Change Congress

The Tea Party is right to push to abolish earmarks from Congress, and the defenders of the status quo are either deceivers, or just plain dumb.

Voters in battleground districts strongly favor legislation that would let congressional campaigns be funded by the public, according to a new survey ...

In many respects, the Tea Party is no different from many of us on the Left. No doubt, we don't have common ends. But we do have a common enemy. And we need to find a way to push a common movement that defeats it.

It seems that just about every hundred years or so, the body politic we call America swells with fever as it fights off a democracy-destroying disease. That disease is "Special Interest Government".

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has been slapped around silly by commentator after commentator, decrying his anti-Lefty rage. But as I read the battle, it seems to miss a pretty fundamental point.

Pathetic and puny victories are defeats, not victories. And they are certainly not the sort of resolve that will convince anyone that "change" has come to Washington. Not even those who thought they were already convinced.

50% don't think President Obama deserves re-election 65% think most members of Congress don't deserve re-election 28% say they support anti-big govern...

Somehow Obama has been convinced that his promise of bold leadership was a mistake. Yet somehow we have got to get this president to recognize that it was the "realism" of 2009 that was his mistake.

What have the Democrats proposed? A handful of puny measures, none which will come close to addressing this growing corruption of democracy in America.

Richard Burr is one of the senators who voted against the Franken Amendment. He and other members of Congress have got to wake up to the fact that most Americans don't trust them.

It would be great if senators listened to all the polls the left likes to cite when defending the public option. I suppose polls are hard to pay attention to when August is still vivid in your mind.

President Obama may have issued a private demand that groups allied with the White House stop hammering moderate Democratic Senators with health care ...

It's that time of the year again. Every quarter, just as the FEC reporting deadlines approach, politicians go on a mad scramble for last-minute donations.

Ben Nelson probably hates us right now -- or at least me. But that's OK, it was worth it. Here's what happened.

A new report that claims Nelson received $2 million from insurance and health care interests leads the public to wonder whether it is the merits or the money that is driving his decisions.

If you think special-interest influence in Congress perverts our public policy, last week saw an outrage that vindicates that belief entirely.

The American people can see through the shell game the DSCC is playing. One day of doing the right thing does little to make up for 364 days of being beholden to specials interests.

Every activist email must have a plausible "theory of change." People should see some concrete theory about why taking action could lead to a desired result.

For years, financial institutions like Bank of America and AIG donated millions to the very people who were supposed to regulate them. The result is obvious.

It is time that Congress take responsibility for the cynicism this system has produced. It is not enough for good souls to insist on their goodness. A good soul must act to change a corrupted system.

Conyers' proposed ban on "open access publishing" is the darling of the publishing industry because it would force the public to buy for-profit journals to get information that would otherwise be online for free.

Conyers is leading a proposal to forbid the government from requiring scientists who receive taxpayer funds for medical research to publish their findings openly on the Internet.

While lobbying alone is not evil, the combination of special interest lobbyists and their ability to legally funnel millions into political campaigns is toxic.

Like many decent people, Daschle got caught in a bad system that is so corrupted by money it hardly matters whether the money is from good people with good intentions or bad people with bad intentions.