BY SUSAN ESTRICH Something very scary is happening out there. The gas line was cut at the house of one congressman’s brother after his address was posted online as a way to send a message to the congressman about his vote for health care reform. A coffin was left on another’s front lawn. A number […]

BY ALEXANDER COCKBURN Is there really a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations? Yes and No. Yes, because the world’s premier power doesn’t care to have its vice president publicly humiliated by a midget of a nation whose entire population is smaller than that of Los Angeles County. No, because the elected politicians nominally running the government […]

BY JOE CONASON Listening to right-wing talk radio on the day after Congress passed health care reform, Bill O’Reilly was stunned. To him, the hosts and the callers sounded “crazed” as they shrieked about “the end of the world, we’re socialist now, we have to take the country back.” Maybe the Fox News host hasn’t […]

BY FROMA HARROP When the government hands money to poor people, that’s welfare, Republicans say. That’s taking money from productive taxpayers and encouraging dependency, they assert. But when corporations get taxpayer handouts, that’s not welfare in the GOP book of rhetoric. Take away a company’s subsidy, and you have a “government takeover.” Such is the […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH No Republicans supported Medicare in the House of Representatives until it reached the floor. It came out of the House Ways and Means and Rules committees on strict party-line votes. On the procedural vote that brought Medicare to a vote, exactly 10 Republicans voted for the bill. Only when it was clear […]