Last night I had planned to leave the office early to read and get a little extra sleep before the big health care day.  I am reading Fighting Bob La Follette’s biography, at the suggestion of Fighting Dave Obey, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee.   

Around 10:30, my phone rings. ...

In their new book Sarah From Alaska, Shushannah Walshe and Scott Conroy have provided drafts of two versions of a speech that vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was to have delivered on Election Night 2008 in Phoenix--if only John McCain and his top brass, including Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, had...

Democrats in Congress have just proudly signed a deal with the Catholic bishops which allows a bunch of old men who have spent the better part of the last century avoiding their own sexual issues to dictate access to abortion services in the House health care bill.

No tax...

PC can sometimes stand for perfectly crazy. I'm just sayin' ... what seems to qualify as Politically Correct these days can leave you scratching your head or screaming like a lunatic.

Take for example the brouhaha about our basketball-crazy President who loves to gather his boys (don't even go...

A woman from Bucks County recently lost her job as a copy editor, and the small business her husband works for is unable to afford coverage for their employees. She tried shopping around on her own for a plan but was turned down by insurance companies because of a pre-existing...

In the spirit of generosity I've been thanking the gods that private school teachers' salaries are not connected to students' standardized test scores. Else Malia Obama's science teacher at the Sidwell Friends School might have lost her job faster than you can say "grade inflation."

On...

Saturday in the Wall Street Journal, Betsy McCaughey, well known for her distortion of health reform in 1993 as well as recently, made the following points about the health reform bill, HR 3962, which is being debated and voted on as I write this. As usual,...

Post Election Analysis:

The day after the election, my Dad was mad. He said, "You know who lost the election for Mayor? Obama!" he said not waiting for an answer. I was worried that senility had come for my Dad in the night. Barack Obama...

What do we remember? Veteran's Day--November 11th--was once called Armistice Day, the day the mangled soldiers started coming home in 1918.

The problem with war is that the men who declare and manage a war usually don't go to war. Had the politicians of various countries been obligated to live...

The instant the news broke that a soldier with a Muslim name shot up the base at Ft. Hood the Council on American-Islamic Relations wasted no time and issued a loud and vigorous denunciation of the mass murders. The Council didn't know whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter,...

While much of the nation's attention has been focused on the sad story of Prop 1 in Maine, another much happier story has been unfolding in Washington where the gay and lesbian community took another step toward equality with the approval of Referendum 71.

R-71 expands domestic-partnership rights, and has...

Hi.  Welcome to my first blog on HuffPost.  

Me?  I started as a journalist, morphed into a stand up comedian with a right-wing POV, and then - when my politics changed in 2005 - took a long (and currently continuing) break from comedy.  (There's a bio in here for...

I spent the day on the Hill interviewing Representatives about Wall Street and how they were able to jump the line to get the H1N1 flu vaccine before pregnant women and children.

Yesterday, I spent the day with the Billionaires for Wealthcare and witnessed some truly scary moments.

I will explain that silly subtitle in a moment, but first we've got to delve even deeper into rampant silliness. If such silliness and unseriousness does not appeal to you, then I strongly suggest you skip down and begin reading with this week's Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award....

I landed in London at 6:30 am (GMT) and turned on my BlackBerry to find it flooded with emails sent while I had been in the air, flying home from the Middle East. Looking at just the "sender" and "subject" lines, I observed that some were "news alerts," others...

Californians Against Hate

November 5, 2009

Ms Maggie Gallagher
President
National Organization for Marriage
1100 H Street, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Maggie:

Are you going to fire Carrie Prejean? Donald Trump did.

I was shocked and dismayed to hear yesterday that...

Human liberty isn't just a single light on our horizon, but more like stars in a constellation. Each freedom achieved, each choice secured, each dignity acknowledged, helps shape the whole, and the light of each emerges in its own time.

Who decides if a dying patient can...

"Last Sunday, a television program showed helicopters shooting down African elephants. When I saw those huge peaceful animals falling, I broke down. It's been forty years since I was a gunner in Vietnam. I did and saw the same thing with people".

We are not so different from elephants....