Republican celebrations over a D.C. Appeals court ruling that would deny tax credits who people who bought their insurance through the federal health care exchange hit a new pitch on Thursday. A “smoking gun” video seemed to reveal Romneycare/Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber suggesting that that Democrats meant to deny those credits to residents of states who refused to build exchanges. […]

There is no voter outreach strategy in politics more effective than a volunteer showing up and knocking on a door. It’s the kind of outreach money literally can’t buy. Thus: When progressives get out the vote, Democrats win. It’s a simple formula and no one I’ve ever met lives it better than Chris Savage. When this man isn’t waking up […]

Workers are just pawns in the GOP’s sabotage game In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that federal tax credits cannot by awarded to anyone who purchased health insurance from the marketplace the federal government set up in 36 states. (And just a few hours later, the Fourth Circuit Court ruled in “precisely […]

From Watergate to watering down wages: How Reagan sold America on conservatism NOTE: The contest has now ended. Misunderestimating conservatives can be hazardous to your middle class. In 1973, Ronald Reagan’s glib optimism and refusal to acknowledge the rank criminality of the Watergate scandal made it easy for liberals to dismiss his appeal. Less than eight years later, he was […]

Earlier this month, the Democratic Governors Association debuted this ad targeting Rick Snyder record, weaponizing the governor’s favorite adjective for his nerdiness: The basic message is Snyder is only tough on the middle class. And with a record that punished workers, retirees and families with none of the promised renewal for the state, it’s a message that rings true. Since […]

Republicans will keep trafficking in their “zombie lies” about Obamacare. But all the evidence shows that even they don’t believe them anymore. To pretend the Affordable Care Act isn’t working now requires rapid revisions of what constitutes failure along with hopes that premiums will rise dramatically this year.  There’s no evidence that rates will go up more than they have […]

Terry Lynn Land is the richest Republican candidate for Senate this year — and she may have paid the least in taxes. In 2013, Land paid a 2.7 percent tax rate. This has freed her up to dump over a million dollars into a failing campaign, which critics are kindly calling “disappointing.” It’s a perfect example of the system being […]

  The Republican Party’s first convention took place “under the oaks” in Jackson, Michigan on July 6th, 1854. A crowd of three thousand felt-hatted Free Soilers, top-hatted ex-Whigs and hatless abolitionists* gathered in the summer’s wet heat for a day to organize in protest of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had shattered the fantasy that America could survive a half-slave and […]

More jobs were created so far this year than in George W. Bush’s eight There’s no doubt that our recovery has been purposely stifled by the party that bequeathed us the financial crisis. But we just had the best jobs report of the recovery. The only attack Republicans could put together to sour this good news was to ignore it […]

During the 2012 GOP primary, wobbly Mitt Romney adopted a policy “self-deportation” to get to the right of Rick Perry. A few months later, he endorsed a bill that would have allowed bosses to deny birth control coverage to their employees as he tried to convince America that his one great accomplishment as governor would destroy the nation if every […]

All signs point to the Supreme Court issuing two decisions that will rapidly transform American society as we know it this week. The majority is likely to grant corporations the right to deny birth control coverage based on their own — completely unscientific — determination that a pill causes an abortion. This decision comes right after a new report shows […]