The politics of immigration reform are already messy, and they're just going to get messier. The hurdles are going to get a lot higher, and a lot harder to clear. Whether they can be cleared or not may depend on the final tally the bill gets in the Senate floor vote.
On the face of it, the Tea Party seems autonomous and even a thorn in the side of the GOP. But that façade masks the real truth about the Tea Party, which is that ultimately it is less a political organization than a contract killer working for the Republicans.
Even after multiple scandals all vying for the top headline throughout the week, over the weekend CNN reported poll numbers showing Obama currently enjoys 53 percent of the public's approval for the job he's doing. His numbers actually rose from the last time the poll was taken.
I might suggest that we first take a deep breath and make an effort to put the events of the past week in some perspective, but I know it wouldn't do any good. There is blood in the water and in deeply partisan Washington, the struggle for advantage and power always trumps reality.
By attacking Obama, the Republicans are throwing red meat to their base, which is an increasingly small and extreme group of right-wingers. The danger of tossing red meat to a tiger is that it becomes even more aggressive.
Republican policy no longer represents the teachings of Jesus. The GOP favors the rich and ignores the poor, disadvantaged, sick, elderly, long-term unemployed, and other unfortunates. Republicans may be religious, but they're not Christians.
Say what? "Benghazi. The IRS. AP phone records. The failures for which Barack Obama will be remembered are not just those of one man or one administr...
Not since New Coke have we as a nation seen a disaster that both sides of the aisle can agree on. America is now unanimously and officially outraged that the IRS would have the audacity to target political groups -- groups that publicly despise taxes and call for the end of the IRS.
What happened to the party of Lincoln? To the party that abolished slavery and championed a woman's right to vote? To the party of Reagan who ended the Cold War and revitalized a moribund economy?
The ACA is raising the quality of care, halting skyrocketing health costs, providing preventive care without co-pays, and eliminating the worst insurance company abuses. Instead of improving health care, the Republican repeal plan would take it away.
Conservatives are being forced to take sides: They can either stand with promoters of inflammatory tracts -- like the Heritage Foundation and their hack Jason Richwine -- or they can stand with Americans in both parties who are working to fix our broken immigration system.
When certain media outlets become the megaphone for each opposing team, the biggest casualty is the search for the truth. The "truth" isn't seen as a goal, but rather as a tool to be used to bludgeon the opposing team.
If we're going to fight a binary struggle, it should be populist versus corporatist. That's the only real division in this country right now. Are you on the people's side, or on big money's side?
The U.S. Justice Department's secret seizure of two months of phone records for reporters and editors of the Associated Press is a reckless violation of the First Amendment. There is nothing more sacred in the American democracy than freedom of the press.
Speaker Boehner said it himself -- the vote to repeal Obamacare is not about health care, it's about politics. It's also another day wasted doing nothing instead of something for our nation's seniors and for the middle class and those working their way into it.
Silence is complicity and leaves Hispanics to believe that this is how Republicans view us -- as a bunch of stupid "takers" that form part of the 47 percent who voted for President Obama.