As the debate over health care reform heated up in the fall of 2009, Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander called Medicaid "a medical ghetto" that "none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care." As it turns out, Alexander and his GOP colleagues were […]

As the South teetered on the edge of calamity near the end of the Civil War, the Confederate Congress refused pleas to arm the slaves. "If the Confederacy fails," CSA President Jefferson Davis lamented, "there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory." Almost 150 years later and with Davis' political heirs having […]

On July 4, U.S. officials, foreign dignitaries and conservative luminaries gathered outside the American embassy in London to unveil a $1 million statue of Ronald Reagan. As it turns out, the timing was more than a little ironic. Because even as the Gipper was honored in Britain, it's increasingly clear he would have no place […]

Every Fourth of July, we Americans celebrate our independence and pause to reflect on the enduring wisdom of our Founding Fathers who envisioned the cherished liberties we so often take for granted. But this year, the commemoration is tinged with sadness as evidence mounts that Americans don't know their own history. While a new study […]

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 […]

When it comes to perpetuating the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy, Republicans have long been the party which cried "uncertainty." ""We're calling for an end to the threat of tax hikes," as Speaker John Boehner put it in one formulation, "to provide certainty to those in our country who create jobs." While the […]

At the heart of the Ryan budget plan backed by 98% of Republicans in Congress are two very bad ideas whose time has never come. Privatization of government services and the devolution of their federal funding to the states promise to dramatically raise costs and slash benefits for millions of Medicare and Medicaid recipients. But […]

It is often said that historical events occur twice, first as tragedy, then as farce. But as the top two Senate Republicans showed once again on Sunday, when it comes to comes to the GOP and taxes, some episodes produce both. After successfully blackmailing President Obama in December into extending the Bush tax cuts through […]

Last December, the conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat fretted that Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is "serially insincere." His concern is well-founded. After all, Romney gymnastic flip-flops don't merely make it "awfully hard to figure out where he would actually stand when the pandering stops and the governing begins." As his latest failed […]

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 […]