For years, conservatives have pushed for a health-insurance model emphasizing catastrophic coverage. It works as follows:
It's impossible to predict the lasting impact of the controversies now besetting the Obama administration, but the risks to the president's agenda are sizable.
Having served in Congress for more than three decades -- and in the upper chamber since 1996 -- Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden has established a reputation as one of the Senate's more serious and diligent members. Over the years on Capitol Hill, he has watched the Republican Party veer constantly further rightward, and yet he continues to believe against all evidence that bipartisan legislative cooperation is possible -- even likely. His habitual reaching across the partisan chasm has generated much controversy, notably when he floated a Medicare reform plan with House Budget chair Paul Ryan.
What do the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS scandal have in common? They were both about winning elections, under false pretenses.
Are you a real man (or woman)? Do you have "grit"?
Compare yourself to the man on the $20 bill: Andrew Jackson, our seventh president.
Max Baucus' reputation as one of the most ethically challenged members of the U.S. Senate is well earned. The Montana Democrat's decision to retire in 2014 can't help but improve the chamber's sorry record of self-enrichment at taxpayers' expense. But Baucus has over a year left to do more mischief.
What were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton thinking? Why did they keep pitching the line that the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans started as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim video?
The story of three girls grabbed from the streets of Cleveland and caged in their neighborhood for some 10 years demands scrutiny beyond expressions of shock. We can't let this gruesome tale of Ariel Castro allegedly imprisoning, impregnating and tormenting young women simply pass into the annals of true crime -- not just yet. But how are we to process it? The man was clearly a sicko, but what kind of sicko was he?
Foreign policy matters rarely top the list of voter concerns. That's especially true in times of challenging economic news. In recent weeks, though, national security topics have been working their way into the headlines. First came the Boston Marathon bombings and questions about terrorist connections. The civil war in Syria entered the news with reports of chemical warfare followed by an Israeli bombing near Damascus. Finally, congressional hearings have provided additional details about what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on the day Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other Americans were murdered during a terrorist attack.
Less than four months after Barack Obama's inauguration, the right-wing propaganda machine is already promoting the only imaginable conclusion to a Democratic administration that dares to achieve a second term: impeachment. Once confined to the ranks of the birthers, the fantasy of removing President Obama from office is starting to fester in supposedly saner minds.
