In a surprise to many, South Carolina narrowly topped Oklahoma in the first BCS standings released this week. Not, that is, in college football's Bowl Championship Series, but in the Battle of Crazy States. Oklahoma dropped to the #2 spot after a late South Carolina rally led by two Palmetto State GOP county chairmen who […]

Just in time for the debate over the merits of a state-by-state "opt out" of a national public health insurance option, the Commonwealth Fund has released its 2009 state health care scorecard. As in 2007, the data reveals the critical condition of red state health care. All of which could present Republican governors and legislatures […]

As previously detailed here, the state of Oklahoma has become the poster child for the often comic and always tragic contradictions of the Republican war on health care reform. A 2007 study by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Oklahoma dead last in state health care performance. Yet in 2008, the Sooner State remained among the most […]

Recently, I put forth the "Iron Law of Birtherism," which simply notes that the Obama citizenship denial movement is strongest in precisely those states where Republicans poll best and health care is worst. Now, a new study again confirms red state birtherism is literal, revealing that the most faithfully religious - and Republican - states […]

The once lopsided Virginia gubernatorial race has suddenly gotten a lot more interesting with the revelations surrounding Republican front-runner Robert McDonnell's reactionary 1989 master's thesis. As it turns out, it's not just Democrats clamoring that McDonnell "can't shrug it off as misguided youth"; many of his long-time Republican allies claim the 34 year author of […]

Beginning in early July, Capitol Hill Republicans introduced a new talking point, proclaiming the $787 billion economy recovery package (ARRA) a "dismal failure." Sadly for the GOP, as Stephen Colbert might say, reality is showing its well-known liberal bias. After steep declines of 5.4% and 6.4% in the previous two quarters, gross domestic product fell […]

In a jaw-dropping DaliyKos/Research 2000 poll released today, a stunning 58% of Republicans did not believe (28%) or were unsure (30%) that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the United States. To be sure, this is a Southern pathology, a region home to 69% of all birthers and the only part of the […]

In her fiery parting shot in Fairbanks Sunday, now-ex Governor Sarah Palin resorted to all of her now trademark rhetorical tactics. Bashing the media while using the U.S. military as human shields, she told the television cameras, "How about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin' things up?" She warned listeners of "enslavement […]

Like the proverbial broken clock, even Charles Krauthammer gets it right occasionally, if not twice a day. On Thursday, Krauthammer dismissed Governor Sarah Palin 24 hours before her surprise resignation as "not a serious candidate for the presidency." That conclusion followed his recent broadside against South Carolina's Mark Sanford for "dereliction of duty" in going […]

In a highly anticipated ruling today, the United States Supreme Court preserved - for now - the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While its 8-1 decision enabled municipal governments to opt out of Section 5 federal "pre-clearance" requirements for 16 mostly Southern states, the majority opinion avoided the larger constitutional issue. Which means that the […]