In a surprise to many, South Carolina narrowly topped Oklahoma in the first BCS standings released this week. Not, that is, in college football's Bowl Championship Series, but in the Battle of Crazy States. Oklahoma dropped to the #2 spot after a late South Carolina rally led by two Palmetto State GOP county chairmen who […]

Seemingly with each passing day, General Stanley McChrystal grows in the esteem of President Obama's conservative foes. After having savaged General Eric Shinseki for his pre-Iraq war testimony that the occupation would require "several hundreds of thousands" of American troops, Republicans have seized on McChrystal's public demands for more forces in Afghanistan as their latest […]

For months, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has led the Republican campaign of fear-mongering "reform that that denies, delays, or rations health care." Now unable to filibuster Democratic legislation on their own, Roll Call reports that McConnell's minions are unveiling a new scorched-earth strategy to "to delay, define and derail" reform. Of course, in their […]

Among the rarely acknowledged truths of American politics is that the U.S. economy in general and the stock market in particular almost always do better under Democratic presidents. Of course, that oversight is no accident, but instead the predictable result of successful mythmaking by the Party of Hoover and its media allies. And so it […]

Among the most pernicious and blatantly false Republican talking points designed to obstruct health care reform is the fear-mongering claim that Democratic proposals will lead to "rationing." Of course, with almost 50 million uninsured and another 25 million underinsured, Mitch McConnell's dystopian future of a system which "denies, delays, or rations health care" is already […]

In much the same way that the sun sets in the west, each fall brings the predictable spectacle of apoplectic conservatives foaming at the mouth over the Nobel prizes. Following the awards to Al Gore and Paul Krugman over the past two years, the surprising announcement that President Obama captured the Nobel Peace Prize unsurprisingly […]

Just in time for the debate over the merits of a state-by-state "opt out" of a national public health insurance option, the Commonwealth Fund has released its 2009 state health care scorecard. As in 2007, the data reveals the critical condition of red state health care. All of which could present Republican governors and legislatures […]

That Barack Obama has changed the trajectory of American foreign policy and U.S. global standing is hard to dispute. In just one year, as the recent survey by the Pew Research Center revealed, Obama has dramatically reversed world opinion of the U.S. from the dismal lows of the Bush administration. But for President Obama to […]

When it comes to his role in health care issues, most Americans probably associate former Kansas Senator Bob Dole with Viagra. Yet this week, the 1996 GOP presidential candidate stood up (so to speak) for the cause of health care reform, issuing a joint statement with Democrat Tom Daschle urging "the joint leadership to get […]

As Democrats in the House are nearing a consensus on health care reform, Delaware's Tom Carper has introduced a potential compromise in the search of common ground in the Senate. Hoping to bridge the chasm between the watered down Baucus bill and the persistently popular public option, Carper has called for the creation of health […]