Cross-posted with OtherWords

There are a thousand ways to die and every one of them has a lobbyist working for it in Washington. You are the only lobbyist working for No. 1.

Republicans have hatched a health care plan that will bring down costs dramatically. It's called "Die...

Huntsman might be that magic Republican: one orthodox enough to win the GOP nomination but flexible enough to succeed in the general election. I wouldn't bet on it.

Jon Huntsman is edging closer to announcing his presidential bid, bringing shivers of joy to the hearts of Republican moderates...

It doesn't take a stooge or a Nazi to take Israel's 1967 borders as a no-brainer.

I don't write much about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Mainly, I think, it's because writing about the Palestinians and Israelis is an exercise without profit. There's no way to try to take...

Cross-posted with OtherWords.

Trying to hold down the deficit by not raising the debt ceiling is like trying to balance your family budget by deciding not to pay the rent or your mortgage.

The Kabuki tradition in Congress over raising the federal government's debt ceiling is in full...

Cross-posted with OtherWords

Republican primary voters like weird, and when it comes to weird, Rep. Michele Bachmann tops the list.

Hey! How about some love for Rep. Michele Bachmann?

A while back Time magazine listed the 10 top Republican candidates for president without so much as mentioning Bachmann,...

Cross-posted with OtherWords

Our deficit is manageable if we're smart about it.

The Barefoot Conservative Nation descended on Washington in April like a wolf on the fold.

Libertarians, creationists, birthers, Birchers, flat-taxers, string savers, and tin foil collectors -- all the wonderful groups that make...

Cross-posted with OtherWords.

Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama for his "failure to lead," particularly when it comes to shrinking the budget deficit.

Well, the other day he led. He offered up a long-term plan for controlling the deficit while protecting programs that the poor and elderly depend...

A string of high-profile blunders and trumped-up stings are endangering a key public and cultural institution.

National Public Radio is having a tough time. It's being beaten up and knocked down, its good name dragged through the mud.

It hurts to watch stumble after bumble by executives of this smart...

Cross-posted with OtherWords.

It's not only cruel but stupid to let a noble city like Detroit simply fade away.

Poor Detroit. The bad news never stops. The once-proud miracle of capitalism is the urban equivalent of a homeless family living under a bridge, digging in dumpsters for scraps.

We were just about to start getting back into the nuclear energy business ourselves after refraining from building any new nuclear reactors for decades.

The great cautionary tale of the 19th century is Frankenstein, Mary Shelly's novel. It's the story of a brilliant scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who builds a monster...

Cross-posted with OtherWords.

The tea party effect: no Republican who can win the general election in 2012 can be nominated.

There are those--I won't name them, they know who they are--who have taken to calling the slate of Republican presidential hopefuls "Sarah Palin and the Seven...

Why is it that going to war is the only issue politicians can agree on?
Yet again, our leaders think they've got a calling to save a country in the Middle East.

You would think with the bang-up job we've done saving Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention Kuwait...

Cutting military spending would make us leaner and meaner; stronger, not weaker.

The budget wars have begun. Duck!

President Obama delivered the first salvo by presenting his $3.5 trillion proposal for the 2012 fiscal year to Congress in a telephone book-sized document. It was very Barack -- measured and balanced....

Cross-posted with OtherWords.

The attack on the public service unions in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana is the first volley in an all-out war by conservatives on all unions.

When the riots in Tunisia began I went out into the streets and shouted, "Today we are all Tunisians."

"Right...

News of the Great Winter Storm of 2011 arrived a day early.

It was going to be bad, forecasters said. The entire Midwest and much of the Northeast was going to be hit with wind and snow, but the real story was Chicago.

Chicago was to be Ground Zero for...

Eisenhower's farewell address sounds like a speech not merely from another era but from another planet.

There's been a good deal happening lately needing immediate attention, but it's not too late to recognize the 50th anniversary of one of our great presidential speeches -- Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address.

The...

The Constitution, like Huckleberry Finn, is in many ways a reflection of its time.

The N-word is perhaps the most powerful word in the English language. It carries 400 years of brutal American history that can strike with the force of a lash.

Nice people don't say it. F-bombs are...

Republicans want to rip the heart out of the future and bury it at the intersection of crumbling highways and a falling-down bridge to nowhere.

The Republicans told us what they wanted to do in their "Pledge to America" last year: cut government, slash taxes, and shrink the national debt....

Before the Tucson shootings are lost forever in the mists of time (which, given this country's attention span, figures to be two weeks from now), we might do well to ponder the various reactions to the outrage.

President Barack Obama responded as a president should, with dignity and eloquence. I...

Say what you will about the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Add in the murder and severe injuries suffered by assorted bystanders in Tucson and it all proves that we're still a free country. God bless America!

Where else can a certifiable loony who looks like Charlie Manson's...