Raul Grijalva

The House leaders-- afraid of midterm voters-- avoided voting for war in the Middle East yesterday and instead voted to fund what McCain insists are "moderate" Syrian rebels… you know, the ones who have been selling arms and captives to ISIS (the "non-moderates") for months. Do we never learn? Anything? Buck McKeon's slippery slope amendment passed 273 to 156 with 85 Democrats and 71 Republicans voting against it. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) has learned history's lessons.

Yesterday, there was a lot of buzz about Louisiana Republican Vance McAllister letting it slip that he and other corrupt conservatives routinely take bribes for their votes.

Last week a new name started popping up on my Twitter feed: Cliven Bundy. Before I had even processed it, he was in a standoff with federal law enforcement officials over unpaid taxes and fees and Harry Reid was calling him a domestic terrorist, Sean Hannity was egging him on to start an armed rebellion and Ted Cruz seemed to be angling to get him to run on his ticket in 2016. It looked too silly/ugly/predictable to pay any attention to. So I didn't. But it didn't go away.

Although the successful 61-35 cloture vote last week to break the Republican filibuster on extending unemployment benefits was the real test, yesterday the Senate officially passed the bill, 59-38, and sent it to the

I spent almost two years wandering around the Indian subcontinent between 1969 and 1971-- Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Nepal and, of course, every region of India. I lived in my van and was broke most of the time and had no choice but to eat whatever the locals were eating. When I got back to Europe I came down with a debilitating illness. No need to go into the gruesome details but I wound up under the care of an elderly physician in Innsbruck who decided he would have to operate on me and that I would have to stay in Innsbruck for six months.

This year's Congressional Progressive Caucus alternative budget, the Better Off Budget, was developed by Mike Honda (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). Obviously, it's a complex document.

Earlier today we looked at the interview Bill Moyers did with Adolph Reed, Jr. about how the American left has basically shriveled up and withered away. Reed made the point that Clinton and Obama both sold out entirely to Wall Street in the same way that the Republican Party has. The corporate agenda is their agenda.

Do you find it odd that there are some labor unions who contribute to Republicans? By far the building trades unions are the biggest culprits, especially when it comes to Mafia-backed candidates like Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm.

I'm not certain if the report about the coal industry's latest toxic spill in West Virginia heading downstream towards Cincinnati is true or not, but I do know that when Compton educator Roland Charest saw the photo above, he could be heard saying, "I wouldn't be drinking anything that came out of those taps for at least a year."

What do you get if you cross Paul Ryan and Patty Murray?This is a budget that is profoundly against the interests of working families. It passed 332-94. 62 crazy right-wing fanatics voted against it because it wasn't harsh enough. These are the 32 Democrats who just said no: