Bart Stupak (D-MI), the conservative Michigan back-bencher who has suddenly injected abortion rights into the health care debate, may have been acting on a sincere religio-moral impulse: after all, both he and his amendment's co-author, Joe Pitts (R-PA) belong to the secretive, conservative religious family called "The Family," and Stupak...

[Updated once twice below]

Several weeks ago, I tried to cut through the Gordian-knot politics of Senate Democratic vote-wrangling over health care reform by explaining the end-game math, which is that the Democratic caucus contains 58 Dems, one liberal Independent (Bernie Sanders, I-VT), and one unreliable, self-serving Vichy...

Joe Lieberman has the ability -- and powerful incentives -- to stop healthcare reform in its tracks. So why does everyone assume his cloture vote is in the bag?

Pundits trying to follow what David Waldman calls the "Eleventy-bazillion dimensional chess" of healthcare reform politics are immersing themselves...

Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus (D-MT), primary sponsor of the healthcare reform bill that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) seem to consider the template or starting point for any reform legislation that ultimately emerges from the legislative process, has announced some amendments to...

In a brief press conference aboard Air Force One Monday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs seemed to hint at a new twist in the debate over whether a government-operated health insurance program, similar to Medicare but open to any citizen who wants to join it, will be one...

These are troubling times for those who supported Barack Obama for President. Troubling times -- with the President telling Congressional Progressives they need to be "good soldiers" instead of good leaders by passing healthcare "reform" without a public option, and caving in to a toothless Glenn Beck by accepting...

[Updated on May 11.]

Optimism is a virtue; it leads us to see the best in people despite their flaws, and to envision a better future even when we can clearly see the obstacles that lie in the path to that future.

But blind optimism is no virtue. Naive...

In a presidential directive issued last Tuesday, and in well-received remarks delivered on the 160th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Department of the Interior, President Obama restored endangered species protections that had been weakened by the prior administration.

A month before leaving office, the Bush Administration enacted...

John McCain, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele, and other Republicans are shocked, shocked that there are -- shudder -- earmarks in the budget bill that's currently before Congress. And they're shocked, even though (despite their convenient denials) they were neck-deep in the negotiating process and inserted plenty of...

The election is over, and so is Off The Bus, the inspired, frustratingly free-range, and astoundingly successful experiment in citizen journalism created and cultivated by Jay Rosen, Arianna Huffington, Marc Cooper, Amanda Michel, John Tomasic, and others who empowered a couple of dozen regular "national correspondents" (including Mayhill Fowler, Kelly...

In an apparent effort to head off claims of "vote fraud," the Nevada Secretary of State, Ross Miller, has issued a press release explaining ahead of time that turnout in some of that swing state's counties may exceed 100%:

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller says his office may...

As Election Day nears and McCain's chances of electoral success fade, the McCain campaign has started using a clever and deceptive argument with voters: that it's dangerous to have single-party rule in Washington, headed by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

That's a deceptive argument, because it ignores...

This is what it sounds like when the McCain-Palin campaign lies to reporters:

Back in July, David Corn posted some concerns about the way the McCain campaign manipulates the press on its frequent press conference telephone calls. According to Corn, the Republican nominee's press office does not merely...

Spokespeople for Nevada's top federal and state law enforcement authorities have staked out different positions when asked whether federal officials are involved with a voter registration fraud investigation of the community activist group ACORN.

Most media outlets have reported the investigation as solely a state matter. If federal agents...

Against a backdrop of GOP-backed allegations that it is involved in voter registration fraud, the activist ACORN group has been targeted with emails and voicemails threatening its staff as well as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

One of the aggressive messages, secured by HuffPost's OffTheBus, says that "all the ni**ers,"...

Robert Greenwald's juggernaut viral-film production company, Brave New Films, has responded to the recent barrage of attacks against the community organization ACORN with a new film explaining the group's larger mission, the steps it has taken to register more than 1 million new voters this year, its internal safeguards...

Mounting evidence suggests that recent attacks leveled against the nonprofit group ACORN's voter registration work is part of a larger effort to undercut the organization's core mission to advance consumer protection and financial industry regulation.

Although ACORN has engaged in massive voter registration drives for years, the group's primary focus...

In response to news last week that the F.B.I. has launched a secret investigation of alleged voter registration fraud by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now ("ACORN"), John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has issued a hotly worded press release questioning the professionalism of the F.B.I....

Various internet wags have labeled Republican vice presidential and presidential candidates Sarah Palin and John McCain "Moose and Maverick." A Politico post today that was circulated to bloggers by the Republican National Committee, however, seems to suggest that McCain may be pulling out the Wayback Machine, perhaps hoping...

The perennial issues of vote fraud and voter suppression are becoming front-page news as several states conduct early voting and as Election Day itself nears. The candidates themselves will continue to stump, trying to win votes in contested states, but after tonight's final debate, the parties will focus less on...