Just days after Bristol Palin officially became the poster child for her mother's failed abstinence-only sex education policy, a new report from the CDC revealed that in 2006 Alaska experienced the nation's fastest growing teen birth rate. While Mississippi suddenly surpassed Texas to earn the dubious leadership distinction, it comes as no surprise that the […]

Beaten and battered, the Republican Party long ago was reduced to an irony-producing machine. But for sheer productivity, Monday's hypocrisy generation by leading lights of the conservative movement was impressive. In the span of 24 hours, would-be RNC chairman and distributor of "Barack the Magic Negro" Chip Saltsman announced his party needed to improve its […]

While the controversy over would-be RNC chairman Chip Saltsman's distribution of a CD featuring a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" continues, the transformation of the GOP into a Southern rump party appears to be virtually complete. After four decades in which race-baiting became a central Republican electoral strategy, Saltsman's gambit is finding both quiet […]

What do Americans who took virginity pledges have in common with those who voted for George W. Bush for President? For one, many people in both groups later denied they did any such thing. And to be sure, they got screwed just the same. Those are just two of the findings from a new study […]

Across the blogosphere, liberals in general and gay activists in particular are livid with Barack Obama's choice of evangelical profit merchant and notorious homophobe Pastor Rick Warren to offer the invocation at his swearing-in on January 20. But those like AmericaBlog's John Aravosis who proclaimed the selection of Warren as "uncharacteristic of Obama" miss the […]

In the last throes of his failed presidency, George W. Bush has been nothing if not consistent with his flurry of midnight regulations. Whether the topic is mining on public lands, mountain-top removal, endangered species, clean water or power plant emissions, Bush will try to saddle Barack Obama with last-minute rule changes invariably favoring business […]

Within days of Barack Obama's victory, new polling showed that Mike Huckabee is the early leader among the Republican faithful for the GOP's nomination in 2012. No doubt, Huckabee's strong showing is due in part to his high-profile defense of California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. At the very time that […]

In one of the most condescending and baseless Supreme Court opinions in recent memory, Justice Anthony Kennedy in April 2007 upheld a federal late term abortion ban on the grounds that "some women come to regret their choice." Now 18 months later, an exhaustive study of 20 years of research concluded that there is no […]

In this the season of their discontent, Republican leaders are pointing the finger of blame, all the while positioning themselves to take over their battered and bruised party in 2012. So it is with Mike Huckabee. In his new book, the former Arkansas Governor, Baptist minister and Fox News host skewers presidential rival Mitt Romney […]

Overlooked perhaps in the historic vote that made Barack Obama the nation's first African-American president is something that didn't happen. With the defeat of the McCain/Palin ticket and its extremist anti-abortion platform, Americans voted against an abrogation of women's reproductive rights that might have taken a generation to undo. And by rejecting draconian ballot measures […]