Presidential candidate Donald Trump made a lot of promises on his way to the White House. Most ranged from the outright laughable to the literally impossible. Predictably, very few of Trump's guarantees came to pass. He did not "build a wall" and have Mexico pay for it. President Trump did not provide health "insurance for […]

As the 2020 election season heats up, voters’ priorities are coming into sharper focus. As in years past, there is a great divergence in what each party ranks as its top issues. Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center found that Republicans identify terrorism, the economy, Social Security, immigration, and the military as their five greatest concerns. Democrats prioritize health care, […]

Donald Trump and his Republican allies have two definitions of the term, "golden showers." The first concerns a notorious--and as-yet unsubstantiated--claim from the so-called Russian dossier: Decorum prohibits elaborating further here. The second meaning of the term, however, describes any public policy--usually involving taxes--which overwhelmingly delivers its benefits to the very richest people in America. […]

This year represents the 25th anniversary of one of the great enduring memes of modern American culture and politics. In his thundering speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, former Nixon hatchet man and Adolf Hitler admirer-turned GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan darkly warned of a "cultural war" already underway, one he deemed a "struggle […]

Looking back on it now, the result of the election is even more unfathomable than when media outlets first called the race. Thanks to a strong economy, the two-term Democratic president enjoyed an approval rating well over 50 percent--with good reason. Despite near-total Republican opposition to his health care and stimulus plans and dire GOP […]

"Reagan," Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002, "proved deficits don't matter." Unless, Cheney felt no need to mention, the occupant of the Oval Office is a Democrat. After all, Ronald Reagan had tripled the national debt in 8 short years and George W. Bush had nearly doubled it again by the time he ambled […]

This was a very big week for American billionaires in the news. On Tuesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan marked the occasion of their daughter's birth to announce that "during their lives" they will donate 99 percent of their Facebook shares to charitable purposes. But just one day after we […]