On Wednesday, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush doubtless pleased his audience at the U.S Chamber of Commerce when he declared, "I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism." But in his knee-jerk assault on his brother's successor, Governor Bush conveniently omitted that George W. Bush compiled the worst […]

Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that over 44,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, in a complete reversal of both logic and the truth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that it is the availability of a public insurance option which could prove fatal. […]

Among the more comic story lines of the Republican war on health care reform has been the Party's side-splitting defense of Medicare. After all, the GOP not only tried to block the program in the 1960's, but tried again to gut it thirty years later. But after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats were […]

While the Obama White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats debate among themselves whether a so-called "opt out" public health insurance option will be included in reform legislation, Minnesota Governor and GOP presidential wannabee Tim Pawlenty has already weighed in. Asked if he would "lead a charge" in his state to opt […]

In recent days, Republican leaders have scored a series of political victories in their eternal quest for tort reform. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that an onerous package of malpractice curbs he championed could save the government an estimated $54 billion over 10 years. That came on the […]

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 […]

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 […]