One of the Right's favorite bogeymen is the trial lawyers, the ambulance chasers supposedly behind skyrocketing health care costs and bankrolling the Democratic Party. But as Bush family consigliere James Baker III showed once again on the Larry King show last night, Republicans are just fine with trial lawyers when they need one. Baker and […]

Jerome Armstrong (founder of MyDD) and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (of DailyKos fame) are bringing their "Crashing the Gate" book tour to my home town of Portland. Their PDX itinerary on April 9th and 10th concludes with an event Monday evening to help Rob Brading unseat Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis. Earlier this week, I had […]

Facing dismal poll ratings and the potential loss of both the House and Senate, the Republican National Committee appears set with its 2006 mid-term election strategy. Call it "Brand W." That is the central message in a memo from GOP pollster Jan van Lohuizen to RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman. Acknowledging the GOP's current challenges, van […]

These may be dark times for President Bush and the GOP, but Republicans are happy. Or at least happier than Democrats. That's the unsurprising conclusion of the annual survey of American happiness ("Are We Happy Yet?") by the Pew Research Center. Just as predictably, conservatives like George Will are happier still about what they see […]

The latest wave of public opinion polls shows that President Bush's downward spiral continues unabated. The Wall Street Journal reports that Bush's approval rating has plummeted to 37%, with CNN coming in at 36%, a precipitous 10% drop from January. And while a comparatively upbeat Washington Post survey from March 6th put the President at […]

Tomorrow is shaping as "Showdown Tuesday" for the Senate Intelligence Committee. On Tuesday, the Intelligence Committee led by Kansas Senator Pat Roberts will decide whether to investigate President Bush's illegal NSA domestic wiretapping. At this point, the vote could go either way. Whether Roberts' committee once again abdicates its oversight role likely comes to down […]

President Bush has flip-flopped once again. Just 24 hours after Vice President Cheney firmly declared the administration would not more broadly share information with key Congressional committee members regarding Bush's NSA domestic spying program, the White House reversed course - sort of. The seeds of the turnabout were sown with yesterday's challenge from House Intelligence […]

Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The […]

With President Bush only two days away from delivering his 2006 State of the Union (SOTU) address, the Democrats and their progressive allies have mobilized to offer both critiques of and alternatives to the latest installment of this failed presidency. The Center for American Progress has organized its ThinkProgress State of the Union Extravaganza to […]

The Perrspectives Resource Center has just been expanded to include a new document library for the exploding Bush-NSA Spying Scandal. The NSA Scandal Document Library includes the latest Bush spying scandal news, essential Department of Justice memos and key laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the War Powers Resolution, the 2001 Authorization […]