Perrspectives - Bringing light to Darkness

Category: The States

May 1, 2018
America in Black and White in Alabama

In an age of "both sides do it" and "teach the debate," some issues are simply black and white. So it was this week in Alabama, where truth and myth, hate and hagiography collided in two stories of the ongoing legacy of the Civil War and white supremacy. On Monday, the "Heart of Dixie" celebrated […]

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April 23, 2018
Abortion, Free Speech, and the Right to Lie

In a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver led a 20-minute deep dive into the world of "crisis pregnancy centers" (CPCs). With more than 3,500 such locations around the nation (more than double the number of facilities providing abortion services in the United States), CPCs exist to dissuade women from choosing to […]

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March 1, 2018
"No One's Ever Asked to See My Birth Certificate": The Mitt Romney Story

So, 13 months after Donald Trump took the oath of office, it's come to this for the Republican Party. Its putative leader used to be pro-choice. He routinely boasted about getting "everybody" insured, only to then promise to "kill" Obamacare. He not only reversed past positions at a rapid-fire rate, he lied to voters at […]

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January 23, 2018
"Equal Sovereignty" of the States in the Age of Trump

Less than a week into the new year, the Trump administration kicked off 2018 with one of the most cynical and craven acts of political favoritism in recent American history. On January 4, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke unveiled the Draft Five Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. That massive gift to Donald […]

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November 3, 2017
GOP Tax Plan Delivers Double Dose of Pain to Blue States

Thursday's release of the House GOP tax plan will be greeted with a flurry of "hot takes" about its "winners and losers." So, for everyone's sake, let's keep this simple. Unsurprisingly, the biggest winners from what the President called a "big, beautiful Christmas present" are people named Trump and those like them. Just as predictable, […]

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September 25, 2017
The GOP's Graham-Cassidy Health Care Bill is a Killer Scam

Next week, Congressional Republicans will vote on the Graham-Cassidy bill supposedly designed to "repeal and replace" Obamacare. Shockingly, they will do so without a score from Capitol Hill's nonpartisan scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). As the office led by the GOP's hand-picked director Keith Hall warned last Monday, "CBO will not be able to […]

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September 21, 2017
State Block Grants: The GOP's Worst Health Care Idea of Them All

Even as the U.S. Census reported that the percentage of Americans lacking health insurance dropped to a new record low of 8.8 percent, the past week was nevertheless a big one for health care reform proposals in Washington. Sen. Bernie Sanders, backed by 15 of his Democratic colleagues, unveiled his "Medicare for All" bill providing […]

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September 7, 2017
Trump, GOP Demand Blue State Payback

In recent years, "red state socialism" has become the hallmark of American federalism. That is, even as supposed GOP budget hawks loudly (and wrongly) decry "out of control" spending by Uncle Sam, less well-off Republican-controlled states generally benefit from a one-way flow of federal tax dollars made possible by wealthier blue states usually dominated by […]

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August 16, 2017
The Confederate Statues Speak for Themselves

Defending the indefensible on Tuesday, President Donald Trump traveled back in time to deploy the "both sides do it" talking point to explain the Civil War. Providing air cover for white supremacists, Trump declared "you had some very fine people on both sides," apparently including "many of those people were there to protest the taking […]

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August 15, 2017
"Freedmen" Is An Alternative to HBO's Alternative History, "Confederate"

What if the South had won the Civil War? Hardly a new question, and it's doubtless one of the most common counterfactual thought exercises in American history. It's also already been recently asked--though not answered seriously--in the 2004 mockumentary, CSA: The Confederate States of America. Nevertheless, HBO is turning to some of the folks who […]

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About

Jon Perr
Jon Perr is a technology marketing consultant and product strategist who writes about American politics and public policy.

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