Elizabeth Warren showed again yesterday how she has become our country's leading fighter for the middle class and those in poverty. In a passionate speech about Social Security, she tore apart the phony argument that greedy seniors were taking money away from our kids, and she showed why we should...

There's a long, honorable, and incredibly important tradition in American history of people getting involved in issues and politics due to their religious convictions. From John Adams and many of his fellow revolutionaries, from the abolitionists to the suffragists to the...

Way under the radar screen of Big Media, which is too busy wallowing around in every flaw of the early glitches of healthcare.gov to notice anything else going on no matter how important, is a hugely consequential Senate confirmation fight happening this week. This fight may well have a bigger...

I sometimes get into debates with my fellow progressives over whether we should ever talk about the idea of waste in government sending. Some of my friends argue that we shouldn't because it only reinforces conservative talking points but my view is very different that that. I believe that most...

While the country is still shaking its collective head over the self-destructive insanity of the Republican party's shutdown politics (my mother's classic line: "I just keep wondering about what kinds of parents they have"), big fish are frying elsewhere. In this case, happily, that big fish is JP Morgan Chase....

The Ted Cruz Republicans made a horrible mess of everything, and the country and the economy are far worse for the experience, but in spite of all the pain and disgust this caused, there is one clear victor out of all this -- and you all know who...

The organization I chair, American Family Voices, put out this video last night to give credit where credit is due for the terrible mess we find ourselves in this week, Ted Cruz and his crazy band of brothers in the House:

Cruz seems to be despised personally by most of his fellow Republican senators, but his brand of wrecking ball extremism has taken over their party, and as a result a great many things that matter stand in danger of being wrecked: our democracy, our credit rating, our entire economy, our nation's credibility and reputation worldwide. We have been brought to this pass by the most radical kind of megalomaniacs, and Cruz is their king. To serve their own bizarre, twisted vision of America, and to feed their own massive egos, they are willing to cause a worldwide financial panic and throw tens of millions of people out of work. They are even proud of it, bursting with pride in fact. Take a look at this quote from Virginia Congressman Morgan Griffith:

"We have to make a decision that's right long-term for the United States, and what may be distasteful, unpleasant and not appropriate in the short run may be something that has to be done," he said.

Griffith... cited as an example the American Revolution. "I will remind you that this group of renegades that decided that they wanted to break from the crown in 1776 did great damage to the economy of the colonies," Griffith said. "They created the greatest nation and the best form of government, but they did damage to the economy in the short run."

Cruz and his band of sociopathic brothers and sisters are hell-bent on wrecking everything in their path, no matter what damage they cause, because in their warped minds it gets us back to some kind of Ayn Rand-style government-less free market Eden, where -- to use Paul Ryan's words -- the "makers" (the wealthy and powerful) can do whatever they want to whomever they want and ignore the whining of the "takers." This will make America strong again, which is important because, as Glenn Beck says, "in nature, lions eat the weak." To get to this land of stateless nirvana where the makers rule in glory, Cruz and his gang are willing to do any amount of "short term" damage they can -- although how many decades is short term seems to be irrelevant to them. They want a revolution, by God, and are willing to destroy anybody and everything to get it.

Miley Cyrus' very strange video seemed like the perfect metaphor for the insane megalomaniacs led by their hero Cruz. Take a look and see how well it tells the story. And let's hope that whichever sane Republicans are left standing in that party have the wisdom to stand up to Cruz and his wrecking...

This incredible new video clip officially confirms that, as comedian Andy Borowitz put it the other day, that the Republicans have decided to shut down not only the government but their frontal lobes:

I have written before about the market manipulation going on in ethanol, a classic case of Wall Street speculators driving up prices for everyone else, and using government subsidies to do it. Beyond the market manipulation, though, progressives like me are quickly coming to the conclusion that the entire...

The shutdown is the story of the moment. It has the danger of hostage taking. It has bitter, testosterone-driven conflict. It has human interest because real people are indeed getting hurt, some of them badly, like the kids thrown out of Head Start. It has suspense because no one knows...

As the Republicans in Congress furiously accelerate the train going down the tracks to a government shutdown, apparently hoping to do maximum damage both to the country and their party's own political standing, some very interesting things are happening inside the Democratic party as well -- the Larry Summers nomination...

I have written many, many times about Wall Street and its rotten practices, and how their reckless decisions are hurting families. For years now, we've known that Wall Street had too much influence over government. They could lie, cheat, and steal from millions of working families and not only keep...

I am always glad when President Obama gives a good populist speech on economic issues. Unlike many folks both on the left and right, I believe that speeches and words do matter, and I'd always rather have Obama framing the message in a populist way.

The irony, though, is that...

Those big headlines about the bankruptcy of Detroit were like a punch in the gut to those of us who grew up in working class in the Midwest, and they should sober anyone who cares about working families all across America. But the headlines alone don't tell the whole story....

There's a story in the Christian Bible that some of you may have heard of. It's about a couple of guys named Jesus and Judas. Jesus was a preacher who was stirring up a lot of trouble for the wealthy and powerful, the moneychangers and establishment guys. Judas said he...

Yesterday I wrote about some remarkable new videos coming out of the FreedomWorks conference last weekend by progressive journalist Lauren Windsor. She's out with another one that is worth watching and taking note of, because it is another sign that even though Romney's infamous 47 percent video was...

While I come from the Republican heartland that he disses, and some of this made me wince, a really funny piece from Mark Morford that came out after DOMA and Prop 8 were struck down made me laugh out loud:

"Is it like this across conservative America, too?...

As I referenced in a post several days ago, I feel that there is a reenergized movement around the economic issues that is being fueled by the growing frustration of the power and control of the wealthy special interests. From the low-wage worker organizing we are seeing in new organizations...

I have been bemused for many years by the peculiar mindset represented by D.C.-centrism. I have written about it a number of times over the years, in my book The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be, and in many of my blog posts. D.C. Centrism...

There were big demonstrations at the Department of Justice a couple of weeks ago starting on May 20, including civil disobedience and arrests, and I wrote about these important demonstrations at the time. But after two days of protests at DOJ, the demonstrators switched targets and went over to the...