At a time when right-wingers gabble loosely about secession and revolution, it's worth remembering that our nation experienced a second - necessary and successful - American revolution 45 years ago.

On March 7, 1965, the climactic battle of...

On the night of February 18, 1965, Jimmie Lee Jackson accompanied his mother, Viola Jackson, and his maternal grandfather, Cager Lee, to Zion's Chapel Methodist Church in Marion, the county seat of Perry County in west central Alabama.

Jimmie...

Got health insurance? Think you're sitting pretty? Think again.

Health insurance companies fatten their bottom line not by helping people but by screwing them.

For-profit companies make money three ways:
First, they use medical underwriting, which is industry shorthand for finding ways to reject those applicants most...

Republicans adhere passionately to their Code of Ethics: Do as I say, not as I do.

So, we need to give them a name. A label. A brand. Something that generically identifies the hypocrisy of these politicians who preach biblical fidelity to the masses, castigate those who veer from the...

America's health insurance companies today are talking the talk of universal health care. But "Harry and Louise," the insurance industry ad campaign widely credited with killing the Clinton health care initiative in the 90's, remain among the most skilled and secretive knife fighters when the industry's bottom line...

The Department of Veterans Affairs faces a crucial decision: Will it take on the private insurance companies that have long enjoyed a free ride at the VA's - and taxpayers' - expense? The drive by the Obama administration to move the nation toward universal coverage while reining in health care...

Alexandria, VA--We Alexandrians think of Market Square as the heart of this city of 128,000. Every Saturday, at the farmers' market, we come to buy fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat and prepared foods, especially bread and pasta. In continuous operation since 1753, this may well be the nation's oldest such market....

General Eric Shinseki (US Army, retired) faces two major challenges as the incoming Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) .

First, and above all, he must meet the needs of veterans grievously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its arrogance, the Bush administration ignored Shinseki in 2003...

In the eighteenth century, if the captain of a warship could not identify the nationality of an armed vessel, he might order his crew to fire a cannonball across the other ship's bow. The immediate message was clear: Show your colors. Equally clear was the implied warning: If you reveal...

At seven-thirty this morning I went to the polls two blocks from my house. I had voted two weeks before, but I wanted to observe the activity in my stretch of the city. I saw a neighbor in the front of the line, just short of entering the...

Alexandria, Virginia--For the past week, I have been a small cog in the rather large wheel of the Obama Ground Game that is stealthily rolling across the northern stretch of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, Alexandria, with a population of 140,000, has long...

Colin Powell's announcement on Sunday that he is supporting Barack Obama for President dominated the news, as well as it should. The chattering class appears to regard it a one-off event. But is it?

Far removed from the public glare, Obama has, for some time, been meeting with retired senior...