|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By William H. Goetzmann
$23.10
By Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
$8.97
$22
|
|
|
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
“Improper payments” figured among the many symptoms of an ailing health care system that President Obama railed against during a pep rally for health care reform near St. Louis on Wednesday—the latest stop in his U.S. tour to drum up support for his controversial cause.
|
AP / Jason Reed, pool
|
Rep. Dennis Kucinich tells us why he isn’t buckling under pressure to vote for the president’s health care reform bill: “Every plan that’s put forth by our government ends up benefiting the health insurance industry.”
|
AP / Jason Reed, pool
|
Rep. Dennis Kucinich tells us why he isn’t buckling under pressure to vote for the president’s health care reform bill (“Every plan that’s put forth by our government ends up benefiting the health insurance industry”).
|
AP / Ben Margot
|
By Chris Hedges — Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying. How do we fight back?
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The urgency of containing the damage the Supreme Court could do to our electoral system creates an opportunity for a rare convergence of interest and principle.
|
|
Satire by Andy Borowitz —
The senator said not only did the car drive him to the gay nightclub, but it forced him to enter the club and party there for hours, resulting in his later arrest for DUI. (Editor’s note: Although Roy Ashburn is a real state senator who really was arrested on a DUI charge after allegedly being at a gay club, in this column Borowitz takes the liberty of manufacturing a set of quotations for satire’s sake.)
|
Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Congress
|
Rep. Eric Massa said earlier this week that he wouldn’t seek re-election, citing a health issue. The picture had changed by Friday, when Politico claimed that the Democratic congressman from New York was preparing to leave office even sooner amid allegations that he had sexually harassed a male staff member. Update: Massa says he will step down next week. Click here for his announcement.
|
|
They may be in the minority, but Republican members of Congress far outnumber Democrats on Twitter. They’re also more active, tweeting about twice as often as Democratic lawmakers. House Republicans alone make up 50 percent of all tweeting members.
|
AP
|
By Joe Conason — If the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti carry any message for those of us fortunate enough not to live in those places, perhaps it is that government regulation could save your life—while right-wing ideology may kill you someday.
|
White House / Pete Souza
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The claim that Democrats are just “ramming through” a health bill is, I am sorry to say, one big lie—or, if you’re sensitive, an astonishing exercise in hypocrisy.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — Get ready for the new nuclear option. You may remember the old version, legislatively speaking, which came up during the George W. Bush-era controversy over filibustering judicial nominees.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — Sometimes I think I’ve gotten too cynical after so many years in Washington. Then I remember the House Ethics Committee.
|
AP / Alex Brandon
|
During a speech at the White House on Wednesday, President Barack Obama hinted at the possibility that congressional Democrats would soon be obliged to play the reconciliation card to ensure that health care reform legislation reaches the finish line and he pushed Congress to “finish its work”—as in pronto—on that crucial and contentious issue.
|
|
There’s talk of single-payer in Pennsylvania, Bibles-for-porn in Texas and iPhones everywhere. Plus: the Arab Jew cultural connection, and why Republicans and Greens are so mad at Obama.
|
|
Inside Citibank’s homophobia, how to clean art with tattoo removal lasers, and populism with brains. All this and more after the jump.
Posted on Mar 2, 2010
READ MORE 
|
White House / Lawrence Jackson
|
By Stanley Kutler — Divided government need not mean gridlock. Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan made it work. Obama can, too.
|
AP / Chris Carlson
|
By Chris Hedges — The illegal wars and occupations, the largest transference of wealth upward in American history and the egregious assault on civil liberties, all begun under George W. Bush, raise only a flicker of tepid protest from liberals when propagated by the Democrats.
|
|
Satire by the Onion
Cameras heat up the legislative process. Bipartisanship? Rep. William Cummings and his fellow cleaning-product hucksters aren’t here to make friends.
|
|
Why the brain forgets things on purpose, the ugliest fish in the world, and finding out how millennial you are. These discoveries and more after the jump.
Posted on Feb 26, 2010
READ MORE
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — Gen. Norton A. Schwartz’s claim, echoed by Gen. George Casey, that letting troops serve openly would “perturb” the military is just silly.
|
Wikimedia Commons / YooTube
|
John Yoo’s Op-Ed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, in which he says he helped save Barack Obama’s presidency by “winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as commander in chief to wage war and keep Americans safe,” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then this is the dingbat who gave the legal thumbs up to torture.
|
|
Credit card reform is great and all, but there’s another problem that legislation can’t exactly remedy: Americans’ supersized spending habits. Oh, and since Congress gave banks nine months of lead time before enacting the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, those wily financial institutions were ready with a set of new tricks to part customers with their hard-earned cash.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — Mike Markham of Colorado has an explosive problem: His tap water catches fire.
|
|
By William Pfaff — The U.S. devotes large sums of money to subsidizing the participation in Afghanistan of small NATO countries and publicizing the affair as a true coalition operation, but NATO-nation political and public support for the war is faint and grudging because few believe the mission is realistic.
|
AP / Itsuo Inouye
|
Amid major setbacks leading to massive recalls related to unintended acceleration, faulty brakes and other mechanical calamities, Toyota is shifting into damage control mode. On Tuesday, the Japanese carmaker’s president, Akio Toyoda, made a personal apology before the U.S. Congress, admitting that his company got ahead of itself, prioritizing growth over quality control.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — Now that Obama has finally put a health care proposal on the table, the Democratic leaders in Congress have only one rational course of action: pass the thing, and quickly, or risk their party becoming the loyal minority.
|
AP / Elise Amendola
|
By Chris Hedges — Now that unions have been broken, rapacious corporations like FedEx and toadies in Congress and the White House are turning workers into serfs.
|
White House / Pete Souza
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — This week will determine the shape of American politics for the next three years. No, that’s not one of those journalistic exaggerations intended to catch your attention, although I hope it did.
|
AP / Adel Hana
|
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., has criticized the White House, Israel and even his congressional colleagues after three trips to the Gaza Strip, commenting on the lack of action by the international community and the ignorance that most U.S. politicians have toward the plight of the Palestinians.
|
AP / Jack Plunkett
|
Authorities continue to investigate why Joe Stack of Texas flew his small airplane into the Austin offices of the IRS, but based on early reports and a tirade the attacker posted on the Internet, it had something to do with taxes, big government, corporate crime and bailouts. (continued)
|
AP / Bebeto Matthews
|
By Moshe Adler — Like many of us, President Barack Obama is outraged by how out of control executive compensation is, but his plan to fix the problem simply won’t work.
|
|
By Joe Conason — For voters listening to the Republican leadership over the past year, the most startling surprise was the shift in the GOP attitude toward Medicare.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — The Senate, with its endless holds and 60-vote points of order, may be the epitome of a place that knows neither victory nor defeat.
|
U.S. Air Force / Senior Airman Julianne Showalter
|
By Eugene Robinson — Do you believe in miracles? I do, and here’s the proof: Dick Cheney said something reasonable.
|
AP / Laura Rauch
|
By Max Blumenthal —
Business is booming in Arizona, thanks to a disturbing federal immigration program that transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to a private prison company, parasitic attorneys and other opportunists.
|
White House / Pete Souza
|
By Bill Boyarsky — Those telling President Obama to ditch health reform and concentrate on employment are wrong. What’s missing in such advice is a basic understanding of the grim intersection of a failing health system and rising joblessness, especially in blue-collar America.
|
|
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, a massive 75 percent of Americans are all for letting gays serve in the military, although the White House has opted for a slow and steady approach to ending the ban. In other poll news, Americans are miffed at the Democrats, but the president and his party are still outscoring Republicans. (continued)
|
|
By David Sirota — For 30 years, Republicans and conservative Democrats have precluded factual debates about spending priorities for fear of antagonizing defense contractors, seniors and the wealthy.
|
|
By Joe Conason — Preparing for what they hope will be their return to power in Washington, Republican congressional leaders have revived the fear-mongering and flag-flapping used by Karl Rove to win the 2002 midterm elections.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — I’ve been trying, because I’d truly like to see health reform pass, to find something nice to say about President Obama’s plans for a summit. Here’s the best I could come up with: It can’t hurt.
|
Flickr / samirluther
|
Thanks to the lousy weather pummeling the nation’s capital, Congress is taking some time off. The House canceled all business pending bluer skies, while the Senate convened for a whole five minutes Monday. As of this posting, there is a 100 percent chance of snow in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.
|
house.gov
|
After serving almost exactly 36 years in the United States Congress, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania has died. He had been in intensive care following gall bladder surgery. He was the first Vietnam War veteran elected to Congress. (continued)
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Some Senate Democratic moderates are petrified that Republicans will make terrible trouble if health care is passed through the “reconciliation process.” If Democrats are that intimidated by Republicans, they should just give up their majority.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — Jenny Sanford was my role model, until I read her book. I once wrote that the wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford offered “a new and improved version of the betrayed political spouse—neither enabler nor victim.” I was wrong.
|
|
By Marcus Stern, ProPublica —
A transfer of billions of dollars in federal aid from public projects in Puerto Rico to one of the world’s largest liquor conglomerates over the next 30 years continues to move forward without any objection from Congress.
|
Original image: Flickr / LukaIsntLuka
|
A progressive communications firm in Maryland is planning on sticking it to the Supreme Court by running for Congress. After all, if corporations have the same rights as individuals, why can’t they run for office?
|
DoD / MC1 Chad J. McNeeley
|
Only Congress can overturn the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but the military may unilaterally make it harder to enforce—or at least hold up its end of the deal by actually not asking. The Pentagon will reportedly stop acting on accusations of homosexuality by third-party snitches and gay-baiters and will disempower anyone but generals and admirals to discharge people. Update
|
AP / Elaine Thompson
|
By Chris Hedges — Don’t blame the Internet. The bloodless and soulless journalism of the traditional media left newspapers on the wrong side of the growing class divide and their readers.
|
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
Greenland’s Great Melt Is Pinned On Climate Change
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
