Do the Democrats actually stand for anything? Republicans seem to have no problem sticking to their guns on core issues (as deranged as some of them may be). The latest absurdity for the party in power is the new campaign finance reform bill, which, in order to gain the votes of conservative Democrats in the [...]

It may be a bit premature to predict the outcome of todays’ midterm primary elections, but given the unending stream of bad economic and environmental news and the generally sour mood of the electorate, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that incumbents, even if they eke out victories, are in big [...]

I’ve been having a lively conversation with one of the readers of this site about, among other things, the meaning of words. As many others have in the past, he has predicted that if I don’t like what he has to say, I will “censor” his postings, as have the Rocky Mountain News and the [...]

After more than sixty years of failed attempts, President Obama tomorrow will sign into law a sweeping reform of America’s health care system. It’s certainly not a perfect bill. I’d have preferred Medicare for all, with substantive changes in how reimbursements are made, but given the toxic political climate, that was not possible. I watched [...]

I heard a funny thing this morning. Republicans said that if the Democrats go ahead and pass health care reform by the process known as “reconciliation,” or, to us laymen, a majority vote, it would make bipartisan cooperation more difficult in the future. This from the party that has made partisan obstructionism its only strategy [...]

I thought President Obama got it exactly right in his State of the Union address last night, chiding both Democrats and Republicans for their inability to solve any of the daunting problems facing the country. The Democrats are tied in knots, unwilling to wield the power the voters gave them a year ago, and the [...]

The Democrats were blindsided yesterday in Massachusetts, and they have nobody to blame but themselves. They have badly misjudged the mood of the American people for months, stringing out the health care debate ad infinitum while ignoring the growing anger over the slow pace of the recovery, the loss of jobs, and the obscene unfairness [...]

One of the last remaining moderate Republicans,  Senator Arlen Specter finally called it quits and joined the other party. One could hardly blame him. Facing a strong conservative challenger, he was likely to lose in the primary to a man far to his right, who then most likely would have been defeated in a Democratic-leaning [...]