Next year, President Barack Obama and the solidly Democratic Congress can pass legislation that provides universal healthcare, establishes a sustainable energy program, reforms labor laws and restores environmental safeguards. In addition, the current economic crisis gives progressives an opportunity to pursue institutional reforms that have previously been off the table. We have nationalized elements of our financial system, but its institutions remain unresponsive to the needs of the American people. How can we hold the banks that we now own accountable?

In a signal that president-elect Barack Obama will take a drastically ...

Tom Engelhardt Given the appointees Barack Obama has decided on so far, you might think Hillary had been elected.

President-elect Barack Obama has tapped former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to be his secretary of health, the Associated Press is reporting. [More]

What do we do now?" That's the question Bill McKay (Robert Redford), ponders in The Candidate (1972). He won the presidency, promising "a better way." After Nov. 4, America is asking Democrats the same haunting question. These are heady times for the party of Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and, now, President-elect Barack Obama. Only a few years ago, Democrats were almost relegated to permanent minority status by a "Mission Accomplished" sign and an ass in a flight suit.

By some estimates the total cost of Barack Obama's campaign promises could come to $2 trillion. The new president will have to disappoint many of his voters -- or resign himself to an enormous government deficit.

The US has long been a model for many parts of the Arab world, but the Bush administration's foreign policy led to rifts. Now, the region has high hopes from America, but they aren't sure what to expect from President-elect Barack Obama.

Closing Guantánamo sounds easy when you have support from, well, pretty much the entire world. But as former Pentagon insider Matthew Waxman tells FP, it’s not as simple as Barack Obama thinks.

After Barack Obama conceded defeat at the New Hampshire primary last January, the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am selected quotes from his concession speech and set them to music--sort of. The video for Will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” features a clutch of celebrities singing (or speaking), over Obama and a few . . .

DURING THE PAST year of political reporting, a lot of writers have thought bemused was just the right word for Barack Obama's benign, unruffled presence, especially in the debates with John McCain.