Huffington Post

In recent years, the Republican House and Senate earned the title of the Do-Nothing Congress. They stayed mute as the war raged in Iraq. They refused to raise the minimum wage. They took more time off in Congress last year than in any year since 1948. Now the Do-Something Democrats are in charge. Step by step, we're putting this country back on track. Over the past 20 years the cost of attending college has tripled. Hundreds of thousands of students are being priced out of a college education, while many of those who do attend are hobbled by student loan debt. ...Full post... (read more)

Rudy Giuliani's presidential candidacy is the best thing that will happen for the Democratic candidates this year. He's going to lose. Yes, I know he's the Republican frontrunner in some polls, but Howard Dean was the frontrunner for a while in the last contested presidential primary season. On his way to losing, Giuliani is going to divert a lot of money away from the inevitable Republican nominee, John McCain. Giuliani's losing campaign is also going to pull a lot of pro-choice, independent voters away from McCain in the general election. McCain has had very strong appeal among those voters for years because, among other things, they don't quite realize how hard-core his anti-abortion position actually is. When Republican primary voters discover how liberal Giuliani has been on social issues--along with how many wives he's had and how many gay men he has lived with while waiting for a divorce to come through--they are going to abandon him faster than Democratic voters fled from Howard Dean. But the only way they are going to "discover" Giuliani's record on social issues is for John McCain to tell them about it. McCain's campaign has the most vicious attackers in politics today, including Bush campaign graduates and the Swift Boat attack team. They are going to make Giuliani look very bad to conservative voters, but, in the process, they are going to make McCain look bad to moderates he will need in the general election. ...Full post... (read more)

You may have seen the non-controversy over John Edwards' hiring of talented blogger Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon fame. Or maybe not. The basic story is that uber-moronic Right-tards such as Michelle Malkin, whose IQ has been in an internment camp for the better part of her life, thinks it's really bad that Amanda said words like "fuck" on her blog....Full post... (read more)

The majority of Senate Republicans filibustering and delaying the passage of a new minimum wage law may be heartless, but they're not dumb. They know that bumping the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour is enormously popular with the American people and they're also aware that it passed by huge numbers in the House of Representatives, with 80 Republicans voting in favor of helping the working poor....Full post... (read more)

"Bully for the Democrats...They did what we didn't have the guts to do when it matters." - Republican Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), January 5, 2007 That is what one of my Republican colleagues had to say about the first act of the Democratic majority, clamping down on corruption, lobbying, and earmarks. His sentiment was echoed in editorial pages across the country, along with many Republicans and millions of Americans, who are fully awakening to the optimism and possibility of a new direction in our government. ...Full post... (read more)

Once again, the Vice President reiterated the "Everyone agrees that failure in Iraq would be disastrous" talking point on Fox Friendly News Sunday. It's another one of those "Do you want America to lose?" idioms that pretty much leaves you with one answer otherwise you've pretty much admitted that you're continuing to beat your wife. What the cice President wants you to believe is that, if you don't want failure you'd have to choose the President's plan....Full post... (read more)

This past November, the American people sent us an undeniable message: they want change. For far too long, Congress took its eye off of helping people. In the last Congress, for example, under Republican control, we didn't do anything to make college more affordable, implement the 9/11 Commission's recommendations to make us safer, raise the minimum wage, or hold the President's feet to the fire on Iraq and the War on Terror. Now, that's all going to change....Full post... (read more)

If you know Tom Vilsack's name at all, you're either a farm-state politics junkie, or a fan of the Daily Show, which has seared the appellation of the two-term Iowa governor into the minds of America's youth by tweaking the Aflac duck call into...Vilsack! Though his name may be the butt of jokes, don't you dare question his qualifications, or worse yet, suggest he's another Kucinich candidate. He doesn't like that. And though he has nothing but praise for Hillary Clinton, he'll also bristle if you wonder aloud whether he's running to help take Iowa off the table for his friend on the Democratic Leadership Council....Full post... (read more)

Over the last several days I have had the chance to speak in a variety of forums: colleges, a management consultant meeting, with SEIU members and leaders in New York, and to SEIU's first ever national meeting of Republican members. What I find both amazing and gratifying is how much everyone loves our country, and want their children to do better economically. Americans are becoming well aware that our country is growing apart economically -- wages are at the lowest percentage of national income since the great Depression, and corporate profits are at the highest level of national income ever....Full post... (read more)

Many progressives are still suffering from post-traumatic States' Rights Syndrome. Imprinted by the battles that southern states fought against the Civil Rights movement by wrapping themselves in an anti-Federalist banner, they're gripped by an instinctive chill when local legislators take matters into their own hands. Nor are they without reason to feel icy. Across the country, we've seen a well-organized conservative movement grab control of local school boards in order to toss out the teaching of evolution and legitimize Intelligent Design, a better-packaged Creationism. Much of this happened when liberals weren't looking. ...Full post... (read more)