Back in 1991, Democrat Edwin Edwards defeated former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard turned Republican gubernatorial candidate David Duke for governor of Louisiana. Edwards famously joked that "the only similarity between me and Duke is that we're both wizards under the sheets." Two decades later, the sheets and hoods may be optional, but for many […]

Every July 4th, Americans gather at picnics, watch parades and shoot off fireworks to celebrate the birth of the United States. But some years are more notable than others. In 1826, Founding Fathers and former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson marked the nation's 50th anniversary by dying on that same Fourth of July. In […]

Memo to the good people of Tulsa, Oklahoma: If you hope to have any chance of becoming the smallest city ever to host the summer Olympics, don't start your campaign by insulting the rest of the country. Sadly, that's precisely what the committee organizing Tulsa's incredibly long-shot bid to capture the 2024 summer games has […]

God, it is often said, works in mysterious ways. Just ask Mike Huckabee. After all, the Baptist minister turned Arkansas governor turned Fox News host responded to the Supreme Court's marriage equality decisions this week by lamenting, "Jesus wept." But back in 2008, Huckabee had a different reaction to the passage of Proposition 8 that […]

Few issues incite Republican fury like medical malpractice. For conservative ideologues, malpractice lawsuits are a double affront which interferes with the righteous operation of the free market while lining the pockets of trial lawyers who help fund the Democratic Party. That's why, despite the near-total debunking of GOP mythology that frivolous lawsuits and "jackpot justice" […]

Since the overwhelming Republican triumph in the 2010 elections, conservative majorities in states across the nation have implemented draconian new abortion restrictions at a dizzying pace that shows no signs of letting up. So-called "human life" amendments, punitive clinic regulations, "personhood" initiatives, fetal heartbeat bills, mandatory, invasive ultrasound procedures and outrights abortion bans are typical […]

Four years ago, some conservatives created an uproar when pro-choice President Barack Obama was invited to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame University. (That protest was more than a little hypocritical, given the school's tradition of featuring pro-choice speakers including Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.) Now, Boston Cardinal Sean […]

As Pope Francis starts his papacy, polls show that American Catholics overwhelmingly believe the issue of clergy sex abuse must be his number one priority. As a Pew Research survey two weeks ago showed, while that crisis tops the list for 34 percent, neither abortion (3 percent) or contraception (2 percent) or any other issue […]

"The doctor-patient relationship." For two decades, Republicans have wielded that four-word talking point as a cudgel to bludgeon health care reform. In 1994, GOP strategist Bill Kristol warned that "the Clinton Plan is damaging to the quality of American medicine and to the relationship between the patient and the doctor." (Future "death panels" fabulist Betsy […]

President Obama's gun control proposals have predictably--and disturbingly--spawned protests with names like "Gun Appreciation Day" and the February 23rd "Day of Resistance." But with their bills calling for the nullification of new national gun laws and the imprisonment of federal officials enforcing them, some supposed defenders of the Second Amendment have apparently confused the Confederate […]