In the wake of his ruling overturning California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage, one legal observer concluded Judge Vaughn Walker "is speaking to Justice Kennedy." Slate's Dahlia Lithwick went a step further, suggesting that while "Judge Vaughn R. Walker is not Anthony Kennedy," he "certainly knows how to write like him." If so, Judge […]

Back in May, half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin insisted that the Founding Fathers "were quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 commandments." But while the Founders intended no such thing, Palin's protege Sharron Angle is convinced. Just weeks after proclaiming "God has a plan" for […]

The deaths this year of billionaires George Steinbrenner, Dan Duncan and other members of the gilded class have drawn attention to the temporary lapse of the estate tax. After all, even as Republican obstructionism produced a multi-billion dollar windfall for the heirs of some of America's iconic rich, the one-year expiration of the estate tax […]

As the planned "Ground Zero" mosque passed a key hurdle today, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin have emerged as its most vocal critics on the right. But while Gingrich called it "an offensive act" which Palin asked the Muslim faithful to "refudiate," Mitt Romney's predictable path to opposition may best capture the fetid state of […]

So it's come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper's supply-side tax cuts, announced that the "debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter […]

Friday's news that U.S. second quarter economic growth slipped to 2.4% produced shared concern across the political spectrum about the sluggish pace of the recovery. But among economists if not politicians, there is also an overwhelming consensus that without the Obama stimulus program, things would have been much, much worse. Now, a new analysis from […]

As Senate Republicans added blocking aid to small business to their record-setting obstructionism, Democrats this week failed to secure the needed votes for reform of the filibuster rule. But largely overlooked in the debate over the filibuster is the Republicans' unprecedented obstructionism when it comes to the confirmation of President Obama's judicial nominees. As it […]

In recent years, Pew Research, Time and others have found that almost half of Americans believe that the Second Coming of Christ and the End Times will occur during their lifetimes. Now, conservatives just need to make up their minds about whether this is a good thing. Because while Left Behind series author Tim Lahaye […]

Everything, they say, is bigger in the Texas. So it is with the failure of the health care system. Leading the nation with a horrifying 25% of its residents uninsured, Texas ranked 46th in the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 scorecard of state health care performance. Nevertheless, that dismal performance was no barrier to Governor Rick Perry […]

In Washington, the partisan war is flaring up again, this time of over taxes. President Obama wants to keep the "Making Work Pay" middle class tax credit while rolling back the expiring Bush tax cuts for households earning over $250,000. Republicans hope to stop him, keeping the Treasury-draining Bush windfall for the wealthy despite the […]