How Not To Improve The Discourse

Yesterday, Eric Fuller, one of the victims of last week’s shooting in Tuscon, blamed Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Glenn Beck and Sharron Angle for the tragedy. Today he was arrested for making a death threat to a local Tea Party leader.

State Of The Union Seating: Phony Theatrics For Pointless Theater

Bipartisan seating at the State Of The Union is a pointless act of political theater. Then again, so is the State Of The Union Address itself.

Politicizing Tucson Memorial Service

Factions on the right and left continue to charge one another with trying to politicize the Tucson murders. They’re now nitpicking the memorial service.

Caption Contest Winners

The All Problems Look Like Nails Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

Hope and Change!

Debt Ceiling Vote Will Be The GOP’s First Test

Freshman Members of Congress are threatening to block a vote to raise the debt ceiling that Congress will have to take by this Spring. They’d be irresponsible if they did so.

2011: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts are calling for bipartisanship in the New Year.

Boehner Pulling a Gingrich?

John Boehner’s whining about being called a “hostage taker” by President Obama is reminiscent of Newt Gingrich’s whining about being “snubbed” on Air Force One.

Internal Memos Reveal Effort To Spin Health Care Debate At Fox News

Internal memos reveal that Fox News spins the news in ways that favor conservative Republicans. Is that really news?

Why Democrats Are Losing The Tax Cut Debate

Democrats are losing the debate over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, but when you look at the playing field it seems pretty clear that that they never had a chance.

Republicans Aim to Fix Budget Process

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner plans a radical overhaul of how Congress spends our money.

TSA Groping For Thee, But Not For Me

Top administration and congressional officials can skip the indignities of airport screening, even when they fly commercial.

Will Republicans Play Chicken With The Debt Ceiling Vote?

Within the first few months of 2011, Congress will be required to take another unpalatable vote to raise the debt ceiling. Already, some incoming Republicans are talking about waging an effort to block the vote. That would be politically, and financially, stupid.

Will The Class Of 2010 Repeat The Mistakes Of 1994?

The incoming freshman of the 112th Congress say that they won’t repeat the mistakes that Republicans made when they gained power sixteen years ago, but some of the advice they’re getting virtually guarantees it will happen if they aren’t careful.

Republicans Urged To Avoid Social Issues

The GOP is being urged to avoid social issues and concentrate on reducing spending, shrinking government, and economic freedom. It’s a good idea.

New York Times Calls On Democrats To Reject Pelosi

The New York Times has joined the mostly muted chorus calling on Democrats to select someone other than Nancy Pelosi as their new Minority Leader. In all likelihood, their call will go unheeded.

Cutting Congressional Pay: Pointless Symbolism

Taxpayer “watchdog” groups are urging House Republicans to cut Congressional pay as an act of symbolism. It’s symbolism all right, pointless symbolism.

Bachmann v. Hensarling A Microcosm Of Internal GOP Battles

The race between Jeb Hensarling and Michelle Bachmann for Chair of the House GOP Conference is a microcosm for a battle that is likely to take place within the GOP for the next two years.

Nancy Pelosi Staying as Minority Leader

Nancy Pelosi is strongly considering staying in Congress as Minority Leader. It’s her job if she wants it.

Sarah Palin’s Twitter Account

Ezra Klein argues that Sarah Palin’s Twitter account isn’t very popular. But that misses the point.

Time To End Government Subsidies For Public Broadcasting?

The firing of Juan Williams from NPR has led many conservatives to call for an end to government subsidies. As is often the case, they’re right but for the wrong reasons.

Democrats Running Against Pelosi

Some Democratic candidates for Congress are working hard to distance themselves from Nancy Pelosi.

Voters See Democrats As More Extreme Than Republicans

More bad news for Democrats as a new poll shows that voters are more likely to consider them extreme than Republicans.

Will A Republican Congress Impeach President Obama ?

Will a Republican-controlled Congress bring about the third Presidential Impeachment in American history? Jonathan Chait thinks it’s virtually certain that it will, I’m not so sure.

Change in American Political Parties

If the Republicans win back Congress in November, it will be largely unearned. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no incentive for change in American politics.

Hoyer’s Right

I See White People

The Republican “Pledge to America” is chock full of photographs of Real Americans. And they’re disproportionately old white people.

I Don’t Really Care If GOP Takes Back The Senate

I was never particularly hopeful that the GOP would retake the Senate, but even if it turns out that O’Donnell’s nomination prevents it from happening, I can’t bring myself to care all that much.

Justice Breyer: Laws Against Koran Burning May Not Be Unconstitutional

In comments this morning, Justice Stephen Breyer seemed to suggest that Koran burning might not necessarily be Constitutionally protected.

Boehner To Obama: Fire Your Economic Advisers

House Minority John Boehner is getting a lot of attention for calling for mass firings at the White House. The real news, though, is that his speech is shifting the focus of the political conversation back to the economy. Which is just what the GOP needs.

Politics And The “Ground Zero Mosque”

President Obama’s decision to speak out on the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” has turned what was a hot-button cable news item into a political issue that even his fellow Democrats don’t want to deal with.

ObamaCare: Repeal and Replace? Or Repeal and Veto?

House Republican leaders want to repeal ObamaCare. But, even if the GOP takes over Congress, Obama will still have the veto.

Republicans: Agenda ? We Don’t Need No Stinking Agenda

Some Republicans seem to think they don’t need to put forward any actual ideas in order to win November.