The past week has been very kind to Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Republican Party. That might sound like an odd statement to make after one of the GOP's 2016 highest profile White House hopefuls was indicted for abuse of power back in the Lone Star State. Nevertheless, there are three reasons to believe […]
Category: The States
With tensions still running very high in Ferguson, Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon ordered National Guard units to the area in an effort to restore calm--and confidence--in the community. It would be hard for the Guardsmen to do worse than the local police, whose heavy-handed, confrontational tactics and shocking insensitivity only served to incite conflict. And […]
Once upon a time, Democrats were the party of slavery, states' rights, secession and nullification. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the solid Democratic south sought the "Redemption" of the former Confederate States with the reestablishment of white supremacy through violence and voter suppression. For a hundred years, the architects and enforcers of Jim Crow's […]
To hear the best and the brightest of the conservative movement tell it, Americans' freedom of religion is in dire peril. At Liberty University in April, Texas Senator Ted Cruz cautioned, "Religious liberty has never been more under attack." Ben Sasse, the Nebraska GOP Senate candidate, went even further in declaring that "the free exercise […]
For Republicans, it is the love that dare not speak its name. Tax cuts don't pay for themselves by generating economic growth so explosive that government revenues exceed the levels they would have otherwise reached. Ever since the Laffer Curve was first sketched on a napkin for the likes of Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan, […]
Walmart has had a very bad week. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that at least eight senior executives have left the company since an investigation was launched to probe allegations of massive bribery in Mexico and other foreign markets. Already shaken by previous revelations that low wage workers at the nation's largest employer […]
Mitch McConnell has an Obamacare problem. Make that 410,000 problems. Because that's how many of his constituents obtained health insurance through his state's very popular Kynect exchange. And as he well knows, repealing the Affordable Care Act "root and branch" means virtually all of those Kentuckians will lose the coverage the ACA's Medicaid expansion and […]
Aside from reports of her stalking her ex-husband and ex-boyfriend, most Oregon voters don't yet know much about pediatric neurosurgeon turned 2014 GOP Senate candidate Monica Wehby. But what Doctor Wehby really doesn't want pro-choice Oregonians to know is this: If elected to replace Democrat Jeff Merkley, Monica Wehby will be a reliable Republican vote […]
With less than week to go before the Oregon Republican Senate primary, pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby has a healthy 14 point lead over her GOP opponent, Jason Conger. For Republicans hoping to retake the Senate in November, Dr. Wehby, the subject of a fawning New York Times profile, represents their best chance for a blue […]
For over 30 years, it has been the Republican Party's uber lie. Ever since Jude Wanniski first sketched Arthur Laffer's curve on the back of a napkin, conservatives have claimed that "tax cuts pay for themselves" because the extra economic activity they incentivize will produce tax revenues at least as great as they otherwise would […]