The odds of a contested Republican convention rose sharply this week. The strong showing by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the Wisconsin primary made frontrunner Donald Trump's task of securing a 1,237 delegate majority a much steeper climb. The prospect of an all-out, multi-ballot floor fight elevating Cruz, Ohio Governor John Kasich or some Republican […]

Within the next six months, the United States Supreme Court may well overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling which recognized a woman's right to choose an abortion. In Whole Woman's Health v. Cole, the Court will decide whether the state of Texas has placed an "undue burden" on women's access to abortion services by […]

Of all of the Republicans' manufactured controversies during the Obama presidency, one less-remembered episode may be the most telling of all. Unable to prevent three-fifths of the Senate from voting to confirm Elena Kagan as the newest Supreme Court Justice, Republican in May 2010 denounced Obama's nominee for declaring that the Founding Fathers' three-fifths of […]

The top-grossing movie in America this past weekend was Straight Outta Compton, the story of the rise of the hip-hop legends N.W.A. With its $57 million opening box office take, morning show appearances and (supposed) fans like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the film's success illustrates the mainstream acceptance of rap culture once viewed by some […]

In the course of American and world history, slavery and the Holocaust are sui generis cataclysms. Any comparisons--especially casual ones--to the Nazi genocide of European Jewry and the bondage and oppression of African-Americans necessarily diminish these unique and unparalleled horrors. To seriously equate the ordinary to the almost unimaginable is a special kind of blasphemy […]

In the wake of the Charleston massacre, Americans are debating when, where and whether states, businesses and individuals should display the Confederate flag. But as a recent CNN/ORC poll suggests, the debate we are having is the wrong one. Even after neo-confederate terrorist Dylann Roof slaughtered 9 in the cradle of secession, 57 percent of […]

As the Confederate flag is coming down, calls for states to nullify federal laws are going up. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton advised county clerks, magistrates and justices of the peace they may opt-out of performing same-sex marriages the United States Supreme Court legalized nationwide on Friday. As it turns out, Paxton isn't just […]

From its inception, America's history has often been the product of the changing balance between compelling but conflicting national ideals. The federal versus the state, "rugged individualism" versus collective action for the public good, the separation of church and state, and isolationism versus crusading globalism are just some of the pendulum swings that have defined--and […]

If nothing else, the Republican Party is an irony producing machine. In the very week that some GOP leaders reversed course on displaying the Confederate battle flag in the wake of the Charleston slaughter, the party's best and brightest protested that the Supreme Court's decision in the King v. Burwell was its "worst since Dred […]