Remember how excited everybody was just a short while ago that this presidential campaign was the first in 80 years to be wide open, without a president or vice president in the campaign?
Many of our political savants and pundits took one in the teeth last night. I couldn't be happier about last night's surprising results, and not because I favor one candidate or another. I'm just glad the so-called experts in the national media were wrong about their premature assumptions that the Democratic and Republican nominations for president were a done deal.
Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has carried out another coup to preserve the status quo, and the result has been violence and civil unrest. But chaos is hardly limited to Pakistan.
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is mired in a mess of his own making. The governor's political fortunes are now in jeopardy because of his brash and impulsive style. Unfortunately, he is also jeopardizing the safety of New Yorkers and debasing their citizenship rights as he flails against the facts, the law and the will of the people.
Diehard GOP faithful, the dwindling number of Bush loyalists and political pundits of every stripe and medium seem obsessed these days with defining or discerning the "legacy of George W. Bush."
Lunacy among our public figures in this country certainly didn't subside over the weeks that I've been away from the broadcast. I've been no less than astounded by the incongruity, the contradiction, the specious and silly public statements by public and political figures over something like a flag pin worn on one's lapel.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon Sunday demanded the United States surrender its sovereignty, abandon the rule of law and accede to Mexico's inherent supremacy.
Constance Griffiths at Western Digital and Woody Monroy at Seagate confirm there are two U.S. disk drive makers left in the United States.
There was an unusual spectacle in the nation's capital Tuesday, downright rare, in fact: U.S. Senators seeking truth, and justice, and taking action. And they deserve great credit and thanks.
Remember how excited everybody was just a short while ago that this presidential campaign was the first in 80 years to be wide open, without a president or vice president in the campaign?
Many of our political savants and pundits took one in the teeth last night. I couldn't be happier about last night's surprising results, and not because I favor one candidate or another. I'm just glad the so-called experts in the national media were wrong about their premature assumptions that the Democratic and Republican nominations for president were a done deal.
Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has carried out another coup to preserve the status quo, and the result has been violence and civil unrest. But chaos is hardly limited to Pakistan.
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is mired in a mess of his own making. The governor's political fortunes are now in jeopardy because of his brash and impulsive style. Unfortunately, he is also jeopardizing the safety of New Yorkers and debasing their citizenship rights as he flails against the facts, the law and the will of the people.
Diehard GOP faithful, the dwindling number of Bush loyalists and political pundits of every stripe and medium seem obsessed these days with defining or discerning the "legacy of George W. Bush."
Lunacy among our public figures in this country certainly didn't subside over the weeks that I've been away from the broadcast. I've been no less than astounded by the incongruity, the contradiction, the specious and silly public statements by public and political figures over something like a flag pin worn on one's lapel.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon Sunday demanded the United States surrender its sovereignty, abandon the rule of law and accede to Mexico's inherent supremacy.
Constance Griffiths at Western Digital and Woody Monroy at Seagate confirm there are two U.S. disk drive makers left in the United States.
There was an unusual spectacle in the nation's capital Tuesday, downright rare, in fact: U.S. Senators seeking truth, and justice, and taking action. And they deserve great credit and thanks.
President Bush isn't the only lame duck in our nation's capital. All 435 congressmen are up for re-election next year, and so are 34 of our senators. That's a total of 469 lame ducks, the way I see it.
America's once-proud public school system -- the great equalizer of our democratic society -- is failing an entire generation of students. Millions of high-school students are donning their caps and gowns this month, but a new Education Week report reveals that more than 1.2 million students will fail to graduate high school this year. Half of our black and Hispanic male students are dropping out of public high schools.
President Bush is building his legacy, adding another unfortunate line of hollow bravado to his rhetorical repertoire. To "Mission accomplished," "Bring it on," "Wanted: Dead or alive," and of course, "I earned ... political capital, and now I intend to spend it," he has added "I'll see you at the bill signing," referring to his own ill-considered push for so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
American society is increasingly polarized, our politics ever more fractious, and I believe most of us are figuring out that we spend far too much time and energy dwelling on our differences rather than embracing the similarities and commonalities that unite us as Americans.
I've been, over the years, because of our reporting on controversial issues and my strongly held beliefs on those issues, attacked, and usually pretty vigorously, by both the left wing and the right wing of this nation's media, both mainstream and otherwise, and of course the politicians that form the extremes of our political spectrum.
There are times when reason carries the mind no further, when the mind is carried from the rational across the penumbra of the absurd. That is where the leadership of the U.S. Senate now resides.
The separation of church and state in this country is narrowing. And it is the church, not the state that is encroaching. Our Constitution protects religion from the intrusion or coercion of the state. But we have precious little protection against the political adventurism of all manner of churches and religious organizations.
What a spectacle, what a mess. What a day for thousands and thousands of illegal aliens and their supporters to march through the streets of many of our biggest cities demanding amnesty for illegally entering the country.
The Bush administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party are preparing to take another legislative leap at imposing a massive illegal alien amnesty on American citizens.
Our country is in shock at the slaughter of 32 Virginia Tech students and teachers. Our national consciousness will be dominated for days by the senseless deaths and the wounding of dozens more on Virginia Tech's campus.
The powerful chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel, and I sat down together last night to talk about, among other things, his new book, "And I Haven't Had a Bad Day Since."
The battle for the soul of the Democratic Party is under way. And the outcome of this battle will likely not be determined by any one of the rising number of candidates for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, but rather by the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill.
An incompetent attorney general, who says he wasn't fully aware that nearly 10 percent of the U.S. attorneys who work for him throughout the country were being fired and permitted the 110,000-person Justice Department that he leads to give inaccurate information at best, or simply lie about it at worst, to the Congress and the American people, has the full confidence of the president who's lost the confidence of most people.
President Bush has spent the past six days in Central and South America pushing his view that what he calls free trade is the solution for millions who live in poverty south of our border.
This new Congress was supposed to be different. Instead, it is being led by a gaggle of partisan hacks pandering to the same special interests and corporate masters as the previous Republican-led Congress.
We're fighting a war that is inflicting even greater casualties than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, incredibly, costing even more money. We're losing the War on Drugs, and we've been in retreat for three decades.
We heard two new voices this week in our nation's capital: One partisan and political, the other professional military.
The new Democratic Congress is making progress in its beat-the-clock-style "first 100 legislative hours" agenda.
Merry Christmas! That's right, Merry Christmas. Whether you're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, pagan, barbarian or whatever, Merry Christmas!
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former 9/11 Commission Co-Chair, Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, has been at work for eight months to develop an assessment of the war in Iraq and new policy recommendations.
Victorious Democrats will, with the opening of the 110th Congress, have a historic opportunity to right the course of a country that has been hell-bent on permitting free-trade corporatists and faith-based economics to bankrupt the nation.
The midterm elections, which produced the highest voter turnout in more than two decades, resulted in not only the Democratic takeover of both the House and the Senate, but a new political reality that has some free-trade-at-all-cost Republicans writhing in pain.
The Democratic victory last week has our political elites in both parties and in the national media squealing like stuck pigs. Way to go, America, we may be on the way.
Hallelujah, brothers and sisters. I'm not even sure what "hallelujah" means, but the word just feels right after witnessing what is at the very least an awakening of the power of the people. I'm hopeful that November 7 was also a declaration that middle-class Americans won't be taken for granted by either political party.
We're now less than a week away from our midterm elections, and Republicans and Democrats are down to their final tens of millions of dollars in media buys, their hyperbolic rhetoric all but expended and their candidates all but exhausted.
President Bush will sign the Secure Fence Act into law Thursday at a public ceremony in the White House Roosevelt Room, reversing his earlier decision to withhold the pomp and circumstance.
"War on the Middle Class" is the title of my new book and our special report on CNN. Wednesday we broadcast live from the front lines of this all-out war, and we talked to American families facing the tough issues that are all but being ignored by our elected officials in Washington. Our middle class is the largest group of people in the country, but they are also the least represented in our nation's capital.
I don't know about you, but I can't take seriously anyone who takes either the Republican Party or Democratic Party seriously -- in part because neither party takes you and me seriously; in part because both are bought and paid for by corporate America and special interests. And neither party gives a damn about the middle class.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit an all-time high and Wall Street firms are posting some of their best earnings ever. For the first time in our nation's history, the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans includes only billionaires. In fact, having only a billion dollars means you're not on the list. As a group, the Forbes 400 has a collective net worth of $1.25 trillion.
We're about 40 days away from November's critically important midterm elections, and the campaign volume is rising.
Democrats and Republicans are desperately trying to nationalize the midterm elections, now only 48 days away.
While American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting some of the most intense battles of the war against radical Islamic terrorists, our national debate on the future of the conflict has descended to platitudes of campaign rhetoric and a pathological, partisan refusal on both sides of that debate to acknowledge the harsh realities and difficult choices that confront us.
Hang on, the political thrill ride is about to begin. Are you ready? I know I am. And it's gonna be a hoot.
The Soviet Union, Marxist Leninism, the Evil Empire and their ugly metaphor, the Berlin Wall, crumbled and collapsed almost 17 years ago.
There you go again, Mr. President. You just couldn't help yourself this weekend. For crying out loud, you did everything but declare "Mission Accomplished" on our southern border.
This Republican-led, do-nothing Congress is on its way home for a five-week vacation. I'm sure while there, they'll be glad to explain to their constituents why they need so much rest in a year in which they will work fewer than 80 days.
With upraised right hand and left hand on the Bible, each of our presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush, has solemnly sworn to "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution of the United States.
We Americans like to think we're a pretty smart people, even when evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. And nowhere is that evidence more overwhelming than in the Middle East. History in the Middle East is everything, and we Americans seem to learn nothing from it.
The Bush White House and its lackeys in the Senate have reached a new low in their quest to bestow amnesty on 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants, while doing as little as possible to secure our nation's borders and ports.
School's out in nearly every part of the country, and students are delightfully spilling into their summer vacations with little, if any, thought of what September will bring.
Without much fanfare, the House of Representatives last week voted to give members of Congress yet another pay raise, as it has done almost every year for nearly a decade.
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are set to take action on legislation that could determine the financial and social fate of nearly every American for the next 20 years.
President Bush this week urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, at a time when the United States faces some of the greatest challenges in our nation's history.
Libertarian fatalism has infected and afflicted the leaders of both political parties, and none of us should take seriously the partisan posturing from either the Republicans or Democrats.
President Bush says that the installation of the new Iraqi government was a "watershed event," but at the same time warns Americans of the challenges and loss as we continue to prosecute the war against Iraqi insurgents. Sen. Harry Reid declares that legislation that would render English the national language is racist.
President Bush's address from the Oval Office on border security and illegal immigration failed to satisfy either advocates of amnesty or those demanding that the government secure our borders and ports. Whether by design or not, however, the president did manage to advance public awareness of both crises.
Reports this week that the Border Patrol is notifying the Mexican government of the locations of Minutemen volunteers are being denied by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. True or not, the Bush administration continues to follow absurd policies on both issues of border security and illegal immigration.
Because this broadcast focuses intensely on the issues that matter most to working and middle-class men and women, I am often critical of both political parties and both houses of Congress and this administration.
We all awoke to headlines in our nation's most important newspapers reminding us that this is "A Day Without Immigrants." Not illegal immigrants, mind you, but immigrants.
Chinese President Hu Jintao meets with President Bush in the nation's capital Thursday after a cross-country trip for Hu that follows his state dinner with billionaire Bill Gates.
(CNN) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today called our current immigration system "bad policy" in a Wall Street Journal editorial.
Republican and Democratic senators Thursday morning took turns in front of television cameras congratulating themselves and their esteemed colleagues for reaching a compromise on illegal immigration reform.
We're reporting live this week from Cancun, where the leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada are meeting in a trilateral summit. And despite the contentious debate raging in the U.S. Senate over illegal immigration and the guest-worker program, this summit has a remarkably modest agenda.
President Bush delivered his fifth State of the Union speech, but he didn't address the issues that matter most to working, middle-class Americans, from substantive health care reform to assuring educational opportunity to combating the outright war on our middle class.
Federal prosecutors are turning up the heat in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling case, which promises to be the biggest Washington scandal in a generation.
I'd like to begin this new year by thanking you for watching. And thank you for your loyalty, your innate intelligence, independence of thought and concern for this nation and for all Americans who deserve the same opportunities that have benefited you and me.
You've heard several people on our show, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others, admonish us not to use the term "refugee" when describing the New Orleans citizens who've had to flee their homes. Jackson and others, including President Bush, have said or implied that term is racially insensitive.
There's no denying both political parties in Congress are now owned lock, stock and barrel by corporate interests. Our nation's elected officials in Washington have formed a partnership with the corporate supremacists and special interest groups in an effort to drive profits to the bottom line of U.S. multinationals at the expense of hard-working Americans.
When is a great idea about securing our nation's porous borders not a great idea? Surprisingly, when it comes from the country's top border official.
Every so often, a member of the economic orthodoxy decides to attack me personally in print. Today I'd like to address a column in The Philadelphia Inquirer, with this question as its lead: "Will China's decision to unpeg its currency to the U.S. dollar make Lou Dobbs shut up?"
The deadly bombings in London have raised concerns about the threat of terrorism against the world's transportation centers. In the United States, the focus was on aviation security after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Americans owe Congressman Duncan Hunter their gratitude and congratulations. The powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee ordered hearings on China's $18.5 billion bid to buy California-based Unocal this week.
John Dean, who was counsel to President Richard Nixon and served four months in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, has written several books recounting his days in the Nixon White House.
Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister, was in London during Wednesday's terrorist attacks and narrowly avoided one of the deadly subway explosions.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it will send more than 500 additional Border Patrol agents to Arizona this year to help stop the flow of illegal aliens into the United States.
The legendary Warren Buffett and I sat down last week to talk about his views on the issues and challenges facing the United States and all Americans.
The Bush administration is trying to push the Central American Free Trade Agreement through Congress quickly and quietly.
President Bush dedicated a major part of his State of the Union address to what he has been calling one of the biggest problems facing our nation: Social Security.
During the Senate's investigation of the recall of Merck's pain reliever Vioxx, a veteran Food and Drug Administration drug safety scientist said Americans are virtually defenseless under the current system. That's simply unacceptable.
The members of the 109th Congress will have to deal with several complex issues if the Bush administration has its way. The president has been steadily advancing his political agenda since his re-election, pushing some major and controversial reform proposals to the top of the congressional docket.
President Bush and Sen. Kerry have less than two weeks to try to sway the remaining undecided voters before the November presidential election. It's hard to imagine there are still undecided voters after months of nonstop campaigning and three so-called debates, especially when the pundits claim the American public is more polarized than at any point in recent history.
We hardly need more evidence of the unparalleled political power of Corporate America. But while Congress recently approved billions more in corporate tax cuts, a new report showed that the United States' biggest and most profitable companies have been paying less in federal income taxes over the past three years despite reporting higher profits. And many of them are paying no taxes at all.
President Bush and Sen. Kerry both campaigned in West Virginia over the long holiday weekend, taking advantage of Labor Day to talk about American workers.
The loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and hundreds of thousands of service jobs over the past few years, and the threat of the loss of millions more to offshore outsourcing, is a clear call to our business and political leaders that our trade policies simply are not working. At the least, not in the national interest.
The campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry overlapped Wednesday when both candidates held rallies less than a mile away from each other in Davenport, Iowa.
Sen. John Kerry on Thursday officially accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president amid the predictable pomp and circumstance of the national convention. With less than 100 days remaining until the November election and most polls indicating a statistical dead heat between President Bush and Kerry, next up on the challenger's agenda is to figure out a way to mobilize the relatively small number of undecided voters in his favor.
The United States is facing an extraordinary immigration crisis, but our solutions have done nothing to alleviate the situation. The overburdened Border Patrol and local law enforcement, particularly in the Southwest, are apprehending thousands of illegal aliens on immigration violations every day. Yet surprisingly, many of those arrested are freed shortly after their detainment.
California has devised a new plan to help solve its ongoing budget crisis. But while that plan might save California millions of dollars in the next fiscal year, there's a good chance it will leave some of the state's own residents waving goodbye to their jobs.
U.S. officials on Monday formally handed over power to an interim Iraqi government, two days earlier than expected. Fifteen months after U.S-led coalition forces removed Saddam Hussein from power, the newly sovereign nation now belongs to the people of Iraq and its government officials.
The United States trade deficit exploded to another staggering record last month of more than $48 billion.