Democrats are beginning to widen their political message in a way that could prove to be a big winner for them not just in November but for years to come. So far, the fallout from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade has been overwhelmingly positive for Democrats, since the majority of Americans actually favor abortion rights for all women. And now Democrats have the clear opportunity to link a number of other things to the proven political winner abortion rights has turned out to be. In fact, they should adopt a new slogan: "It's not just about abortion."

Read Complete Article »

Because this week had a federal holiday at the start of it, Congress is off on vacation for two entire weeks. Nice work if you can get it, eh?

It's not as if they don't have anything to do, either. When they return, the Senate will hold the first impeachment trial for a sitting cabinet member ever (although "trial" may be overstating it, since it may be over before it even begins, with a simple vote to dismiss the nonsensical articles of impeachment the House finally was able to pass), the House will be under pressure to pass some sort of military aid for Ukraine before their soldiers are reduced to fighting with pointy sticks, and Congress will be staring at yet another government-shutdown deadline at the end of the week. Those are just the big things on the congressional plate, mind you. But after all their hard work (at not getting anything done on time), they all needed two weeks of relaxation, obviously.

Read Complete Article »

It is a rare event, but every so often I have to fully agree with a Republican. I was going to write this today anyway, begging for the same thing (for broader reasons), so this definitely caught my eye. Here is Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (which just introduced a foreign aid and border security deal as an alternative to the Senate-passed "foreign-aid-only" bill), advising President Biden to publicly go on offense over Ukraine military aid right now:

Read Complete Article »

That headline comes from the end of an aphorism that goes back to the time of the ancient Greeks: "The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine." Today, the wheels of justice just ground out a penalty of $355 million for Donald Trump, for committing serial fraud in his New York businesses -- which we certainly found to be an "exceedingly fine" result of the case (an "exceedingly fine fine," maybe?). The $355 million can now be added to the $88 million Trump is already on the hook for, after losing two other civil cases (the defamation cases brought by E. Jean Carroll). Plus, in today's ruling, two of Trump's children were fined $4 million each, as well as a $1 million fine for another member of the Trump Organization (making it a $364 million penalty, in all). This was the capstone to a week watching the slow grind of multiple court cases Trump is currently ensnared in, so we thought it was an appropriate place to start our column this week.

Read Complete Article »

The House seat once held by George Santos is back in Democratic hands once again, after an impressive 8-point victory in a special election last night. Once Tom Suozzi is sworn in, this will leave Republicans with a smaller majority, meaning Speaker Mike Johnson will only be able to lose two votes from his own party when passing purely partisan bills. This may not have that big an effect, since Johnson already struggles to pass partisan bills with the majority he's currently got (a bill on spying powers had to be pulled today, for instance, since Republicans can't agree among themselves over what to put in it). If Johnson had been wildly successful up to this point and his new smaller margin put that at risk then that'd be one thing, but the reality is the only bills he's been able to move with any chance of becoming law are ones with wide bipartisan support. Not much about that dynamic is actually going to change, even with one more Democrat in the chamber.

Read Complete Article »

Family dynasties have been part of the American political scene since the very beginning. Our second president was the father of our sixth president, the two differentiated only by the middle name "Quincy." The Bush family almost had three presidents, a father and two sons, but while two of them made it to the White House (differentiated only by the extra middle name "Herbert"), the third fell short. Al Gore, who ran against George W. Bush, was also the son of a national politician (of the same name, they were "Senior" and "Junior"). It happens a lot, in other words -- American politics and nepotism have gone hand-in-hand for centuries. But I have never seen such a blatant attempt by what is now known (disparagingly) as a "nepo baby" to benefit solely from his last name as the ad for Robert F. Kennedy Junior that ran during yesterday's Super Bowl.

Read Complete Article »

This was a very bad week for Republicans in Congress, pretty much all around. The Speaker of the House proved incapable of counting votes and thus saw two big defeats on the floor, and over in the Senate the Republicans cut off their noses (elephant trunks?) to spite their faces in a spectacular turnaround from their own basic bargaining position. GOP incompetence was on display on both sides of the Capitol, to put it bluntly.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump is, without doubt, the leader of the Republican Party right now. He is cruising to the Republican presidential nomination and the party's base has rallied around him almost to the exclusion of all others. But below the level of Trump, there is a growing leadership vacuum in the party, as everyone scrambles to bend whichever way the Trump winds happen to be blowing at that particular moment, while still attempting to hold the party together. This lack of secondary leadership came to the fore this week in three notable ways.

Read Complete Article »

The key aspect of this, again, is: Are we as Republicans going to have press conferences and complain the border is bad and then intentionally leave it open?

-- Senator James Lankford
(chief GOP negotiator on the border bill)

As of now, things are looking like that's going to wind up being a "Yes," Senator Lankford. Now that Donald Trump is heavily weighing in against it, it may be completely impossible to pass any sort of border or immigration bill for the rest of this year no matter what it contains. Which would be a huge missed opportunity for Republicans, but they're perfectly content to just endlessly play politics with the issue without ever doing anything to solve the basic problems.

Read Complete Article »

New monthly employment numbers were released today showing a surprisingly-high 353,000 new jobs were created in January. The stock market is currently setting new all-time highs. The American economy has recovered from COVID far faster and far better than all other major countries, in fact. Inflation has come back down, gasoline prices are down, and wages are up (growing faster than inflation). Signups for Obamacare hit another record this year (outpacing last year's record by five million!) and America has the lowest uninsured rate in history. Domestic oil production is also setting records. So what are conservatives obsessed with in reaction to all this good news? Taylor Swift. No, really....

Read Complete Article »