[ Posted Friday, July 9th, 2010 – 17:17 UTC ]
My biggest problem with both Obama's speech and Emanuel's interview is that neither one of them truly seems to understand that an election is underway. The word "Republican" is not uttered once by President Obama. Rahm only uses the word four times, and only two of those are really drawing distinctions between what Democrats want to do, and what Republicans want to do (or, more to the point, not to do). And neither one of them uses the word "Democrat" (or "Democrats" or "Democratic") once.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 – 15:29 UTC ]
Obama, after gaining a bit in his average approval ratings in May, slipped back in June. But the reversal was slight, continuing a five-month streak of amazingly stable numbers. Since February, Obama's approval rating has stayed within one half of one percentage point, which is pretty remarkable. Unfortunately, this trend may be at an end, and his numbers may be headed even further downwards in July.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 1st, 2010 – 17:59 UTC ]
President Obama gave a speech today on immigration reform. He made his case, and pleaded with Congress to deliver up a comprehensive legislative package on the issue. But chances of this happening, as the old saw goes, are somewhere between "slim" and "none." Perhaps President Obama will achieve immigration reform at some point in his presidency, but I personally just don't see it happening any time soon.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 – 22:03 UTC ]
The Wall Street reform bill, now christened Dodd-Frank, is entering its final stretch this week. The House/Senate conference committee is finishing up work on the bill, and the goal is to get it through both houses of Congress and on the president's desk by July Fourth. A quick look at a calendar shows that this is a very tight schedule. To complicate matters, the death of Senator Robert Byrd now means the Democrats are short a vote they had been counting on. Which means they need some Republicans to vote with them, or the bill won't survive the inevitable filibuster attempt.
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[ Posted Monday, June 28th, 2010 – 17:50 UTC ]
A Supreme Court ruling just out may serve to blunt Republican criticism of Elena Kagan, who started her confirmation hearings today in the Senate. So far, Republicans haven't come up with much of any substance to attack Kagan on (although I admit, I haven't watched any of today's confirmation hearings yet), but they all pretty much agree upon one issue -- the fact that Kagan, as dean of the Harvard law school, upheld a school policy of barring military recruiters from campus due to the fact that the military discriminates against gays. But the ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez seems to give the high court's imprimatur to universities not allowing groups that practice such discrimination on campus -- which Kagan can now point to in defense of her position.
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[ Posted Friday, June 25th, 2010 – 16:52 UTC ]
We're going to begin today with the news that a popular New Jersey beach is considering allowing women to sunbathe topless. And then move right on to the financial reform bill, by way of a neck-snapping segue. Just to warn you up front.
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[ Posted Thursday, June 24th, 2010 – 19:03 UTC ]
Is Texas about to reach a tipping point from a solid red Republican state to a bright blue Democratic one? Well, probably not, but it's an interesting concept to kick around on a Thursday (when I am, admittedly, behind schedule), so here goes.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 – 17:13 UTC ]
The Supreme Court recently ruled that the post-9/11 laws against "materially supporting" terrorist groups should be very broadly interpreted. Even counseling any group on the official list of terrorist organizations about peaceful topics is now to be considered "supporting terrorism." Which leads me to wonder what they'd say about actually paying a terrorist organization tens of millions of dollars.
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[ Posted Friday, June 18th, 2010 – 17:27 UTC ]
Christmas has come in June for the Democratic Party. Republican Joe Barton just delivered a huge, nicely wrapped present to Democrats. The only question is whether they'll open it and make use of it, or halfheartedly play with it once and then throw it in a corner (since the Democratic Party is kind of fickle about using such free gifts from Republicans, for no explicable reason whatsoever). But more on the flailing Joe Barton in a bit.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 – 21:38 UTC ]
President Obama, in his first-ever primetime address from the Oval Office, did not mince words. He didn't have time to -- the speech was one of the shortest I think I've ever seen from Barack Obama, clocking in at 17 or 18 minutes. But although he didn't take a lot of time, he covered a lot. Of particular note was the directness of his language, which at times could even be described as "forceful."
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