Few matters capture the pathology of the Roberts Court more completely than the two Abbott v. Perez cases, a pair of identically named racial gerrymandering cases that the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday.
The Perez cases are about partisan gamesmanship. In 2013, the state of Texas admitted in a brief filed in a federal court that their “redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democr...
politics
Trump administration health announcement is latest blow to transgender Americans
The Trump administration’s campaign to make life more difficult for transgender Americans entered a new phase this weekend. On Saturday, according to the New York Times, the administration announced that it would gut an anti-discrimination statute when it comes to health care access for transgender patients.
The rule, passed under the Obama administration in 2016, had prevented health care providers receiving federal financial assistance — including those receiving Medic...
Ahead of Arizona vote, Republican Debbie Lesko holds a clinic in tamping down expectations
Debbie Lesko put on a masterclass in expectations setting early Saturday.
Lesko, a Republican, is locked in an increasingly tight race with Democrat Hiral Tipirneni to replace former Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who resigned from the House last year after news that he asked a staffer to be his surrogate became public.
On paper, Lesko has little reason to be nervous. Less than a year and a half ago, Trump won this Arizona district by 21 points, and in most polls in the weeks lead...
Tennessee governor to sign Medicaid work requirement funded by welfare dollars
A philosophical change to the country’s largest public health insurance program is underway, as states one-by-one try to implement Medicaid work requirements. Tennessee is the latest state to try to make work conditional of Medicaid eligibility. At least 22,300 are expected to drop health insurance, according to the state’s own estimate.
On Thursday, the state Senate sent Gov. Bill Haslam (R) a bill that directs Tennessee to submit a federal waiver to impose work require...
Kucinich was paid to speak alongside genocide deniers and pro-Assad lobbyists
Last April, shortly after the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against civilians, a group of analysts and pundits gathered in London to discuss the situation in Syria. The speakers included those lobbying for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Syrian ministers, and, in at least one case, a notorious genocide denier. It was, as opponents of the Assad regime described, little more than a “propaganda exercise” to whitewash the Syrian government.
It also featured one American: Dennis Kuc...
The Trump administration is paying Focus on the Family to stop the AIDS epidemic in South Africa
The State Department gave a prominent anti-LGBTQ religious organization a grant to combat HIV/AIDS in South Africa through a religious program that pressures kids into pledging that they will abstain from sex until marriage.
An affiliate of Focus on the Family (FOTF) received a $49,505 grant under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from the State Department’s Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator on September 18, 2017, while the department was un...
Larry Kudlow says the CBO is always wrong, but he regularly cited their numbers
Weeks into his tenure as Donald Trump’s director of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, former CNBC host Larry Kudlow dismissed estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that the tax cuts and spending bills Trump signed will swell the budget deficit. In a Fox News interview on Tuesday, he claimed that the office’s analyses are “always wrong.”
“Never believe the CBO,” Kudlow told Fox & Friends. “Very important....
A red state just added Medicaid expansion to the November ballot
Utah residents are going to vote on Medicaid expansion in November, after organizers got enough signatures to put the item on the ballot.
The advocacy group, Utah Decides Healthcare, submitted more than 165,000 signatures on Monday to put a “clean” Medicaid expansion on the November ballot — about 50,000 more signatures than required. The news came less than a month after Gov. Gary Herbert (R) approved legislation requesting federal approval for a conservative Medi...
This pro-choice, pro-immigrant Mennonite could be Lancaster’s next member of Congress
LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA — Those outside of Pennsylvania’s Amish country may be surprised to hear of Lancastrians gathering to protest the Muslim ban, or standing in solidarity with Charlottesville, or demanding that their congressman hold a town hall on health care, or calling for a Dream Act. But that open-arms, open-door spirit is embedded into the state’s and county’s history.
Jess King knows that spirit well. The Pennsylvania native, who was born and rais...
We’re saying goodbye to Paul Ryan, but not his horrible health policies
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is on his way out the door.
But while he’s largely failed to implement his vision before retirement — that is, to repeal Obamacare and privatize every safety-net program there is — Republicans aren’t going to stop trying to do so anytime soon. In fact, they’ll likely take cues from his record.
Throughout his time in Washington, Ryan built a career on portraying himself as a deficit hawk, somehow convincing people he...