Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, congressional Republicans have made more than 60 attempts to repeal it. After Donald Trump took the oath of office on January 20th, 2017, Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and now-President Trump made it clear that repealing the supposedly “disastrous” law was one of their top priorities.
Read moreAntifa: Consider A Rebranding Campaign
Antifa is in desperate need of a PR makeover.
Read moreAmerican Carnage
In terms of suffering and loss, the United States drug crisis is the human meat grinder of our generation as the Vietnam War was to our parents. Apart from being wildly profitable, the major difference is the former will kill more of us in just this year than the latter did for its entire duration.
Read moreThe Great Silent Majority’s Vengeful Presidents
Among the many pejorative monikers given Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign, "Grandma Nixon" gained wide bipartisan traction. It was a perfect comparison in the narrative of Mrs. Clinton as her detractors understood her: an intensely private political pragmatist, a creature of the establishment willing to resort to any scheme (including the destruction of evidence) to achieve her ends, known to hold a bitter grudge. Classic Nixon, and a popular assessment of Mrs. Clinton's decades in public life.
Read moreIvanka Trump is Commodifying the Women’s Empowerment Movement
Ivanka Trump’s latest book, “Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success,” set to be released next week, is the First Daughter’s latest business endeavor that is a direct result of her brand profiting from her father’s presidency. The book touts feminist-sounding ideals for all working women, such as “learn how to cook and how to code.” However, such advice tends to fall flat when it comes from the daughter of a man whose documented treatment and comments about women are habitually sexist, misogynistic, crude and demeaning.
Read moreSouth Sudan: The Forgotten Nation
While much of our foreign affairs reporting in the U.S. is dedicated to the years-long civil war plaguing Syria, news coverage of another civil war continues to go unnoticed or nonexistent. In South Sudan, what began as a power struggle between the nascent country’s political leaders has now transformed into a larger conflict between ethnic groups, which has led to widespread ethnic cleansing, thousands of deaths, starvation, gang rape and the displacement of millions.
Read moreWhat’s Happening?
A few weeks back, I wrote a piece on the lack of ideas and a unifying ideology in Republicans in Congress. In it, I implied a strong dislike for our new President-elect, Donald Trump. I know I am not alone in feeling this way, but I can’t help but feel as if I were in the minority, and I have to ask myself: why? And, more importantly, what’s happening to us Republicans?
Read moreFeminazi, Don’t Kill My Vibe
When I discovered an opinion piece floating around my Facebook feed on marriage and the “alpha female,” I had no idea what hot garbage I was about to unearth. The column was titled, “Society is creating a new crop of alpha women who are unable to love,” and was sourced by none other than Fox News. I should have stopped there, but I was more or less intrigued.
Read moreWhen the Tide Ebbs
After riding the Tea Party wave into almost a decade of control over the House of Representatives, the Senate since 2015, and 33 state governorships (with 32 state legislatures, including a number since 2010, allow them the power to redistrict after the most recent census), Republicans are starting to feel the pain that their Democratic counterpoints felt during the summer of 2009. Fueled by a shocking loss in November, Democrats have taken advantage of the Presidents’ Day recess to make their voices heard.
Read moreRivers, Rules, Acronyms
In all likelihood, there is going to be more coal ash in American rivers. This is not a good thing, though there is no mandate that it need provoke outrage.T he story of why there will be more ash is just boring enough that you can be guaranteed it is a textbook example of how government really works.
Read moreThe United States Departure of Education
On February 7, 2017, while much of the country was focused on the final roll call vote for our newly confirmed Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, Rep. Thomas Massie (elected from Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District) introduced H.R. 899 in the House of Representatives.
Read moreThe Republicans’ Irresponsible Lack of Ideas
Now that Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House have taken their respective vows of office, the job of governing, looming ever on the horizon during the Obama years, now bears upon the party with the full weight of the world’s most powerful and influential government. Yet the task before them seems to have shocked them – perhaps the most memorable part of their majority since 2010 was their insistence that the Affordable Care Act be repealed.
Read moreMedia Polling Bias
The job of the media is to report facts in order to hold those in power accountable for their actions and tell the public what is actually going on. It is the job of the media to make sure that we have an informed public for when it comes time to vote during elections. It is time that we start holding the media accountable for their actions as well. If we allow them to skew public perception on something like approval ratings, what else are they going to try to skew in the future?
Read moreFeminists Against Abortion
The very sign I proudly, albeit poorly, hand painted and waved around for eight hours at the Women’s March was a direct reference toward the increasingly restrictive abortion legislation permeating through Congress. Despite the fact that I struggle to understand how a woman can simultaneously say she is pro-life and a feminist, I believe it was wrong of the Women’s March to un-invite the New Wave Feminists from marching alongside us.
Read moreWe All Go Together When We Go
The quest to continue life on Earth, beyond ourselves, requires some assumptions. One is that people who will eventually exist deserve our ethical consideration. Another is that we can, with some level accuracy, predict the future and so shape it. There is no entirely satisfying defense for either of those two assertions, except, maybe, that ignoring the future is a very poor way of going about life and a foolish way of going about governance.
Read moreWhat are we even doing here?
Accepting Betsy DeVos as our Secretary of Education requires some pretty complex reasoning. I admit, I can't follow it myself. It's been three weeks since the last time we saw Mrs. DeVos attempt to answer questions of which she had little to no respectable response. Yet here we are. Senator Al Franken said it best this morning:
"What are we even doing here?"
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