Hugh Jackson | The Guardian Latest news and features from, the world's leading liberal voice en-gb Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2014 Sun, 28 Dec 2014 23:24:23 GMT 2014-12-28T23:24:23Z en-gb Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2014 The Guardian Harry Reid, unhealthy for America | Hugh Jackson The Senate majority leader's position on healthcare reform is based on what is best for him, not the rest of the country<p>If you would like to be satisfied with Senate majority leader <a href="">Harry Reid</a>'s position on healthcare reform, please select from the following menu:</p><p><strong>28 July</strong>: &quot;What I think should be in the bill is something that I will vote for according to my conscience when we get this bill to the floor. ... But <a href="">I have a responsibility to get a bill to the Senate floor that will get 60 votes</a> that we can proceed toward. That's my number one responsibility.&quot;</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> US healthcare US Congress Democrats Republicans US news Nevada World news Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:00:00 GMT Hugh Jackson 2009-10-12T14:00:00Z Bulldozing the opposition | Hugh Jackson Rather than give in to conservative Democrats' weak vision of healthcare reform, Obama should drive right over them<p>In fairness, not all Democrats are nodding their heads in sympathy with the <a href="">paranoid style</a> in American politics, displayed during the healthcare debate this summer by misinformed white people <a href="">shaking their fists in the air</a> at protests and town hall meetings to the media's delight.</p><p>But the <a href="">Blue Dogs</a> in the House are. And more significantly, so are their conservative Democratic counterparts in the Senate.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> US healthcare US Congress Democrats Republicans Barack Obama US news World news US politics Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:00:00 GMT Hugh Jackson 2009-09-16T16:00:00Z Republican sexytime | Hugh Jackson Nevada senator John Ensign is the latest rightwing champion of social issues to be laid low by a sex scandal<p>John Ensign <a href="">voluntarily revealed</a> this week that he had an affair with a political staffer while she was working for him a little more than a year ago. Now mission creep is settling in on his little scandal.</p><p>The Nevada Republican is a practitioner of the social conservative &quot;values&quot; brand of politics that has done so much to define his party and his nation in recent years, so the senator's hypocrisy is hard to overstate, to the point that commenting on it at all seems somewhat banal.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> US Congress Republicans US news World news US politics Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:00:00 GMT Hugh Jackson 2009-06-22T16:00:00Z Hugh Jackson: The GOP's purists have no interest in making deals While it's fun to watch the Republican party eat itself, the message to Democrats is clear: the right won't compromise<p>Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's <a href="">abandonment</a> of the Republican party is being widely interpreted as a wake-up call for Republicans. They must offer something other than obstruction if they are to re-engage America's middle. Republicans are, as Maine's Senator <a href="">Olympia Snowe</a> put it, &quot;headed towards having on of the smallest political tents in a generation.&quot; The Republican party must shelve all the xenophobia and knee-jerk anti-government wingnuttery for which it stands if it hopes to be something other than a party of old white men in Wyoming and the South. And so on and so on and so on.</p><p>So will the GOP wake up? Civic-minded citizens taking the long view should hope so, probably, on the grounds that single-party rule is dangerous and the country will be better off with a healthy two-party system.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Republicans Democrats US Congress Obama administration US news World news US politics Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:00:00 GMT Hugh Jackson 2009-04-30T19:00:00Z Hugh Jackson: While Europeans embraced Obama's candour, to the US right he was attacking America While Europeans embraced President Obama's candour, to the US right he was attacking America<p>Barack Obama's latest round of nation-hopping calls to mind the last time he went abroad - not only the <a href="">international lovefest</a> part, but how it was immediately attacked back home by the US right.</p><p>Footage from Obama's July 2008 speech in Berlin was the basis for <a href="">John McCain's ad</a> comparing candidate Obama to Paris Hilton and attempting to belittle him as the &quot;biggest celebrity in the world&quot;. Not coincidentally, the Republican media infrastructure mocked Obama for suffering from a condition that would never, ever befall a contemporary Republican running for president of the United States: international popularity. Europeans - or &quot;socialists&quot; as they're <a href="">referred to</a> on Fox News - seemed to adore Obama, and that fit perfectly into the overall narrative that the right hoped would prevent an Obama victory, that he was the &quot;other&quot;.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Barack Obama US foreign policy Obama administration US economy Republicans Global economy US news US politics Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:00:01 GMT John Stillwell/Getty Barack Obama and Michelle Obama with some European fans. Photograph: John Stillwell/WPA Pool/Getty Images Hugh Jackson 2009-04-08T15:00:01Z Hugh Jackson: Senator John Ensign, leader of the Republican "no" brigade The tired formula of tax cuts finds new life in the person of Nevada's bouffant senator John Ensign<p>Fresh from chairing the worst National Republican Senatorial Committee campaign effort in <a href="">more than 20 years</a> (net Senate gain for the GOP in 2008: minus seven and still <a href="">counting in Minnesota</a>), senator John Ensign of Nevada is becoming a favourite right-winger for Washington's media-industrial complex.</p><p>Ensign might seem an odd choice to emerge as a high-profile spokesman for congressional Republicans. Two years into his second term, the Nevada junior senator's political career has been distinguished chiefly by outstanding exploits in Congressional sports fixtures, one of the <a href="">best golf handicaps</a> of any elected official in the history of representative democracy, and a head of <a href="">splendid hair</a>.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> US Congress Republicans US economic growth and recession US economy Nevada US news Obama administration World news US politics US taxation Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:00:09 GMT Hugh Jackson 2009-02-19T19:00:09Z Hugh Jackson: The media still continues to cover Republicans as if they matter In spite of their minority status in Congress, the US media continues to view Republicans as if they're credible and relevant<p>So change has come to America? That's news to the media.</p><p>To be sure, the ever-vigilant US press corps has noticed that Barack Obama is, you know, a black man.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> US news Republicans US Congress Democrats Media Barack Obama World news US politics Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:30:01 GMT Hugh Jackson 2009-01-29T17:30:01Z Hugh Jackson: Democrats allowed George Bush to wreak havoc on the world after 9/11 As we bid farewell to George Bush today, Democrats should acknowledge that they gave him a blank cheque after 9/11<p>As Americans celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama, they, like the rest of the world, are also taking tremendous satisfaction in the departure of the Bush regime.</p><p>But of course the rest of the world didn't promote Bush to the exalted position from which he and his administration wrought such havoc and mayhem in the first place. That is a burden that must be borne distinctly and uniquely by the US.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Obama inauguration George Bush US news World news Barack Obama Republicans US politics Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:00:01 GMT Hugh Jackson 2009-01-20T18:00:01Z