Tag: dave weigel

The "struggle for control of the Republican party," a long-running favorite politics media narrative, was the winner of yesterday's Republican U.S. Senate primary race in Mississippi.

In the last two years, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has made voter fraud prevention a top priority. His efforts have included working to stop county clerks from sending absentee ballots to inactive voters, lobbying for a controversial voter ID law and leading an unprecedented effort to determine whether non-citizens are voting in the state.

Income tax cuts for the wealthy will liberate the U.S. economy to create jobs and generate revenue and shrink the deficit. That line has become a policy standard on the right and a talking point repeated on stumps all across the nation. It is a cornerstone of the GOP Ryan Budget plan being pushed on Capitol Hill. Yet analysis and statistics and personal anecdotes pile high and deep against that tack as an effective real-world national economic policy. GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who led the state down a path toward deficit swampland, is the latest to try to rework history to suit the tax-cut narrative. As Dave Weigel at Slate points out, Pawlenty's recent big economic speech twists and turns and makes a dead stop at the Bush years, when "tax cuts for the wealthy" national budget policy went into full effect and revenues plummeted and the deficit skyrocketed and the economy withered.

The Wisconsin supreme court election held yesterday is still too close to call. At 9 a.m. this morning Colorado time, conservative Justice David Prosser reportedly led liberal opponent Joanne Kloppenburg by 800 or so votes. An hour later, AP has Kloppenburg ahead of Prosser by 200 votes. (10:30 a.m. update: With 84 percent counted Kloppenburg leads by 35,000 votes). Whether Prosser wins or loses, Wisconsin voters have sent a clear message rejecting Governor Scott Walker's uncompromising pugilist political style if not his anti-union agenda.

Hollywood-comedy-writer-turned-news-satirist Andy Borowitz takes aim today at the alternative reality created at Fox News. "Afraid to Watch the News, Millions Turn to Fox... Channel Offers Welcome Break from Reality, Psychologists Say." Borowitz's jab comes with extra sting in light of Public Policy Polling's recent survey of Republican voters. According to the March 15 poll, 25 percent of Republicans -- i.e., 80 percent of Fox watchers-- believe that the no-longer-existing low-income housing and voter registration group ACORN will steal the 2012 presidential election for Barack Obama.

Attack a candidate popular with the Tea Party and you play into the strength of the movement, which is emotionalism based on a sense...

Dave Weigel-- Slate blogger, original Tea Party analyst, champion tweeter, former Journolist contributor and onetime American Independent News Network colleague-- landed in Colorado...

This American Life, the National Public Radio show that documents contemporary U.S. realities through personal stories, gave us an episode on whiners Friday. Slate...

Reporter Dave Weigel, who has covered the conservative political movement for years, resigned from the Washington Post last week after a writer at Tucker...

Former governor now chief Twitter politician Sarah Palin is winning over fewer and fewer fans, new polling suggests. Yet last week she gave a...