Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell threatened a "scorched-earth" response if Democrats vote to eliminate the filibuster, a rule that forces the majority to gather 60 votes to end debate and move to an up or down vote on legislation. The Hill: [McConnell] “Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin, to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like.” McConnell has made it clear many ti

So far, President Joe Biden and his administration have been remarkably steadfast, staying focused on the Covid-relief package and getting Americans vaccinated. They have refused to be sucked into the never-ending culture wars that seem to have replaced public policy debates on the right. While Fox News and right-wing talk radio drones on about Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss, Biden has remained dedicated to the things that matter to Americans, life and death concerns for the a

Virginia is poised to be the 23rd state to ban capital punishment, but the first in the South. It's quite a change of heart for the state that holds the national record for most executions - 1,389. The death penalty used to be quite popular in Virginia, but, public opinion has been slowly changing on the issue. The use of DNA evidence to review convictions demonstrated that prosecutors and juries are way more fallible than we imagined, and decades of research showed that capi

Donald Trump is not very complicated. He is a narcissistic con man with no moral or ethical core and he proved it again this week by stoking insurrection at the Capital with his election fraud fantasies. He has been remarkably successful at getting his followers to believe all sorts of insane theories, but convincing a mob to attack the Capital to "Stop the Steal" puts him in the "Svengali" Hall of Fame, in the exalted company of Jim Jones and history's other infamous puppet

Who could have believed that our great nation and its Constitution could be so easily defiled by a lying, incompetent, lout with a badly applied spray-on tan. In four short years Donald Trump has gutted our country's most sacred institutions, failed every test of leadership, and reduced our stature internationally to that of a poorly governed banana republic. And now, after being rejected by the majority of Americans, he wants to burn the nation down on his way out the door.

There is quite a bit of research now concerning Americans who identify as "Christian Nationalists," generally those that believe that the United States is a white Christian nation that should be governed under a "reactionary" [think old testament] understanding of Christian values. They argue that Christianity and "American exceptionalism" are under attack from those that support LGBT rights, abortion, immigration, the secularization of our laws, and their rather ill-defined