Barney Frank Speaks - Republicans are dancing on the grave. They really were afraid of losing the House and with reason. Their leader, the president, is sinking like a rock. That should hurt them, but only so much. The decision of the Virginia Supreme Court to throw out the new map enacted by voters at the urging of Democrats […]
News From Around the South, 5/4 to 5/11 - SOUTH CAROLINA: USC students are studying Southern history through barbecue A University of South Carolina course is using smoked pork and sauce traditions to teach students about Southern history, culture and civil rights. The semester wrapped up Wednesday at a West Columbia smoke house — not a lecture hall. Here are key takeaways: • The […]
The Comey Indictment and Free Speech - In 200-plus years of interpreting the free speech clause of the First Amendment, the courts have narrowed and expanded its scope. The Supreme Court employed a particularly narrow approach during much of the last century, through two world wars and then the Red Scare in the 1950s. Thankfully, in the 1960s, the Warren Court began […]
The Other Side of the Coin: Mildred Lewis Rutherford and the Paradox of Female Power - To fully understand the mechanics of female political power in American history, we must also examine the powerful conservative women who marched in exactly the opposite direction from progressive women reformers. This is an under-explored chapter of women’s history that features staunchly conservative, anti-suffrage Southern women who wielded tremendous political and cultural clout. As architects […]
The Real King Schools the Would-be King - I’ve always been both a small-r republican and an Anglophile, so I looked upon the British monarchy with at least a pinch of smug superiority. The Windsors are revered for nothing more than birth — not talent, nor accomplishments, nor virtue. It’s all a throwback to an earlier stage of human development, when people were not […]
