New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie has found a new and exciting way to have the state taxpayer’s pamper him, while telling everyone else to tighten their belts…he arrived at his son’s baseball game this afternoon aboard a State Police helicopter.

Regardless of whether or not you think it is a good idea, our Constitution was designed with multiple veto points meant to create a bias toward status quo. The basic idea is that if you want to make large changes, you either need broad concessions or to definitively win the support of the public in [...]

What is considered “conservative” philosophy in this country (no regulation or social safety net, government helping big businesses and offering low taxes to the rich) is not conservative in the traditional sense of preserving the status quo. It is a radical pro-wealth, pro-corporate control, anti-public-investment ideology. What makes this radical position so dangerous is, as [...]

I was on MSNBC today with Contessa Brewer and Matt Lewis talking census — jh (Now updated with video at right.) Today is Census Day.  This year’s 10-question form is the shortest in history.  The government will use the information it learns about the population to define congressional districts, plan transportation systems and roadways, draw [...]

Last week, after crazies like Jim DeMint, Pete Hoekstra and Michelle Bachmann started the REPEALgasm, a group of slightly less crazy Republicans, including John Cornyn, Jon Kyl and Newt Gingrich, began to backpedal. Now, Lamar Smith (R-TX), who himself signed on to the repealgasm, admits REPEAL! is all just kabuki.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who is the current chairman of the DCCC, told members in a closed-door meeting that Democrats win by supporting the core Democratic agenda. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who introduced Garamendi, told her rank-and-file that Republicans attacked New York Democrat Bill Owens on health care during his own victorious special election campaign, but [...]

After months of trying to entice Republicans with increasingly awful compromises, one of the three Democrats involved has finally recognized that maybe, just maybe, the Republicans aren’t negotiating in good faith, and will not vote for any bill that doesn’t give the healthcare lobbyists everything they want and nothing they don’t.

Before any Democrat sits down to negotiate with a Republican over health care, the Democrat must ask a simple question, in public with cameras rolling. If the answer is anything less than “No, of course not,” then send them home and don’t waste your time.

One of the key thing the astroturfing teabaggers and their Republican fellow travelers have learned to do is to strongly disavow the very idea that the teabaggers’ efforts to shut down Democratic legislators’ town hall forums are anything but wholesome spontaneous grass-roots affairs, with no corporate or Republican backing whatsoever. As Jason Rosenbaum points out over at The Seminal, that just got a little bit harder to say with a straight face.

Dear CNN and Fox: This is what happens when you give a microphone, and false legitimacy, to people like Glenn Beck. Sow the crazy wind, reap the danger-to-herself-and-others whirlwind.