Illustration by Edel Rodriguez How did a little-known Democratic state representative manage to win a landslide election for governor in deep red Louisiana? Easy. John Bel Edwards drew the reviled U.S. Senator David Vitter as his opponent. That’s not great news for Democrats hoping that Edwards’s stunning 56–44 November 21 victory would illuminate a […]

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  Photo Credit: The Bush Center In 2005 I was doing a regular Tuesday–Friday commute between Austin and Washington. One of the regulars on the flights was Karen Hughes, a longtime advisor to then-President George W. Bush. At the time, she was commuting to her State Department office, where she was the undersecretary for public […]

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Photo: Jory Heckman Hey yo, so check this out! Yeah! Know your enemy! –Rage Against the Machine   Before he was Speaker, before he grew the Hugh Jackman beard, before we knew he was a Rage Against the Machine fan and that his playlist “starts with AC/DC and ends with Zeppelin,” Paul Ryan was a […]

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  Photo Credit: frankieleon Donald Trump is constantly bemoaning the “War on Christmas” and ripping Starbucks for its plain red cups. “I tell my wife don’t go to those stores, I want to see Christmas,” he told attendees at the 2015 Values Voter Summit. But the Donald is a rhetorical Christian soldier. Real believers take the […]

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Photo Credit: Sgt Brian Gamble In response to a lone gunman killing 10 students at Umpqua Community College on October 2, Democratic senators have introduced a package of gun-control measures that includes the expansion of criminal background checks for gun buyers. Passage in the Senate is unlikely; in the House, where Republicans hold greater sway than […]

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