The ink isn't yet dry (or even written) on the 11th hour debt deal, but the media are already doing their usual body count of the victors and vanquished. In the Washington Post, conventional wisdom regurgitation machine Chris Cillizza produced the predictable winners and losers list. While the Wall Street Journal and right-wing columnists proclaim […]

On Thursday, House Republicans will vote on John Boehner's debt plan. But whether they follow his order to "get your ass in line" or not (and 23 have already gone on record saying they won't), Republican hostage takers on Capitol Hill will continue to threaten the United States with default - and economic catastrophe - […]

Appearing on Face the Nation Sunday, Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin warned House Speaker John Boehner about his paternity for the economic catastrophe resulting from a Republican failure to increase the U.S. debt ceiling. "If you break it," Durbin told Boehner, "you own it." But as the New York Times was just the latest to […]

Well before the current debt ceiling crisis, Americans learned from the elephant's mouth that virtually every GOP talking point is "not intended to be a factual statement." In their perpetual crusade to gut the federal government, Republicans have now distilled their debt duplicity and fear-mongering into a single word: Greece. Earlier this year, Senate Minority […]

Whatever the resolution to the Republican hostage-taking of the U.S. debt ceiling, it's becoming increasingly clear it will a painful one. Failure to boost the $14.3 trillion limit by August 2nd, as even some of the GOP extortionists are only now beginning to understand, would produce what Speaker John Boehner admitted would be "a financial […]

President Obama Addresses the Nation on the Debt Ceiling* (As Prepared for Delivery, July 1, 2011.) My fellow Americans, I want to speak to you today about a matter of the greatest national urgency. We face a crisis unique in our history. This threat comes not from a foreign foe or bloodthirsty terrorists, but is […]

Say what you will about the President's Afghan strategy, but if nothing else, Barack Obama has been consistent. Having criticized the Bush administration for diverting badly needed resources to fight the wrong war in Iraq, candidate Obama promised to dramatically increase U.S. troop strength and to strike unilaterally in Pakistan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden […]

Just two weeks after he seconded Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's dire warnings about the August 2 deadline to raise the U.S debt ceiling, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor walked out of the budget talks aimed at reaching a bipartisan compromise over deficit reduction. Like Arizona GOP Senator Jon Kyl, Cantor shifted the burden to Speaker […]

Bolstered by new polls and fresh off their vote to bar an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, House Republicans swaggered into the White House for the latest negotiation to end their economic hostage taking. One, Rep. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, refused to attend and be "lectured to by a president whose failed […]

Last week, President Obama endured a firestorm of criticism for stating, as President Bush did before him, the by now obvious contours of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. But largely overlooked in his addresses at the State Department and to AIPAC was Obama's assertion that "the status quo is unsustainable." Sadly, Benjamin Netanyahu couldn't disagree more. […]