Nikita Krushchev used to tell this joke about himself: a man was arrested for running through Red Square shouting, “Krushchev is an idiot! Krushchev is an idiot!” He was sentenced to 33 years in Siberia, 3 for insulting the Party Secretary, and 30 for revealing a state secret. I received an email a few days [...]

As you would expect at a time of crisis, liberals and conservatives have banded together in a rare show of unity to deflect blame and take no absolutely personal responsibility for what happened in Tucson. Liberals (myself included) were quick to point the finger at the heated anti-governement rhetoric of conservatives, and conservatives were just [...]

It now appears that Representative Gabrielle Giffords was the target of an assassination plot. The reasons are unknown, and it’s too early to claim categorically that the shooting of Ms. Giffords and the other victims was motivated by a political grievance. That said, it’s not hard to believe that the poisonous political climate of the [...]

End of life counseling is back as a political issue after the president decided to add it to Obamacare by executive fiat. If you remember, this was one of the things that led to Sarah Palin’s infamous “death panel” fiction that caused such a furor over the summer. What is proposed, in the real world, [...]

The import of the Supreme Court’s drastic over-reach in the Citizens United case is coming painfully clear. Tens of millions of dollars in anonymous campaign contributions are pouring in to groups free to spend on this election with absolutely no accountability for where the money came from. Groups with innocuous names like The American Future [...]

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 [...]

Like many who lean to the left, I’ve had a tendency to dismiss the Tea Party movement as a loud distraction, a small, misinformed collection of wingnuts. The reality is much more complicated. The economy is bad, and people are hurting. It’s natural at times like this for people to become angry, and they generally [...]

In a word, the state of the union is ANGRY! The question for the president and for both parties to figure out is, at what? Because we have a two-party system, the only choice people have if they don’t like what’s happening is to vote for the other guy, even if the other guy is [...]

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 [...]

The Census Bureau has just released a study that shows that you are more likely not to have health insurance if you live in a state that generally votes Republican. These states (Texas is the worst, surprise, surprise) send people to Congress who oppose health care reform, and their legislatures are stingier in providing child [...]