While Republican politicians, conservative commentators and the right-wing blogosphere continued their jihad against the private school scholarship of 12 year old S-CHIP beneficiary Graeme Frost, the Supreme Court Wednesday quietly handed the son of multimillionaire former Viacom CEO Tom Freston private school tuition courtesy of New York taxpayers. Frost, as you'll recall, is the Maryland […]

If there is any area of public policy where George W. Bush has been consistently "dead certain," it is almost certainly in the application of the death penalty. As Texas Governor and later as President, Bush showed himself to be an equal opportunity executioner, content to condemn the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, racist thugs […]

John Roberts' tumble today at his Maine vacation home might be the perfect metaphor for his tenure as Chief Justice. (Of course, I join all Americans in wishing Chief Justice Roberts a speedy recovery.) Advertised by even some of his detractors as a first-rate intellect with an ideal judicial temperament, Roberts' unsettling term is bringing […]

On Thursday morning, July 19th, the beloved GOP talking point "up or down vote" was officially declared dead. Its demise was little noticed in the aftermath of the Senate Republicans' successful all-night filibuster to block the Reed-Levin bill seeking to begin U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. "Up or down vote" was killed by a desperate […]

In a Washington court room today, Americans learned that the growing conservative campaign of judicial intimidation reached the Scooter Libby case. Judge Reggie Walton, recently appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to the FISA Court and who last week sentenced former Cheney aide Libby to 30 months in prison, announced that he had received threatening […]

On its face, today's Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart is a victory for abortion foes seeking to ban one rarely used but seemingly horrific procedure. But in the bigger picture, the Court's validation of the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act is a landscape-changing triumph for conservatives' slippery slope campaign to chip away at […]

In a calamitous setback for the reproductive rights of American women, the Supreme Court upheld the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act. In its 5-4 ruling, the Court handed Republican conservatives a major victory in their "slippery slope" campaign against choice. Sadly, the history shows that many Congressional Democrats were complicit in today's disastrous outcome. As […]

Among the revelations contained in the latest DOJ document dump is the central role of the Federalist Society in entrenching the permanent Republican majority among the ranks of the U.S. attorneys. As FireDogLake, ThinkProgress and others have reported, membership in the Federalist Society was crucial to a favorable ranking by the Gonzales team entrusted with […]

"Diversity" is one word that is rarely associated with the conservative movement in general and the Republican Party in particular. From immigration and affirmative action to redistricting and minority voting rights, the lily-white GOP and its amen corner advocate a monotone, melanin-free vision for America. But when it comes to efforts by Republicans Alberto Gonzales […]

In Washington today, President Bush signed a bill extending by 25 years the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In so doing, Bush once again succeeded in having it both ways. While publicly proclaiming his support for the Voting Rights in public, the Bush Justice Department has blocked its enforcement at every turn. The President's rhetoric, […]