WASHINGTON — President Obama is confronting mostly Republican opponents over whether to extend the Bush tax-cuts to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers. Between 1979 and 2007, the richest 1 percent received three-fifths of all the income gains in the country. Most of this went to the richest tenth of that 1 percent, people with an average income of $5.6 million — including capital gains.

WASHINGTON — The Republicans’ gamble that they could ride a backlash against the Obama administration’s efforts to increase the availability of contraception has gone terribly bad. It turns out that most Americans, especially women, agree that insurance companies should have to cover contraception — for example, birth-control pills — in their health insurance plans.

WASHINGTON — The United States has a terribly dysfunctional health-care system, unique among the rich countries in the word in its waste and abuse of its citizens.

As a nation we spend about twice as much per person as other high-income countries, and yet we have 50 million people uninsured and have worse health outcomes. This is not a result of Medicare or the nearly half of health-care spending that is funded by government, but rather the private insurance companies that dominate the system, as well as pharmaceutical companies.

WASHINGTON — The Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread to scores of cities claims to represent “the 99 percent.” Does it?

Ninety-nine percent is perhaps too high a bar for public opinion. But the movement does represent the vast majority — who theoretically should be an important constituency in a democracy. And on many issues, they really do represent the interests of the 99 percent.