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Economic Policy

The Government Shutdown Has Created a New Word: Snollygosters

Published: mic (October 10, 2013) Before you ask, I present the definition of "snollygoster," courtesy of TheFreeDictionary.com: One, especially a politician, who is guided by personal advantage rather than by consistent, respectable principles. While not born of this crisis, snollygoster is an antique in the American political lexicon, tracing as far back as the 1840s and allegedly inspired by...

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Memo to Ron Paul and Glenn Beck: America’s Founders Were Not Anti-Government

Originally Published: PolicyMic (March 8, 2012) Republished on PolicyMic (October 2, 2013) as "Government Shutdown Question: Would the Founding Fathers Fight Liberalism?" Editor's Note:Although this article was originally published on March 8, 2012, we felt it would be valuable to offer the perspective of a PhD student in history on the ideological debate accompanying the current government...

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Government Shutdown: What Would Lincoln Say?

Published: mic (October 1, 2013) It would be nice if Republicans would occasionally listen to the words of their party's first president. Abraham Lincoln, February 27, 1860: "Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action?...

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Ted Cruz’s 21-Hour Senate Speech Was Full Of a Lot Of Hot Air

Published: mic (September 25, 2013) After 21 hours of orating, Senator Ted Cruz's one-man jeremiad against Obamacare has officially come to an end. What in the world are we to make of it? Certainly the punditocracy has not come up short on feedback. Top Republicans are livid at Cruz for what they perceive to be his grandstanding, even going so far as to send research to Fox News correspondent...

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Richard Nixon: The Social Liberal Of His Time

Published: mic (August 25, 2013) On the centennial year of his birth, a renaissance of interest has occurred about President Richard Nixon. First came Penny Lane's documentary Our Nixon, which compiles home movies shot by the 37th president's closest aides as a way of humanizing the much-maligned "Tricky Dick." Then came the release of The Butler, which adds further nuance to Nixon's cultural...

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This is the Most Important U.S. President That You’ve Never Heard About

Published: mic (August 20, 2013) As liberals prepare to celebrate President Benjamin Harrison's birthday today .... I'm sorry? Most people don't know that August 20 is Harrison's birthday, much less care? Well, that certainly is a pity. After all, if it wasn't for Harrison, many of the policies liberals consider so important today might have never been enacted. Indeed, it was the Harrison...

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Why Today’s Democrats Are Not Like LBJ

Published: mic (May 23, 2013) There are days that call for history lessons, and while most liberals don't realize it, we should definitely insist on May 22 being one of them. After all, it was 49 years ago yesterday that President Lyndon Baines Johnson intoned these words at a speech delivered to a graduating class at the University of Michigan: "For a century we labored to settle and to subdue...

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Fiscal Cliff 2013: Mitt Romney Has A Chance To Be The Hero

Published: PolicyMic (November 30, 2012) I have no idea whether Mitt Romney will ever see this editorial. While I do know at least one of my articles was noticed by the erstwhile Republican candidate's inner circle (a piece from six months ago that drew complaints from his former foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell), that hardly assures that anything else I write will make its way to him....

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Fiscal Cliff Deadline: 5 Reasons We Should Celebrate Republicans Opting for Higher Taxes

Published: PolicyMic (November 29, 2012) The impending so-called "fiscal cliff" has not been kind to Grover Norquist. As political junkies are well aware, the conservative lobbyist who founded Americans for Tax Reform is best known for pressuring Republican politicians to sign his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which puts signatories on the record as vowing to never support marginal income tax...

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