Voters across the nation dealt a major defeat to the radical anti-government movement. In state after state, the people rejected the starvation tax policies of the Norquistas and reaffirmed their shared commitment to investment in essential public services. Looking ahead to 2006, this augurs well for good government Democrats and represents a stern warning to […]

Now should not be the time, as Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly has noted, for the politics of blame. In the wake of Katrina's devastation along the Gulf Coast, Americans should be united in providing relief, resources and support to all in need. But sadly, that massive relief effort will take place during a […]

When South Carolina makes the headlines, it's rarely good news for the United States or the American people. In 1828, South Carolina was the hotbed of the Nullification movement. In 1860, South Carolina's secession led the way to the Confederacy and in April the following year, fired the shots at Fort Sumter that started the […]

In Mississippi, where Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was convicted today of manslaughter in the 1964 civil rights murders, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal asks its readers a simple question: Do you think the Edgar Ray Killen trial and guilty verdict will mend the old wounds of the 1964 slayings? The simple answer? No. […]

Across the nation this week, the Republican Party and its amen corner unleashed a tidal wave of dangerously irresponsible interventions into the most personal and intimate aspects of Americans' private lives. Whether they will pay a political price for their increasingly extreme - and unpopular - positions remains to be seen. Let's begin in Madison, […]

There's an old saying that justice delayed in justice denied. Well, we're about to find out in Mississippi. Finally, 41 years after the fact, reputed Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen will be tried for the infamous killings in Philadelphia, Mississippi of three Chicago civil rights workers. The three, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael […]

This weekend, the disgusting spectacle of the Confederate flag reared its ugly head once again, this time in Missouri. Republican Governor Matt Blunt ordered the flag to be flown for a day during a memorial service attended at the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville. The 400 people in attendance didn't just lay roses […]

Only days after the Senate reached a tenuous compromise to preserve the judicial filibuster, it appears the first Supreme Court vacancy of the Bush era may be imminent. AP reports that Chief Justice Rehnquist is preparing to step down and that the White House is already preparing to nominate his successor. There is an emerging […]

This week the entire Oregon House Democratic membership rolled out its own group blog. In what looks like a first among the 50 states, the Oregon House Dems have jumped into the blogosphere, both raising their own visibility and Oregon residents' access to them. The Oregon House Dems deserve credit not only for adopting new […]

AP has reported that the Senate 12 have brokered an 11th hour deal to avert a showdown over the nuclear option. The deal announced by Senator John McCain preserves the Democrats right to filibuster, but gives Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor a vote on the Senate floor. If the early blogosphere feedback […]