|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Allen Barra
$18.45
 . '/' . substr('9780156033855',-6,3) . '/' . '9780156033855' . '.jpg'; ?>)
By Michael Dirda
$18
|
|
|
|
Illustration from an image by J. Stephen Conn
|
With the governor’s blessing, Vermont made history Thursday as the first state to enact a comprehensive single-payer health care system. There’s hope for the rest of us, as Amy Goodman pointed out: “Canada’s single-payer health care system started as an experiment in one province, Saskatchewan.”
|
Matthew Reichbach (CC-BY)
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — When will Republicans realize that the anti-government cries they think they hear from “the people” are the voices of no more than 20 percent to 25 percent of the electorate who constitute the die-hard conservative core?
|
|
By Amy Goodman — This small New England state was the first to join the 13 Colonies. Its constitution was the first to ban slavery. It was the first to establish the right to free education for all—public education. This week, Vermont will boast another first: the first state in the nation to offer single-payer health care.
|
Mr. Fish
|
By Chris Hedges — The liberal class, which attempted last week to discredit the words my friend Cornel West spoke about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, prefers comfort and privilege to justice, truth and confrontation.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — A grateful nation thanks you, Newt Gingrich. The presidential campaign is just starting, and already you’ve given us a passage that will live in infamy—forever—in the annals of American political speech.
|
|
By Joe Conason — It is hard to see why anyone was surprised by Newt Gingrich’s self-ignited implosion in the earliest hours of his presidential candidacy.
|
White House / Pete Souza
|
By Bill Boyarsky — Presidential courage and convictions will be a strong underlying issue in Obama’s re-election campaign. Conservatives and progressives alike consider him gutless, despite evidence to the contrary.
|
.jpg)
Flickr
|
The health insurance industry is raking in profits on the backs of consumers who are increasingly forgoing medical care due to economic concerns, though that hasn’t stopped big insurers from drastically raising premiums. (more)
|
|
Nate Beeler, Cagle Cartoons, The Washington Examiner —
Posted on May 13, 2011
READ MORE 
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — As if our political system was not having enough trouble already, we now confront the possibility that a highly partisan judiciary will undo a modest health care reform that is a first step toward resolving a slew of other difficulties.
|
Wikimedia Commons/Jessica Rinaldi (CC-BY)
|
Demonstrating that peculiar Republican penchant for believing that the free market solves all that ails our nation, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney proclaimed in an Op-Ed on Wednesday that he’d do away with the current president’s hard-won health care legislation ... (more)
|
.jpg)
Flickr / Abode of Chaos
|
The opposition government in Libya is running out of money to pay workers and provide basic necessities to civilians, and is now seeking $3 billion in international loans. (more)
Posted on May 4, 2011
READ MORE 
|
AP Photo/Ryan J. Foley
|
By Joe Conason — Indeed, in the guise of saving future generations from excessive federal debt, themes of national decay, egotistical greed and irresponsibility pervade the Ryan plan.
|
Flickr / Gage Skidmore
|
Citing budgetary constraints, Florida’s Republican-led Legislature is prepared to push the state’s Medicaid payment system off the public dole and into private pockets.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — What is it about the word jobs that our nation’s leaders fail to understand? How has the most painful economic crisis in decades somehow escaped their notice? Why do they ignore the issues that Americans care most desperately about?
|
|
By Joe Conason — Having hesitated to fully enter the fiscal fray, President Obama has at last delivered a plausible, principled response to the budgetary flimflams of the far right.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — It was refreshing to hear all those unambiguous declarations from President Obama on Wednesday. If ever there were a time when lines desperately needed to be drawn, it’s now.
|
© Reese Erlich 2011
|
By Reese Erlich — Last year Cuban President Raul Castro announced the biggest economic reforms since the 1959 revolution. Cubans are cautiously optimistic about the changes, but they’re also scared.
|
Flickr / House GOP Leader (CC-BY)
|
Is this what bipartisan harmony looks like? Probably not, and considering the end product—a compromised budget bill—this kind of cooperation might not be desirable. That said, the House passed the bill Thursday that had brought the legislative process to a crisis last week.
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — President Obama has finally decided to take his own side in the philosophical struggle that is the true engine of this nation’s budget debate.
|
AP / Reed Saxon
|
By Chris Hedges — The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil disobedience is the only tool we have left.
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Put the two parts of Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget together—tax cuts for the rich, program cuts for the poor—and its radically redistributionist purposes become clear. Timid Democrats would never dare embark on class warfare on this scale the other way around.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — It’s time to retire the false choice. As a rhetorical device, particularly as a political rhetorical device, the false choice has outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any.
|
AP / Jacques Brinon
|
By Chris Hedges — The last people who should be in charge of our food supply or our social and political life, not to mention the welfare of sick children, are corporate capitalists and Wall Street speculators.
|
|
Jeff Parker, Cagle Cartoons, Florida Today —
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — It’s possible to simultaneously worry about the debt and believe in an active and compassionate role for government. In fact, it’s required.
|
AP / Andy Manis
|
By Chris Hedges — Workers in this country paid for their rights by suffering brutal beatings, crippling strikes, targeted assassinations and armed battles with thugs hired by the Koch brothers of another time.
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Consider the contrast between two groups of Democrats, in Wisconsin and in the nation’s capital, and the reaction of voters.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — For a man who won office talking about change we can believe in, Barack Obama can be a strangely passive president.
|
|
Perhaps shoring himself up for campaign 2012, President Obama announced Monday that he would give individual states the choice to opt out of his health care plan if they can come up with a viable alternative—but regardless, they’ll have to wait until 2017.
|
DoD / Cherie A. Thurlby
|
With a 10 percent rate of unemployment among his subjects and fear of the unrest that this could unleash, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decreed an increase in aid to the unemployed, an increase in the salaries of government employees, an increase in aid to students, an increase in funds ... (more)
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — Mike Huckabee made a great argument for gay marriage. The once and perhaps future Republican presidential candidate didn’t mean it that way, of course.
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Mayor Rahm. It will be a hoot. It could even be good for Chicago. And in a way he has never had to do before, Rahm Emanuel will finally reveal who he really is.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — House Republicans voted to increase the number of abortions, raise federal health care costs and swell the welfare rolls.
|
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — We are acting as if the only real problem the United States confronts is the budget deficit, the only test of leadership is whether a president is willing to make big cuts in programs that protect the elderly, and the largest threat to our prosperity comes from public employees.
|
|
By David Sirota — The Great Paradox—that is what future generations will likely call this era, and rightly so.
|
Daniel Ogren Some rights reserved.
|
Justin Bieber isn’t just a pop sensation, he’s a Canadian pop sensation, which means his health care costs are covered. The 16-year-old tells Rolling Stone why he never wants to be an American citizen: “You guys are evil. ...” (Full quote after the jump)
|
|
By Joe Conason — Among the mysteries of modern politics in America is why so many of our leading pundits and politicians persistently seek to undermine Social Security, that enduring and successful emblem of active government.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — Failure of political leadership knows no party. The past few days have offered an unfortunate demonstration of this sad maxim.
|
AP / Nick Ut
|
By Bill Boyarsky — The budget cuts being proposed in state capitals around the country may sound vague and abstract, but what they boil down to are many scenes of misery.
|
|
By Eugene Robinson — As we mark the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth, one of our major political parties has become imbued with the Gipper’s political philosophy and governing style. I mean the Democrats, of course.
|
|
Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
Concerned that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak did not receive his message to begin a peaceful transition to democratic reforms, President Barack Obama said today that he would resend the message, “but this time in all caps.”
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — I’ve been bristling recently at conservatives’ dual hijacking: morality and the Constitution as the domain of small-government conservatives. I’d like them back.
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
As expected, the Republican-backed plan to take down Obama’s prized health care reform law didn’t enjoy the same traction in the Senate that it picked up in the House, as senators voted Wednesday along party lines to block the push for repeal.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — The man once known as Governor Moonbeam sounded more like Governor Laser Beam when it came to addressing California’s fiscal crisis.
|
|
By Ruth Marcus — The president talks the talk about fiscal responsibility. But the evidence suggests he’s not willing to spend the political capital to translate that talk into action.
|
|
By Joe Conason — Complaints about President Obama’s State of the Union address on both sides of the political divide (which was obscured but not obliterated by the evening’s novel seating arrangements) seemed to miss its point and purpose.
|
AP / Charles Dharapak
|
By Bill Boyarsky — The selfish negativity expressed by Republicans in the House health care debate last week showed why we should fight hard for President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012.
|
White House / Pete Souza
|
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — President Obama faces a choice in this week’s State of the Union message: Does he spend the next two years consolidating the gains he has made, or does he go into retreat?
|
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
Does Anything Change in Los Angeles With Election of New Mayor?
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
