President Barack Obama has yet to deliver his final State of the Union address, but the reviews from Republicans are already in. Texas Senator and 2016 White House hopeful Ted Cruz announced that he won't be attending, but nevertheless will be "disappointed" by the President's speech. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), probably best known for comparing […]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday called for an unprecedented constitutional convention to pass nine "amendments" designed to curb the power of the federal government. (If Abbott and his ilk really want to enshrine the power of "each State acting in its sovereign and independent character," they need look no further than the Confederate Constitution […]

The last days of 2015 brought some very interesting news about America's record-high income inequality. On December 29, Noam Schieber and Patricia Cohen of the New York Times revealed a "private tax system" that saves the wealthiest billions every year. In conjunction with the Bush cuts to income and investment income tax rates, between 1995 […]

Republican leaders and their amen corner in the conservative commentariat are ecstatic that both houses of Congress are finally about to send an Obamacare "repeal" bill to the President's desk. This morning, Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted, "The House will vote tomorrow to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood." But as Hot Air's Ed Morrissey ("CBO: […]

As 2015 drew to a close, political observers of all stripes were rightly getting raked over the coals for their respective failures to predict the most dramatic development of the 2016 GOP presidential campaign. But when it comes to the unlikely rise and surprising staying power of Donald Trump, President Barack Obama didn't seem taken […]

Months after Donald Trump cemented his frontrunner status, the American media and the Republican Party are now approaching a state of panic. Press and pundits have scrambled to explain how Trump--despite his blatant lies, casual race-baiting, religious bigotry and shameless xenophobia--has in the face of their predictions of his certain doom nevertheless tightened his grip […]

From the very beginning of the debate over health care reform, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has delivered the same two messages to Congressional lawmakers. First, over a 10-year time frame, the Affordable Care Act--aka Obamacare--reduces the national debt. Conversely, the CBO has always found, repealing "every word" of Obamacare will necessarily increase the […]

Just in time for holiday party season, there's a new drinking game certain to make things more jolly. It works like this: Every time Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says "tax reform," "close loopholes," "simplify the tax code," "lower rates," or "broaden the base," Americans have to drink. After all, for more than six […]

Speaking to farmers in Spencer, Iowa on Saturday., 2016 GOP front-runner Donald Trump declared, "We are going to get rid of the estate taxes that are making the farmers sell their farms." That came as no surprise, given that Congressional Republicans and virtually every recent GOP White House wannabe shares the same position. But Trump's […]

This was a very big week for American billionaires in the news. On Tuesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan marked the occasion of their daughter's birth to announce that "during their lives" they will donate 99 percent of their Facebook shares to charitable purposes. But just one day after we […]