Just one single percent of Americans rank the deficit as the most important issue for them in choosing a president, according to the new Washington Post/ABC News poll. The percentage of Americans who think the deficit is the most important issue this election is so incredibly tiny that it is practically unmeasurable. What Americans really [...]

A majority of the American people want us to leave Afghanistan right away. From the Washington Post: A majority of Americans — 55 percent — believe that most Afghans are opposed to what the United States is trying to accomplish in that country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. About as many Americans — 54 [...]

Robert J. Samuelson writes an extremely disappointing  and misleading article about health care policy in today’s Washington Post. The column starts out fine with Samuelson looking at the basic OECD data that shows America spends dramatically more on health care than any other industrialized country on earth but doesn’t get better health outcomes as a [...]

There are increasing signs that the Super Committee won’t reach a deal. This is great news, because no deal means no cuts to Medicare and Social Security, and presumably less likelihood that we will implement dramatically more destructive austerity in the middle of an economic downturn. Reports coming out indicate that the individuals involved are [...]

Two new national polls both find that Congress’ job approval rating has reached a new historic low. Today from the Washington Post: Just 14 percent of the public approves of the job Congress is doing, according to the latest poll. That is lower than just before the 1994, 2006 and 2010 elections, when the majority [...]

How often do you have to be wrong until you are fired by the Obama Administration? For Treasury Secretary Geithner the answer seems to be a non-zero number approaching infinity.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) developed the nickname “Dr. No” for his habit of placing holds on numerous bills and confirmations to delay them from moving forward. With his history of repeatedly using holds, filibusters and other procedural mechanisms there are probably few (if any) other Senators more responsible for recently slowing the work of the [...]

The cynicism of American politicians is a strong and persistent theme, but this most recent move by Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell takes it to a whole new level. A mere six months after Republicans won big by attacking Democrats for “cutting Medicare,” McConnell is now demanding cuts to Medicare or else he will [...]

One of the biggest problems in America is that there are basically three ways to bribe government officials, and only one of them is actually illegal. Having what is essentially a standing job offer is a legal way for corporations to use huge financial payments to people in power to encourage them to make the [...]

This is a rare piece of good news reflecting the positive impact investigative journalism and public outcry can have. The Food and Drug Administration has partly reversed its horrible decision to grant a drug company an exclusive monopoly over an already commonly used medication, which allowed that company to jack up prices 15,000%. From the [...]