The Southern Poverty Law Center’s spring 2013 Intelligence Report tracks the growth of conspiracy-minded “Patriot” groups, which has reached an all time high of 1,360–fueled by the election of the country’s first black president, and what the extreme right sees as a statist threat to its freedom, in particular freedom to own a gun. The […]

Read more

This summer in a federal courtroom in Texas, attorneys for a Tennessee corporation with $9 billion in market capitalization will try to convince a federal judge to suppress the findings of a small, private lab in Austin. The lab, founded by a professor from the University of Texas, determined that resins produced by Eastman Chemical […]

Read more

There has been a renewed focus on filibuster reform in the Senate—a welcomed development if it actually leads to more change than the compromise reached in January that preserved the onerous 60-vote supermajority. Since President Barack Obama took office, Senate Republicans have intentionally achieved an unprecedented level of legislative dysfunction, mostly because of their shameless […]

Read more

High-tech innovation isn’t the only thing Apple excels at. Tax avoidance is another specialty. That came to the fore during Senate hearings last week. Apple’s finance wizards succeeded in sheltering over $100 billion overseas, not subject to any tax authority. “Ocean money,” they call it. But Apple’s ocean money is just the beginning. There’s plenty […]

Read more

Virginia is a true political microcosm of the country. It displays stark divisions between north and south, and the demographic shifts, primarily in the northern part of the commonwealth, are reshaping the political landscape in ways favorable to Democrats. The Senate is closely divided, while Republicans have a strong majority in the House, and the […]

Read more