California Democrat Henry Waxman (the former subcommittee chair) complained that “Planned Parenthood is being singled out as part of a Republican vendetta against an organization that provides family planning and other medical services to low-income women and men.” In a letter also signed by Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette, Waxman reminded Stearns that the Health and […]

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From here on out, the Republican primary is a contest between insurgent, extremist Tea Party/Evangelicals and what remains of the party’s pragmatic corporatists. This division was evident in June, when Ralph Reed invited Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to Washington to speak to the Faith & Freedom Coalition convention. In fact, the only “news” to report […]

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Bob Perry, as we and other news outlets reported, had contributed $11.5 million to the RGA, much of which was earmarked to be passed through to Rick Perry. After we went to press with our previous issue, a Bob Perry spokesperson told the Houston Chronicle that Bob Perry had been contributing to the RGA long […]

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Yet it is Perry’s June 17, 2001, record that seems more remarkable. In an assault on the Legislature in which he had served for five years, Perry vetoed 79 bills on the last day he could do so after the session adjourned, ensuring that no veto could be overridden. Perry’s total veto count for the […]

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The $27 billion equaled 15 percent of the $182 billion biennial budget the Legislature had passed two years earlier. If not Armageddon, an apocalyptic loss of revenue in a low-tax state that provides bare-bones public services. Perry’s statement was even more remarkable because most of the budget shortfall was a consequence of a business-tax bill […]

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