[ Posted Thursday, October 18th, 2012 – 16:40 UTC ]
Newsweek magazine just announced that in the near future it will no longer be a magazine. The print edition, which began in 1933, will end at the close of 2012, and will henceforth only be available in online (tablet) format, by paid subscription only. One is tempted to respond "good luck with that," but they're having a tough enough time at Newsweek headquarters these days, so one will refrain from rubbing such salt in the wound.
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[ Posted Monday, September 24th, 2012 – 16:40 UTC ]
The American public, over the past few weeks, seems to have gotten more optimistic about the future. These recent gains have been somewhat modest and still far below a majority of the public being optimistic, but if this trend continues for the next month or so it will likely help President Obama's chances of being re-elected.
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[ Posted Friday, September 21st, 2012 – 15:25 UTC ]
Wouldn't it be amusingly ironic if Mitt Romney only managed to get 47 percent of the national popular vote for president? It would renew my faith that the universe has a sense of humor, that's for sure.
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[ Posted Wednesday, September 19th, 2012 – 15:48 UTC ]
Think about it. At the heart of Mitt Romney's new argument is a complete disconnect with the core, unshakeable tenet of the Republican faith -- "lower taxes for all." What Mitt Romney is arguing, when stripped of heated rhetoric, is that it is a bad thing that 47 percent don't pay federal income taxes, and that it would be a good thing if those people actually did pay federal income taxes -- thus arguing for raising taxes on half of the country. There is no way to escape this -- you are either for raising taxes, or you are for lowering taxes. Mitt Romney is now, apparently, for raising taxes on tens of millions of people. He really can't have it both ways.
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[ Posted Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 – 17:41 UTC ]
Yesterday was a momentous occasion, but I was steeped in crass horserace politics, and so failed to mention it. Two hundred and twenty-five years ago yesterday, the United States Constitution was adopted by the convention called to create it.
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[ Posted Friday, September 14th, 2012 – 15:22 UTC ]
The second item of note is that today marks the fifth "birthday" of this column series. September 14, 2007 saw the very first Friday Talking Points column ever (although the name and the column format wouldn't solidify for a few months). Since then, almost every Friday, we've been attempting to provide Democratic talking points for politicians to use to get their point across in a snappy and memorable fashion. How much success we've had doing so is open to interpretation, but we're still here doing it, which tends to indicate that Democrats still have a ways to go to match the Republican ability to keep "on script" during interviews. To put this another way, it's the old Democratic "herding cats" problem.
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[ Posted Monday, September 3rd, 2012 – 12:00 UTC ]
I was five when President George Bush "beat" candidate Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. At the time I had no clue about politics or party philosophy. However, I did know Al Gore received more overall votes in the election than George Bush, then the members of Supreme Court voted on who would become the next president, and they elected Bush. The election was the first political event that I can remember clearly in my life, and although I was always bound to be a liberal (given the household I grew up in), that lost election established my anti-conservative opinion. I followed the Kerry/Bush election in 2004 with determination (or at least all the determination a nine-year-old can muster), thinking I could somehow impact the results of the election. Of course I was wrong.
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[ Posted Monday, August 27th, 2012 – 17:23 UTC ]
America's oldest pastime is not baseball, or football, or indeed any professional sport. It is not going to the movies, or watching television, or spending time on the internet. It's not communicating with each other via email, telephone, or any other method. America's oldest pastime will be on full display for the next two weeks, because before any of the rest of these things even existed, America has had a love affair with politics that endures and lives on to this day. But politics -- especially as practiced during the national conventions -- is nothing more than intolerance and bigotry writ large. But, unlike the more virulent forms of bigotry, political bigotry is not only celebrated in America but actually downright inevitable -- or at least, it has been since our country began.
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 – 17:05 UTC ]
Looking at any map, globe, or any other reference (electronic or not) is verboten. You've got to keep the spirit of the game by seeing how many of these you know off the top of your head. All of these questions are about the entire United States of America (territories and possessions excluded), unless otherwise specified.
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[ Posted Monday, August 13th, 2012 – 16:46 UTC ]
The announcement of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate late last Friday sent a shockwave through the political and media world. The snap judgment of what passes for conventional wisdom among the chattering class is that the Ryan pick was bold (as opposed to safe), and that the election will henceforth be all about wonky details from the Ryan budget plan. "A campaign of Big Ideas!" the pundits excitedly gasped. "Just what we've always wanted!"
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