[ Posted Friday, October 9th, 2015 – 17:19 UTC ]
Two weeks ago, we wrote one of these columns and snarkily subtitled it: "New Job Vacancy: Chief GOP Cat-Herder." This week, we really should have gone with: "Babysitting Experience STRONGLY PREFERRED," but Salon had already used it (we'll explain that joke in a bit, promise). Instead, we chose to feature the word which appeared in too many headlines to accurately count over the past two days, because describing what is going on in the Republican Party these days is pretty downright hard to do without using the word "chaos" in some fashion or another.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, October 8th, 2015 – 16:37 UTC ]
It's hard not to have at least a little bit of sympathy for Kevin McCarthy, at this point. When Speaker of the House John Boehner announced he was going to step down, it was the equivalent of the chief engineer jumping off of a train that was barreling down the track, after just having passed a warning that the bridge ahead was washed out. What sane person would relish the chance to preside over an upcoming disaster, after all? McCarthy faced an unwinnable situation from his own ungovernable caucus, and so he intelligently threw up his hands and essentially said: "Why bother even trying?"
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 – 17:08 UTC ]
Next Tuesday, we will finally get some degree of parity in the world of televised presidential debates, as the Democrats come together for the first time to make their case to the American public. The Republicans have already held two debates and will hold their third later this month. The Democratic National Committee decided to restrict the number of debates held, which has left the field open to the Republicans for two months now. This decision has been hotly debated, mostly by Democrats not named "Hillary Clinton" (who make the case that the debate schedule was shortened to give Hillary an easier time of it). But whatever you think of the decision, we're finally about to see all the Democratic candidates on one stage.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, October 6th, 2015 – 16:29 UTC ]
President Barack Obama had a pretty good month in the polls last month, as he saw his approval take a big step up and his disapproval take a tiny step down. Obama exited the summer doldrums earlier than usual this year, and chalked up a positive month all around. Let's take a look at the new chart.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, October 2nd, 2015 – 17:43 UTC ]
Kevin McCarthy is not worthy. Of using the English language correctly, among other things. Amusingly, though, this will likely not stop him from becoming the next speaker of the House. And if his past is any prologue, hearing the speaker speak should provide all sorts of amusement for the rest of us. It may not be the return of the garbled George W. Bush era of mangled English, but it could be close.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, September 30th, 2015 – 16:58 UTC ]
Bernie Sanders, as far as the media is concerned, is the Rodney Dangerfield of presidential candidates -- "he don't get no respect." Of the 23 candidates running for president in the two major parties, precisely four of them have ever shown even 20 percent support (in their polling averages from their base voters). Actually, to be completely accurate, five people have hit the 20 percent support level since the race began this year, but Joe Biden is not actually a candidate yet. The other four are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, September 28th, 2015 – 17:52 UTC ]
Ben Carson would not support a Muslim candidate for president. This statement was made a week ago, and the media is still pressing him on the issue. But what's kind of puzzling to me is why they don't ask a few very obvious questions that would expose the rank hypocrisy involved in Carson's thinking. Instead, they just ask him the same question (in slightly different formats) over and over again, ignoring the fundamental contradictions in what Carson is espousing.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, September 25th, 2015 – 15:03 UTC ]
Every so often, when preparing to write these weekly wrap-up columns, I wake up Friday morning and a political bombshell has happened which pretty much wipes out all the political news from the entire rest of the week. Obviously, today was one of those days, as we all learned this morning that Speaker of the House John Boehner will be a private citizen again by Hallowe'en. He'll step down not only from his speakership, but also from his House seat itself, more than a year before the end of his current term. So it looks like the Republicans are going to need a new cat-herder to (attempt to) lead them in the House.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, September 18th, 2015 – 17:27 UTC ]
This was one of those weeks when one event overshadowed pretty much everything else that was going on in the political world. The event, of course, was the second round of Republican presidential debates, which lasted for a grueling five-plus hours.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, September 17th, 2015 – 17:30 UTC ]
It may not have been the first time that marijuana legal reform came up in a televised presidential debate, but last night's discussion between Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush was certainly the most in-depth and serious handling of the subject I've ever seen. This is something of a milestone, especially since it happened in a Republican debate (all of the quotes below come from a transcript of the debate provided by the Washington Post, I should mention).
Read Complete Article »
