Health Care Reform Bill Gains Ground
Next Step for Health Care Reform Bill: CBO Scoring
White House Shifts Away from 'War on Drugs' Rhetoric as Government Moves More Toward Treating Addiction as Illness

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The controversy over General Petraeus' remarks on Israel, says Michael Collins, contains no surprises. It is just a diversion from the fundamental problem with U.S. foreign policy - the endorsement and unrestrained use of military action.

The following is a fictional composite of several individuals the author has known who currently  embrace the ideologies and activities of Tea Party Nation.  This is not meant to be a psychological profile, but an entertaining,  satirical look at how one might arrive at the gates of Tea Party Nation, and make the personal decision to take part in it's agenda.   Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, or living dead is purely coincidental.

How should progressives react to great art that comes from artists whose politics suck? Can we, should we, separate the two? All of this, writes Bernard Weiner, is occasioned by discussion of the Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker," the somewhat ambivalent film about U.S. troops in Iraq. How can we interpret this brilliant movie?

Iceland's national referendum was the first opportunity for the people of any nation to vote directly on who pays when the financial elite fail.  As citizens voted, Iceland's Prime Minister was dismissing the importance of the vote and promising to negotiate a payment scheme obligating citizen subsidies for bad debt created by Iceland's beyond-bad bankers.  Michael Collins looks behind the scenes of Saturday's vote in Iceland.

Progressive activist Harmony Wu meets with her congressional representative — and comes away with a mind-boggling look at the politics of health care reform.

There's and old political joke that goes like this:

Barbara Kingsolver's sweeping new novel, "The Lacuna," set in Mexico and the U.S. from 1929 to the 1950s, deals with the fall of empire, political witch-hunting, the logic of social revolution. Naturally, writes Bernard Weiner, it was written during the CheneyBush years.