What’s the difference between mainstream Republican leaders and the Tea Party extremists that have been winning Republican primaries across the country?

The main difference is the willingness of the Tea Party gang to say what they believe out loud. This, of course, is driving Republican political consultants crazy. Republicans have never gotten elected by laying out to the voters the core components of their economic agenda. When they have been successful it has generally been by soft-pedaling or sugar-coating the things that mattered most…

For Americans, being middle class is part of our national ethos. People who, based on income level are poor, rich or middle class view themselves, and are usually identified by others as being middle class. The phrase can be modified by “upper” or “lower” to mean rich or poor, but for Americans a modified middle class status is more comfortable than being defined as rich or poor.

While most Americans see themselves as middle class, the notion of the middle class both defines and is defined by America…

Have you heard rumblings of a counter Tea Party movement afoot in the land that calls the Tea Party “the-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you caucus?” A rogue e-mail making the rounds called the movement “freeloading, progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent and hypocritical.”
Southern politicians, in particular, complain about big government and taxes because it resonates easily and conforms to the post-Civil War self-perception of that region as victims of northern conspiracies…

Is it possible that even the center-right tilting viewing audience of Fox news programs is also open to significant upgrades of gay civil rights? That is what a surprising new, unscientific survey of a Fox web audience seems to be showing.

With pleasure, I direct you to this interesting Fox News online poll in which at the time of this posting 300,499 votes had been cast.

The poll poses the following issue and question:

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Prop. 8, California’s gay marriage ban is unconstitutional. Do you agree with the judge’s decision?

Population, 40,000 – Median Income, $37,130 – City Management Position… Priceless

Bell is a small working-class city about 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. It’s also largely Hispanic and poor. Of its 40,000 residents, a quarter live below the poverty line. The median household income is $37,130–in short, we’re not talking Hollywood and Brentwood here. Despite its poverty and a dire economy, Bell’s top officials were paying themselves like bankers…

July 30 is the 45th anniversary of Medicare, a milestone for a true American success story that has helped reduce senior poverty by two-thirds.
This year is an especially happy birthday for Medicare because the new health reform law makes it easier for seniors to afford to see a doctor, fill a prescription, and receive free preventive screenings and tests for serious diseases.
I am concerned that too many retirees remain skeptical and unaware of these new benefits. This is the shameful legacy of sustained …

Once again, war is being paid for with a credit card while investments in our children’s future are tossed aside. These investments — $10 billion for teacher jobs, $1 billion for summer youth employment, $5 billion for Pell grants, $701 million for border security — were cut from the war funding bill coming to the House floor despite being fully paid for and not adding to the budget deficit. They have been jettisoned in favor of further borrowed war spending. Today’s bill doesn’t include …

Andrew Breitbart has a job to do and he does it well. Breitbart’s job is to lie and distort the truth in order to advance a right-wing agenda, embarrass liberals, and undermine the Obama administration.
Breitbart is not a journalist, researcher, or pundit. He is a propagandist. He operates several websites (BigGovernment, BigJournalism, and BigHollywood), where he and other right-wing bloggers spew their political pornography. The articles that appear on these websites are contemporary versions of …

By Chad Campbell
For the past 18 months, Arizona’s economy has taken a nose dive, jobs have been lost, and schools have been starved of funding. Have the Republicans who control the state Legislature fixed these problems? No. But they have kept themselves busy!
Here are 10 of the most outlandish things Arizona Legislative Republicans spent time and taxpayer resources on in the past year:

Invoked the U.S. Constitution in an attempt to protect (wait for it) … light bulbs … from federal energy requirements. (But …

The Republicans have a set of dirty little (actually not so little) secrets they don’t what you to know – and certainly don’t want you to think about when you go to the polls in November.
And the fact is that some of those secrets could provide Democrats with silver bullets this fall. But first let’s recall the context.
Over the course of eight short years — between 2000 and 2008 — the Republicans methodically executed their plan to transform American society. …