President Obama held a public event on Monday to address the serious problems plaguing the federal online health care exchange serving the 34 states which refused to create their own. Echoing former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pronouncement that the web site difficulties are "unacceptable," Obama insisted, "There's no excuse for these problems" hampering the launch of […]

On April 7, 2009--less than three months after Barack Obama first took the oath of office--the Daily Show's Jon Stewart perfectly summed up the red-hot, right-wing rage that hasn't cooled since. "I think," Stewart explained to frothing at the mouth Tea Party supporters, "you might be confusing tyranny with losing." Nevertheless, just days later thousands […]

After first threatening to destroy the American economy if Obamacare wasn't defunded or delayed, desperate House Republicans have sent the President a new ransom note. Now, the GOP will grant a six-week extension to the debt ceiling and reopen the government if President Obama, among other things, accepts cuts to mandatory spending programs including Medicare […]

Having discovered that their shutdown of the federal government has made them less popular than the Ebola virus, House Republicans are backing away from their blackmail that Obamacare be delayed or defunded. But John Boehner's new ransom note is almost as preposterous. In exchange for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling that would only […]

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has not had a very good week. Just days after the glitch-filled roll-out of the Affordable Care Act's online health insurance exchanges, Sebelius got grilled by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. So it should come as no surprise that CNBC resident right-wing water carrier Lawrence Kudlow called […]

While the federal government remains shuttered over Republican demands to defund the Affordable Care Act, the United States faces the growing prospect of its first-ever default. If Congress does not increase Uncle Sam's borrowing authority of $16.7 trillion by October 17, experts like former Bush Treasury official Tim Bitsberger warn, the resulting global economic cataclysm […]

For two decades, Republicans have opposed health care reform not because they thought it would fail the American people, but because they feared it would succeed. Passage of Bill Clinton's health care program, Bill Kristol warned in 1993, wouldn't just "do everything to help Democratic electoral prospects," but would "revive the reputation" of the Democrats […]

Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling by October 17, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned this week, the federal government will be unable to pay its bills. But while some Republicans like Rep. John Fleming (R-FL) responded, "I don't think we should run government based on economists' predictions," House Speaker John Boehner knows all too well […]

So it's come down to this. Once again kowtowing to the most extreme members of his Republican Party, House Speaker John Boehner is willing to shut down the federal government and trigger a global economic meltdown, all in the GOP's quixotic quest to defund, delay or otherwise damage Obamacare. With his gambit to defund the […]

This week, House Speaker John Boehner turned to a new sleight of hand trick in his latest effort to extract draconian spending cuts as the Republicans' price for raising the U.S. debt ceiling. Citing five examples from the past, the Speaker's "Fact Sheet" claimed that "Coupling efforts to reduce America's debt and deficit with increases […]