Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Dear Greg Sargent: “Re your Morning Plum reference to Krugman’s column today”

Update appended below. —- After a two-and-a-half-month hiatus from regular blogging here—most of my few posts this summer related to my passion about animal rescue and animal welfare—I’m once again feeling like posting about politics, at least more regularly than I posted this summer. (And maybe soon I’ll once again feel like posting about legal […]

John Boehner Says the Obama Economy Has Eliminated Involuntary Unemployment! Seriously; that’s what he said. The Dems should use this in campaign ads.

John Boehner says that unemployed Americans are pretty clearly malingerers, bums on welfare who have decided that they don’t feel like working: “This idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think […]

Yes, Speaker Boehner, but WHOSE Fiscal Policies of the Present Are to Blame?

House Speaker John Boehner told a closed meeting of his colleagues that a Republican pollster found that for the first time, most Americans blame President Barack Obama for the economic troubles, not George W. Bush. “Barack Obama came into office blaming George W. Bush for the state of the economy and the lack of job […]

John Boehner Demands Fairness to Arkansan Butch Matthews and His Wife, and Offers to Give Up His Own Healthcare Insurance, Just to Start the Fairness Thing Rolling.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting on Friday with no new strategy to end the budget standoff and an angry plea to President Obama to negotiate over his health care law. “This isn’t some damned game,” said Speaker John A. Boehner, his voice rising in anger. “The American people don’t want their […]

John Boehner says “we do not have an immediate debt crisis.”

Via Salon, David Sirota points to statements by John Boehner and Rand Paul: America owes this debt of gratitude to Boehner after he finally came clean on yesterday’s edition of ABC’s “This Week” and admitted that “we do not have an immediate debt crisis.” (His admission was followed up by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, […]

John Boehner Needs a Dictionary

All of these bipartisan discussions are encouraging, and Republicans hope they will lead to real solutions that help American families. But presidential leadership is really what’s needed. By shifting the focus from charm to courage, and eventually action, we can guarantee our children a future where everyone has the opportunity to find work and pursue […]

John Boehner Lists Our Presidential Thieves–And Ronald Reagan Is Among Them!

“The revenue issue is now closed,” Mr. Boehner said Thursday, before the House left town for the weekend without acting on the cuts and a Senate attempt to avert them died. Mr. Boehner said the dispute with Democrats amounted to a question of “how much more money do we want to steal from the American […]

Mitch McConnell Says the Congressional Republican Caucuses Are “The American People.” Got That, American People?

[O]ne thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, yesterday He’s right, of course, since, by “Americans,” he means the roughly 278 Americans who comprise the House and Senate Republican caucuses.   As Greg Sargent points out this morning, […]

National Journal Editorial Director* Ron Fournier Missed Eighth-Grade Civics Class the Day They Discussed the Separation-of-Powers Thing. He Should Now Get a Tutor.

It’s hard to know who will end up taking the biggest political hit if the latest Washington-induced crisis moves from theoretical to real — but the answer may well lie in which side can get the public to buy into its finger-pointing at the other side. That’s why the excuses matter: Polls show Obama has […]

The Large Number of Hedge Fund Managers Near Fort Rucker, Ala. (A Suggested Response to the Republicans’ Simple Response(s).)

It’s unconscionable to use our military men and women in uniform as a bargaining chip to raise our taxes. — Rep. Martha Roby, (R. Ala.) Our taxes, huh?  Ours!  This actually is unexpectedly good financial news for most of, um, us. Not to mention very surprising news. According to The New York Times today, Roby […]