The Nation: The Beat

House Passes Health Reform, But Without Reproductive Rights

John Nichols — 2009-11-08T09:11:36-05:00

The U.S. House of Representatives answered "the call of history" put to it by President Obama Saturday and voted 220-215 in favor of the most sweeping expansion of health-care coverage since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965.

House Democrats burst into sustained applause at 11:08 EST as the majority-making 218th vote was cast in favor of the the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

The measure ultimately received the votes of 219 Democrats.

Double-Digit Unemployment Is Obama's No. 1 Challenge

John Nichols — 2009-11-06T10:28:25-05:00

For the first time in more than a quarter century, unemployment in the United States has reached double digits.

That's bad economic news for America, which has now been shedding jobs for 22 consecutive months.

That's bad social news for the Americans who are out of work, for their families and for their communities, especially when we consider data that tells us 35 percent of jobless men and women have been looking for work for more than six months.

Horror at Fort Hood Inspires Horribly Predictable Islamophobia

John Nichols — 2009-11-05T19:23:12-05:00

Thursday's shootings at the Fort Hood army base in Texas -- which left at least 12 people dead and more than 30 others wounded -- were of course the "horrific outburst of violence" that President Obama bemoaned and condemned.

But, because a soldier identified as the gunman had a name that led to the presumption that he was Muslim, the incident inspired an all-too-predictable explosion of Islamophobia.

News reports named the man who used two handguns in the assault on his fellow soldiers at a base that is a prime point of departure for troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan as Major Malik Nidal Hasan. The major, who was wounded during the incident, was identified as a psychiatrist who had served in the Department of Psychology at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda Naval Facility in Bethesda, Maryland, before his transfer to Fort Hood.

House Adopts Know-Nothing Approach to Middle-East

John Nichols — 2009-11-05T13:37:22-05:00

The Congress of the United States went out of its way this week to embarrass itself.

At issue was a House resolution "calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the �Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict' in multilateral fora."

The point of the resolution was to tell the Obama administration in general, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in particular, to do everything in its power to prevent serious consideration of the Goldstone Report, a study of alleged violations of international human rights laws and humanitarian standards by the Israeli Defense Forces operating in Palestinian territory on the Gaza Strip.

A Year Later, Obama Needs to Start Campaigning Again

John Nichols — 2009-11-04T16:37:48-05:00

MADISON, WI --One year ago Tuesday, Barack Obama redefined American electioneering to such an extent that it was possible to believe that the success of his transformational campaign would lead to a transformational presidency.

After all, he had already changed most of what America "knew" about politics.

The freshman senator from Illinois had not only won an election for the presidency of the United States on November 4, 2008.

House Wins Offset Gubernatorial Losses for Obama, Dems

John Nichols — 2009-11-04T00:14:23-05:00

White House aides announced Tuesday night that President Obama was not watching off-year election results on television.

Actually, the president should have been watching.

Indeed, he should have stayed up late.

Bloomberg Wins, But Barely

John Nichols — 2009-11-03T21:29:23-05:00

Yes, of course, everyone was watching Virginia, New Jersey and upstate New York on Tuesday's off-year election night.

But one of the most dramatic stories played out in New York City, where Mayor Mike Bloomberg forced a rewrite of the city's term-limit law so that he could seek a third term.

Bloomberg left a Republican Party tha had turned exceedingly unpopular in the nation's largest city, spent an estimated $100 million of his own money and collected endorsements from the major daily newspapers and more than a few Democratic elected officials.

Four Off-Year Election Scenarios

John Nichols — 2009-11-03T08:51:20-05:00

Yes, yes, we've all heard the "all-politics-is-local" bromide with regard to off-year elections.

While it is no longer an operative, let alone true, statement � as the nationalized election cycles of the Bush years so clearly confirmed -- there is one certainty with regard to the pop punditry of former House Speaker Tip O'Neill: Winning players and parties never use it, while losers invariably rely on it.

O'Neill, himself, never took the local line all that seriously when Democrats were doing well. Famously, he hailed the off-year election results of 1981 (Democrats won the Virginia governorship and lots of mayoralties) as a signal that his party was coming back from the battering it had taken a year earlier at the hands of Ronald Reagan's Republicans.

Tale of Two Special Elections: One Shifts Right, The Other Left

John Nichols — 2009-11-02T18:40:57-05:00

The Washington Post positions itself as a "must-read" daily almanac of the political class � a reliable source of information and insight regarding all things electoral.

That goes double for congressional elections, since the Post is the "hometown paper" of the federal government's company town.

As such, the Post can be expected to follow congressional contests with a rigor and clarity that exceeds that of talk-radio and talk-TV, right? Wrong.

"Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP"

John Nichols — 2009-11-01T20:49:53-05:00

Richard Viguerie, the legendary hard-right activist who spent much of the past decade arguing that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were too liberal, now declares that the days of even the most minimal moderation are now over in the Republican Party.

"Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP," says Viguerie.

There is little reason to argue with the man whose direct-mail campaigning funded the rise of the Republican right in the late 1970s and who grumbled loudly when Newt Gingrich, Bush, Cheney and Republican leaders tried to soften the party's roughest edges.