Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is on trial for his life in New York City. He is the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands and launched two wars that affected millions. If he is condemned to death, we all lose. Period.

I posted a survey on the Air America...

New media progressives were giddy this weekend after a segment about health care reform aired on The Ed Show this Friday. Air America joined the celebration, too. No new ground was covered. Yet here I am writing about it five days later. Why? Because while the dust-up may have made...

"It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

The president said that after the shooting at Fort Hood. It was the worst documented mass shooting at a stateside U.S. military base in the history of our nation. It was indeed horrifying. But...

Given the choice between solving a problem and watching things get nasty, the tendency in America is increasingly to opt for the train wreck. Last night's election results were no exception.

The GOP is racing to the bottom of its own depravity. They've stopped at nothing, floating racist memes and...

By now you know that "health care reform" is a misnomer. It should be called "health insurance reform." Chalk up the missed opportunity to the Democrat's pluralist mode, but a little message discipline might have gone a long way here.

What's the message? Insurance companies are corporatized casinos. It's still...

Do you remember Martti Ahtisaari? He won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. For more than thirty years Ahtisaari brokered peace between entities filled with no peace for each other. He deserved the prize. What about the latest laureate?

Yassar Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin proved that the committee...

You may have heard about the "Gore-backed" car company that got more than $500 million to make a sports car. What you may have missed: the government is backing green technology and a plan to make it popular.

The loan in question (reported by the Wall Street Journal) is...

Every time I see a new Michael Moore movie, America looks a little different to me. I feel an odd mixture of hopefulness, anger, and spiritual fatigue. I just saw Moore's latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, this week and it's deja vu all over again.

If you believe...

An unverified audio recording of Osama bin Laden has emerged on Islamist websites. The tape may provide proof that the shaggy figurehead is still alive. The audio message set to video, replete with 9-11 imagery, serves no other discernible purpose.

"To the American people, this...

As we remember the victims of the attacks eight years ago, we find ourselves reaping the strange fruit of its influence on American politics.

Representative Joe Wilson turned a joint session of Congress into a brainless town hall meeting, a Mission Accomplished photo-op, and a cynical 9-11-based justification...

In game theory, Nash equilibrium is a strategy that applies to two or more players, whereby each of the players knows the other's assets and deficits and no one can benefit by a unilateral change in strategy. Given the Republican strategy--destroy viable members of the opposition by any means necessary--Democrats...

Tuesday Glenn Beck crossed the Rubicon of human decency. He equated Reverend Jeremiah Wright with Van Jones and wondered if the FBI knowingly turned a blind eye to a black militant communist.

For a couple days now Beck has railed against the Obama administration for appointing Van Jones...

Talk around the nation circles around Ted Kennedy's passing, but there are also not so quiet whispers about Congress passing meaningful health care reform.

There is even a call to name the health care reform bill after Kennedy. This would be fantastic so long as it was...

"They clearly don't want us there anymore, so why stay?" That's what someone told Air America intern Leah Wawro today in New York's City's Union Square Park when she asked about the US troop withdrawal from Iraqi cities. As I recall, however, they never wanted us there.

...

Whatever happened, it was bad. Cormac McCarthy's The Road envisioned an apocalypse that didn't kill civilization so much as render it insane. It was literary hyperbole for the sake of allegory. So is this.

Lawmakers in Washington: Please for just one moment pretend that the above scenario...

I've gotten some flack for the "terrortard" label this week, but I'm sticking with it. In fact, ha. That's right. Ha ha. Facts are stupid things, as Ronald Reagan once said, and the fact here is we're looking at four terrortards.

Is that offensive? Fine. Color me...

"No iPhones." The sign is taped to my kids' bedroom door. It is the best piece of writing I've seen in a while. The message is simple. Putting "Out There" before "Right here" is dangerous.

Today marks the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and it is also...

Last night on the Charlie Rose Show, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said something that doubtless sent a shiver through financial markets. He said, "Capitalism will be different." It is the most elegant way of putting it that we've heard so far.

As noted by Peter Bray on Slate this week,...

Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele is on his way out on a Limbaugh (sorry). More and more folks in the reality-based community are saying Rush is running the show on the Republican-side of the aisle, that he's the true heart and soul of the Grand Old Party.

It...

Some people say the automobile dates back to Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's self-propelled three-wheeler in 1769. Last night, Obama said we invented the thing right here in the United States. The truth: Karl Benz made the first car back in 1885. Today's youth, what to do? Fox News caught the flub. Big...