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, former Nixon hatchet man and Adolf Hitler admirer-turned GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan darkly warned of a "cultural war" already underway, one he deemed a "struggle […]

Thursday's release of the House GOP tax plan will be greeted with a flurry of "hot takes" about its "winners and losers." So, for everyone's sake, let's keep this simple. Unsurprisingly, the biggest winners from what the President called a "big, beautiful Christmas present" are people named Trump and those like them. Just as predictable, […]

In recent years, "red state socialism" has become the hallmark of American federalism. That is, even as supposed GOP budget hawks loudly (and wrongly) decry "out of control" spending by Uncle Sam, less well-off Republican-controlled states generally benefit from a one-way flow of federal tax dollars made possible by wealthier blue states usually dominated by […]

It only takes about 31 seconds of this week's health care coverage to show why people hate what passes for mainstream media reporting. After Democrats sang "goodbye" to 217 Republicans who voted to take health insurance away from 24 million Americans and strip essential protections from millions more, conventional wisdom regurgitators like Katie Couric and […]

ive days after the presidential election, I wrote a concession message to Trump voters congratulating them for what they had won. To those Trump promised would get "sick of winning," I predicted, "You've won his 'big and beautiful' Obamacare replacement plan that will take away health insurance from 22 million Americans." If the president-elect and […]

Over the past week, the White House has been completely overwhelmed by the Trump administration's mushrooming medley of Moscow outrages. But to what Vox labelled the "3 Trump-Russia Scandals"--potential Trump collusion with Russia against the Hillary Clinton campaign, possible Trump lies about Michael Flynn's outreach to the Putin government and purported kompromat Russian intelligence may […]

On Feb. 8, 2009, CNBC talking head Rick Santelli helped launched the tea party movement with an epic rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. But eight years later, as Republicans are now learning the hard way, the tea bag is on the other cheek. The signs of sizable, sustained, and seriously angry […]

Looking back on it now, the result of the election is even more unfathomable than when media outlets first called the race. Thanks to a strong economy, the two-term Democratic president enjoyed an approval rating well over 50 percent--with good reason. Despite near-total Republican opposition to his health care and stimulus plans and dire GOP […]