Francis S. Collins,  Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Here are the results of austerity, and of a Republican Party hell-bent on proving government can’t work by starving it. From Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institute of Health: “NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It’s not like we […]

It didn’t take a federal district judge long to strike down Alaska’s same-sex marriage ban: [Judge Timothy] Burgess heard arguments Friday afternoon and promised a quick decision. He released his 25-page decision Sunday afternoon. “Refusing the rights and responsibilities afforded by legal marriage sends the public a government-sponsored message that same-sex couples and their familial […]

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If you were only looking at Senate models — which is all that all the other ‘competing’ models look at — you’d rightly be concerned that the Democrats are on track for a terrible night on Election Day. All the models (even Sam Wang‘s slightly-more optimistic model) currently predict that the Republicans are on track […]

Happy Monday! Another week begins! Well, the second part is true, anyway. What madness developed over the weekend? What foolishness will be discovered this morning? Only time will tell! That would sound a lot more impressive, somehow, if the show didn’t start in, like, half an hour. Our embedded live stream is temporarily on the […]

Republican Mike Rounds Leading Off: • SD-Sen: Until recently, both parties believed that Republican Mike Rounds would easily take this seat. However, thanks to Rounds’ overconfident campaign and lingering questions about his role in a scandal involving EB-5 visas, Rounds has looked weaker than expected against Democrat Rick Weiland and independent Larry Pressler, a former […]

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic discusses Why Broadcast Journalism Is Flirting With Jon Stewart: Would network news be better if politicians were interviewed by comedians rather than broadcast journalists? That’s one question raised by Gabriel Sherman’s report that NBC executives wanted Jon Stewart to host Meet the Press, the prestigious Sunday-morning interview program. Had higher-ups […]

Of the Arawak and Taino people who came to greet the sailors of the Niña, Pinta and Santa María that October day in the eastern Caribbean 522 years ago, Cristóbal Colón, as Columbus was known in Spain, would write: They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which […]

You will start training for that factory job when you are in sixth grade, like it or not. Many of you are familiar with Mike Rowe of Discovery show Dirty Jobs. These days, he’s promoting a new show he’s created, and spending a lot of time responding to fan mail via Facebook posts. About a […]

When the landmark marriage equality ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act was handed down in June of 2013, Justice Anton Scalia penned such a scathing dissent I was worried for his health. It was a rant worthy of song. As I read, I could actually feel the veins popping out on my own […]