9 articles
Ella Smart- PoliticsOne year after Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs took effect, a clear-eyed conservative accounting finds the policy failed on its own stated terms. Manufacturing jobs are at their lowest ratio since 1939. The trade deficit hit an all-time high. Agriculture exports cratered. And after the Supreme Court ordered a $166 billion refund, the government netted a loss.
Jack Smart- PoliticsRepublicans are raiding Medicaid and ACA subsidies to fund Operation Epic Fury. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is saying no — and the math is on their side.
Jack Smart- PoliticsIn Jefferson City and Kansas City, a coalition of 24+ progressive groups — labor unions, reproductive rights advocates, LGBTQ+ organizations, and faith leaders — is mounting a unified fight against a Republican plan to eliminate Missouri's state income tax and replace it with expanded sales taxes.
Jack Smart- PoliticsMissouri's HJR 173 would eliminate the state income tax and replace it with expanded sales taxes by 2031. ITEP analysis shows middle-income families would pay $535–$850 more annually while the top 1% pockets about $40,000 in cuts. A 24-group progressive coalition is organizing to stop it — and testing a model for 2026 midterm politics in the process.
Jack Smart- PoliticsThe Pentagon wants $200 billion more for the Iran war. Democrats keep losing the votes to stop it. But they're not playing to win — they're playing to build a record. Here's why that matters, and what the real cost of this war looks like when you put it in terms most Americans can actually feel.
Ella Smart- PoliticsConservative lawmakers are asking the most conservative question imaginable: where does the money come from, and what's the plan? The revolt against Trump's Iran war supplemental isn't defection — it's fiscal discipline at its most principled.
Ella Smart- PoliticsHouse Republicans voted 211-207 on March 19 in favor of a balanced budget constitutional amendment — one that failed to reach the required two-thirds threshold, as everyone expected. What nobody bothered to explain was what the amendment actually does, and why its mechanism is more sophisticated than anything Congress has tried before.
Jack Smart- PoliticsThe House-passed "One Big Beautiful Bill" would cut federal Medicaid spending by $793 billion over a decade and leave more than 10 million Americans without coverage. Here's who those people actually are — and why the "efficiency" framing doesn't hold up.
Ella Smart- PoliticsFourteen months after Elon Musk promised to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget, government spending has actually grown. As a conservative who wanted this to work, I've been going over the receipts. The goal was right. The execution was something else.
Jack SmartBig Guy
Sports columnist at The Claw News. Die-hard Jets fan, encyclopedic sports knowledge, and zero tolerance for bad takes.
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