In January 2009, President Obama journeyed to Capitol Hill to meet with Congressional Republicans on the stimulus. Unbeknownst to the President, Minority Leader John Boehner had already instructed his entire GOP caucus to vote "no" on the bill they were to discuss with Obama. Now, history is repeating. Even as the President was asking his […]

Be careful what you ask for; you just might get it. So it is with the uproar from disingenuous conservatives trying to capitalize on the public outcry over the TSA's airport body scans and aggressive pat-downs. While Charles Krauthammer now spouts "don't touch my junk" and Rush Limbaugh declares, "Keep your hands off my tea […]

As the American auto industry teetered on the brink of collapse in December 2008, Vice President Dick Cheney beseeched his GOP allies in Congress to back an aid package, warning, "If we don't do this, we will be known as the party of Herbert Hoover forever." Which is exactly right. Because while Republican leaders were […]

Everything you need to know about the difference between the governing style of Republicans and Democrats is on display in the battles over the passage and expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Despite large Congressional majorities and broad public support for ending as promised the budget-busting Bush windfall for the wealthy, President Obama and squeamish […]

For most of the 1990's, the top income earners in the United States paid a 39.6% tax rate during a time which produced a booming economy for them - and pretty much everyone else. Now, after the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy produced a decade of falling household incomes, skyrocketing deficits and record […]

Karl Marx famously said that historical events occur twice: first as tragedy, then as farce. But when it comes to his debt commission, President Obama is in danger of standing that old chestnut on its head. Unlike President George H.W. Bush's almost comic dismissal of the recommendations of a Congressional debt panel in 1989, Obama […]

"Reagan proved," Vice President Dick Cheney famously said in 2002, "deficits don't matter." Not, that is, when a Republican is sitting in the White House. After all, Republicans were silent as the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan and doubled again under George W. Bush. As it turns out, the same hypocrisy of the GOP's […]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the eve of midterms elections that could make him House Speaker, John Boehner announced, "This is not a time for compromise." His lieutenant Mike Pence (R-IN) echoed that line, declaring that with a new Republican majority "there will be no compromise" with President Obama […]

This weekend, the New York Times and Washington Post offered almost identical assessments of the 2010 Congressional elections. While the Times announced "GOP poised to seize House, if not Senate," the Post predicted 'historic" losses with "more than 90 Democratic House seats are potentially in play." But lost in the conventional wisdom that Barack Obama […]

During the 2008, the campaign of multimillionaire and multiple home owner John McCain tried and failed to paint Barack Obama as "elitist" and "out of touch." But now that moribund Democrats are showing some signs of life as Election Day nears, the right-wing Obama as Snob meme is back with a vengeance. Over just the […]