There was a point, about six months ago, when some reasonably high-profile conservatives suggested Glenn Beck and his minions were becoming problematic. Rep. Bob Inglis (R) of South Carolina encouraged his constituents to “turn the TV off” when Beck starts spouting his nonsense. David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, suggested Beck’s rhetoric may be, quite literally, dangerous.
Peter Wehner added at the time that Beck’s “interest in conspiracy theories is disquieting” and his daily attacks are “not good for the country.”
This week, we’re hearing similar …

When inviting participants to the White House health care summit, President Obama urged Republicans to “put forward their own comprehensive bill … and make it available online,” just as Democrats have done.
We’ve known for a while that GOP leaders would ignore the request and not offer a comprehensive bill. The big hint came last week when a spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, “We will not be offering a comprehensive bill.” Another senior GOP aide added today that Republicans “fundamentally disagree” …

Most of the Republicans have relied upon scripted talking points and generalized denunciations of big government and a “government takeover.” Numerous Democrats in the room have explained why it’s not possible to ban insurance companies from discriminating against those with preexisting conditions without also covering everybody and subsidizing those who can’t afford it. (Short answer: people would just game the system, going without insurance until they get sick.) Obama has spoken at enormous length today about why letting insurance companies sell policies across state …

There’s plenty of criticism being directed today at Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who single-handedly prevented the Democrats from extending the filing deadline for unemployment benefits, which arrives Sunday.
Bunning says that he wants the $10 billion cost to be paid for with cuts elsewhere, and, despite his past support for much larger unfunded bills, we’ll take him at his word. But there’s another good reason that Republicans want to prolong the debate over the unemployment benefits bill: Namely, it keeps all other Democratic …

Jonathan Rauch — one of the few libertarian/conservatives, like Bruce Bartlett and David Frum, who has remained more hopeful than partisan in the Obama era — pens a compelling essay about the roots of modern GOP populism. It’s all about the legacy of former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, argues Rauch. (Wallace, a Democrat and independent, gave his final presidential endorsement to Bob Dole in 1996.)
Supporters of Sarah Palin won’t like this passage — to say nothing of neoconfederate Wallace-lovers:

The hottest ticket in the Republican …

It is almost a cliché that layoffs lead to higher mortality rates, but now there is science to back up some of the anecdotes. Michael Luo of The New York Times reports on the three men laid off from a Lackawanna steel plant who suffered heart attacks in the wake of the announcement, and how they fit into broader research on the topic of economic stress and personal health.
One 2006 study by a group of epidemiologists at Yale found that layoffs more than doubled …

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 …

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) got Fred Roitz of Blackwater — sorry, “Xe Services,” the new name for the company — to say that Blackwater shell company “Paravant” came into existence shortly before “Paravant” got a subcontract from defense giant Raytheon to train Afghan security forces. But then Levin read from the contract submission: “Paravant has many years of experience identifying and selecting top candidates for training.” How could that possibly be true? Levin asked.
Roitz first tried to parry that the language referred to …

Michael Steele paid over $122,000 from his personal political account to a Washington law firm. The Steele camp suggests there’s an innocent explanation — but the Baltimore Sun is raising questions.
The paper reported over the weekend that Steele’s Maryland state campaign committee — which dates from his 2002 run for lieutenant governor — paid $122,195.01 during the second half of 2009 to Bryan Cave LLP, a top Beltway law and lobbying firm. That report was based on state election filings.
The filings …

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 …

With the advent of new credit card regulations designed to keep credit card companies from engaging in the most predatory practices, the companies are very, very busy trying to find legal ways to keep making money in the exact same ways they always have: with confusing rules, crazy fee structures and unexpected interest rates changes. About the only effective part of the government’s regulation is the requirement that companies disclose when they are doing things to your credit card program that will make them …