Agents of Behemoth

Benji Backer, a 25-year-old conservative from Wisconsin, was not pleased with a recent Republican presidential primary debate. The candidates either denied, ignored or downplayed the Fox moderator’s question on climate change. Backer is not alone in his views. Founder of the American Conservation Coalition, Backer said of his peers: “Young people will never vote for a candidate that does not believe in climate change. We’re not going away; we are normalizing this as part of the Republican conversation. Republicans deserve to lose if they are climate deniers and don’t have a plan.” 

Congressional Republicans are working to extend tax breaks that have allowed dozens of major U.S. corporations—including Amazon, Google, and Verizon—to collectively save $67 billion since they were expanded in 2018, according to an analysis published late last week.

We already knew that the deal struck between the president and the House Republicans, to lift the debt ceiling, was going to place new work requirements on childless adults between the ages of 50 and 54 in return for food stamps. What we didn’t know is that...

A preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office released Thursday estimates that the $21.4 billion in IRS funding cuts that Republicans and the Biden White House agreed to enact as part of their debt ceiling agreement would result in $40.4 billion in lost tax revenue...

It’s still unclear whether the president is open to putting work requirements on citizens who are receiving federal jobless assistance, namely food stamps, amid this week’s negotiations over the debt ceiling with House Republicans.

In yesterday’s Daily Take, I laid out a scenario where Kevin McCarthy and congressional Republicans could crash our economy by forcing a default on US debt, producing what could easily be a depression as deep and deadly as the Republican Great Depression of the 1930s.

The Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee said Wednesday that the House GOP's newly released debt ceiling legislation shows that the often fractious right-wing caucus is unified around at least one common objective: "Helping rich people cheat on their taxes.

If only politicians had to recite the Hippocratic oath. Instead, some do what’s best for the well-being of the people they represent while others continue to reject the best evidence and serve their own narrow ideological and partisan ends. 

Mississippi, notoriously the state that originated the legal challenge that led to the demise of Roe v. Wade, also happens to be one of just ten states, all controlled by Republicans, that still rejects federal funding for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

Larry Householder, the former Ohio speaker of the House, has been convicted on corruption charges related to a bribery scheme. A jury found the Republican former legislator guilty of orchestrating a scheme that traded nearly $61 million in donations to FirstEnergy in exchange for legislation...

It seems the hecklers at last week’s State of the Union speech owe President Joe Biden an apology. After some congressional Republicans tried to shout him down for saying some in the GOP want to cut Social Security and Medicare, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., stepped up to add his voice...

Sen. Joe Manchin provoked outrage Wednesday by suggesting congressional Democrats should agree to pursue changes to Social Security as part of a debt ceiling agreement with Republicans, an idea one advocacy group condemned as "negotiating with legislative terrorists."

Let’s look at the radically different ways income tax cuts or increases affect working class people versus the morbidly rich.

Nearly 260 advocacy groups on Monday warned that House Republicans have not halted their efforts to push through as many restrictions on government spending as possible in the federal budget bill, adding dozens more "poison pill" riders to the legislation ahead of the upcoming August recess.

High gas prices are fueling the demand for electric vehicles in some traditionally conservative areas where environmentalism doesn’t typically drive purchasing decisions. In at least two deep red Texas counties, EV purchases have eclipsed the national average, The Washington Post reports...

The U.S. House and Senate have now both approved the deal struck by President Biden and House Speaker McCarthy to suspend the nation’s debt limit through 2025 in exchange for a range of cuts sought by Congressional Republicans. 

The Republican Party's debt-ceiling hostage scheme has benefited from the support of the United States' largest corporate lobbying organization, which has given its stamp of approval to the GOP's push for major federal spending cuts, punitive new work requirements for aid programs, and...

President Joe Biden (D) beat Donald Trump in a number of districts that are now represented by Republicans in the House, and those members of the GOP just voted for a debt limit increase bill that would be "toxic" to their reelection efforts, according to the New Republic.

Republican Party leaders already concerned about the 2024 general election where they might be saddled with an indicted former president at the top of the ticket have new worries about financing campaigns with less money than they would like.

Bud Light's partnership with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney caused many conservative voices to boycott the beer company, but there is reportedly now a GOP-led push to back off, or risk losing major funding.

Yesterday a 28-year old graduate of a Christian school shot up the place, killing three 9-year-old students and three adults. This was almost 2 years to the day that Republican Governor Bill Lee signed a wide-ranging gun deregulation bill allowing Tennesseans to carry guns — open or concealed

In Ohio, two well-known Republicans — Larry Householder, former speaker for the Ohio House of Representatives, and ex-Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges — have been facing federal corruption charges in connection with a $60 million bribery scheme. 

On Oct. 10, 2018, then-Rep. Larry Householder met with lobbyists representing a subsidiary of FirstEnergy in offices at 65 E. State Street that Householder shared with a 501(c)(4) dark money group. One of the lobbyists, Robert F. Klaffky, slid an envelope containing a check for $400,000...