Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who single handedly delayed unemployment benefits for 400,000 desperate Americans and forced an unnecessary furlough of another 2,000, should be a figure regarded with wonderment.
The awesome power he held in his hands! The utter disregard for vulnerable Americans he exhibited while wielding it!
Bunning is a Republican superhero. He personifies the mean-spirited, hypocritical, wealthy-serving, obstructionist Republican Party. As a result, his fellow GOP senators championed him. South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint said, “He’s my hero this week.” Alabama Republican …

By Axel Woolfolk
As has been now widely reported by mainstream media, more than 600 people gathered for the first ever Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee on February of 2010. The ‘teabaggers’ reveled as they sat there listening to hateful speech after hateful speech by the likes of their champions Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin among others. The rhetoric, the signs and the vitriol sounded familiar:

“President Obama wants to turn the country into a third world country.”
“Immigrants are taking over the United States, they …

By Kelpie Wilson
If President Obama gets a new start on his presidency in 2010, then progressive, liberal Americans should also get a “do-over” on our activism in support of real change. We need a chance to throw our own Tea Party. I’m calling it Tea Party 2.0 and I have a Facebook page!
First of all, let’s be honest. We were all so exhausted after eight years of Bush and so impressed with ourselves that we elected the first African-American president, that we decided it …

Scott Brown’s election in the Mass. special election isn’t being attributed to a repudiation of the health care legislation, but rather his Patrick Henry-like statement to the effect: ‘Give us weapons to defeat the terrorists, not lawyers to defend them.’ The Republicans apparently see this as a rallying cry that may restore them to power. Gov. Bob McDonnell already quoted it in his response to the President’s State of the Union speech:

So remind me, since when did 41 percent of 100 suddenly constitute a majority?
Oh yeah, I remember now: since George W Bush slunk out of Washington DC in ignominy not 365 days ago. And since the wannabe bipartisan Democratic majority in BOTH houses swore their oaths of office this January, empowered by a landslide election and a popular mandate for change like none seen since the rout of the Goldwaterites in 1964. And yet, since then they have pussyfooted, wavered, caviled and serially wimped …

By Julie Menin
This week saw a barrage of interviews in which Rudy Giuliani eagerly criticized President Obama for his handling of the December 25th terrorist incident on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Giuliani, as he has been doing since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, has held himself out as an “expert” on terror. He gives paid speeches all over the country touting his leadership after September 11th and his expertise in dealing with terrorism, and thus appeared on a plethora of morning shows …

By Judge H. Lee Sarokin
When the Bush administration was being criticized over the war in Iraq, its wiretapping policies, and the rendition and torture, its critics were dubbed (particularly by Cheney) as “unpatriotic.” He suggested they were “hurting the morale of the troops and being unsupportive,” “aiding and encouraging our enemies,” “endangering and deterring our intelligence agents” and just plain being “un-American.”
Somehow none of the Cheney’s words seem to apply now. The former Veep has no hesitation in criticizing President Obama and suggesting that …

By Amy Goodman
The media have been swamped with reports about the attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day. When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, now dubbed the “underwear bomber,” failed in his alleged attack, the lives of close to 300 people were spared what would have been, most likely, a horrible, violent end. Since that airborne incident, the debates about terrorism and how best to protect the American people have been reignited.
Meanwhile, a killer that has stalked the U.S. public, claiming, by …

We have failed to even investigate torturers, yet we have prosecuted and imprisoned millions for lesser offenses. And we allow mass murderers the benefit of constitutional rights that we deny detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Until policymakers examine and fix these double standards, they will continue to undermine our foreign policy, as well as our domestic criminal justice system.
We now know that the Bush Administration’s torture policies proved horrendously counterproductive, in more ways than one: they eroded our allies’ trust…

According to Rush Limbaugh, the health care reform that may be passed by Congress is socialism. Yet, it bears a striking resemblance to the universal healthcare system that just treated him in Hawaii that prompted his remark: “there is nothing wrong with the American health care system. I received no special treatment.”

Yes, Rush. That’s the point! American medicine is superb–for those who can get it. And, in Hawaii, no one gets special treatment, because everyone can get it.