In his oration Thursday remembering the 15 people killed by the explosion of the fertilizer plant in West, Texas last week, President Obama said, "We give thanks for the courage, and the compassion, and the incredible grace of the people of West." But there was a...

Consumer Warning: If you think Dane Cook and Chelsea Handler are brilliant comedians, please do not read this article. It is unsafe for you to consume and may make your head explode.

Maria Bamford has emerged over the last year as one of the...

The country has apparently reacted with a "collective yawn" to the $85 billion across-the-board cuts that began last Friday, the AP proclaims. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports, "The sword of Damocles turns out to be made of Styrofoam."

But the sword feels much sharper...

The tablet wars are underway over brand new offerings from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Microsoft, Google and Apple. The pros and cons are ably described in a summary article at The Week magazine, concluding that of all the discount Android-based tablets, the Google Nexus 7 is the best....

There's mounting fall-out from reports, first broken by The Free Press, that a Mitt Romney-linked company owns the Hart Intercivic voting machines used in key counties in Colorado, Ohio and other states. The stories have stoked new fears about a "stolen" election.

Democrats, liberal pundits and progressives are nearly giddy over the damage caused by the worst few weeks any presidential candidate has suffered in modern campaign history. They've reveled in the notorious "47%" video leaked to Mother Jones and frenetic Libya smears that seem...

Jackson Browne, the iconic singer-songwriter frozen in the 1970s amber memories of baby boomers everywhere, is still creating and performing music as vital and ageless as he appears in concert. Forever thin, dark-haired and singing with a textured, plaintive voice that is as captivating when the public first heard...

Even amid the media firestorm over Mitt Romney, his tax returns and his involvement in the predatory tactics of Bain Capital, there's been less attention paid to how he continues to profit from Bain Capital investments that carry out his legacy: maximizing profits and revenues without too...

This week marks the  last chance for citizens to put on the ballot in November a ban on the corporate donations that have helped make Washington, D.C. perhaps the most corrupt current city government in the country. (So many officials have faced criminal investigations or arrests, you need a

The growing movement to undo the nefarious impact of the Citizens United decision allowing unlimited corporate campaign spending finds its counterpart in a citizens' revolt against corporate control of local Washington, D.C. elections.

As a result, Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen,...

Update: Police and Occupy DC protesters are offering sharply divergent accounts over the protesters hit by a car during Friday's protest at a Koch brothers event, prompting a march on police headquarters Monday demanding a thorough investigation.

The conservative Washington Times reports:

Protesters say police refused to...

With the economy teetering on collapse with the new debt deal, music fans can prepare for the mournful times ahead by listening to the sad, evocative songs of Gillian Welch, whose sound is steeped in Depression-era bluegrass but updated for today's hard times. Yet, in performance, her partner...

Lucinda Williams, perhaps America's greatest songwriter for just over two decades, is coming to Wolf Trap in suburban Washington this week singing a different kind of blues. The bruised and aching heart that lies embedded in her greatest songs is still very much there, but a new,...

Gov. Rick Perry, a likely GOP presidential candidate, faces a new burden: a searing documentary film, Incendiary, that looks at the railroading of a suspect for an arson incident that killed his children. The executed convict was Cameron Todd Willingham, but the new film and...

It's been less than two weeks since a guerilla campaign by local activists managed to restore about 20 percent from $131 million in budget cuts targeting Washington, D.C.'s neediest residents -- with little help from the mainstream media, which essentially ignored a looming shutdown of the...

Who is ringing the alarm on Medicaid in a way that will make Congress pay attention?

Outside of some blogging at ourfuture.org,  the fate of Medicaid in the current budget fight has been a  low profile priority among most broader liberal groups; health care advocacy groups haven't mobilized...

The scandal-plagued chairman of the DC Council, Kwame Brown, best known for asking city taxpayers to pay for a "fully loaded" Lincoln Navigator worth $2,000 a month, is joining with other GOP-style Democrats to slash city services for the poor. At the same time, they're...

Except for white Republicans in Congress opposed to home rule, few people outside of Washington, D.C. -- and even some white liberals who live in the District -- bother to pay much attention to Washington's local political battles.

But that changed briefly last month, when Mayor Vincent Gray and...

Republicans returning to Congress this week after a tumultuous two-week recess have learned the hard way an old political lesson: Medicare is indeed the "third-rail" of American politics. As a result, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI.) and other GOP leaders initially signaled Thursday they're retreating...

Liberal activists and labor groups are taking heart from a spate of independent and commissioned polling showing that the public overwhelmingly rejects Rep. Paul Ryan's House-passed GOP plan. Small wonder: it essentially ends Medicare as we know it, slashes other safety-net programs -- and drastically cuts taxes...