[ Posted Friday, January 29th, 2016 – 17:59 UTC ]
That headline is a joke only bridge players will get, so our apologies to everyone else. It refers, of course, to last night's Republican presidential debate, which Donald Trump refused to participate in. But even with no Trump on the stage last night, he seems to have (once again) proved that political gravity simply doesn't apply to him. In fact, we have serious doubts that we'll see Trump at any future debates -- after all, if he can blow them off with impunity, why would he subject himself to them in the first place?
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[ Posted Friday, January 22nd, 2016 – 18:07 UTC ]
Honestly, how often is it that you get to write such a great headline? In a week that also included a Sarah Palin speech that dominated the news cycle (to say nothing of the late-night comic cycle), writing such snarky headlines is just icing on the cake, really. Good times... yes, good times indeed for Democrats watching the horrorshow that is the Republican presidential nomination process.
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[ Posted Monday, January 18th, 2016 – 18:27 UTC ]
So we had the fourth Democratic debate last night, and I suppose we should all be thankful that Debbie Wasserman Schultz didn't somehow manage to schedule it to compete with one of football's playoff games. I wouldn't be surprised if the debate had a pretty low viewership, appearing as it did on a Sunday night during a three-day weekend, but those who did manage to catch it saw a much more high-spirited contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton than we've previously seen.
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[ Posted Friday, January 15th, 2016 – 17:47 UTC ]
In every 1950s "gang rumble" genre film, there comes a point where the fighting gets more serious. This is, literally, where the knives come out. I begin with this image because, metaphorically, that's exactly where we are in the 2016 presidential campaign. The fight's getting a lot more serious, and there is bound to be some blood on the floor afterwards.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 14th, 2016 – 16:15 UTC ]
The sixth Republican debate will happen tonight, for those keeping score. Technically, though, that should read "debates," as there will be two debates airing this evening, as there have been in the previous five GOP matchups. Which really begs the question of how long we're going to even bother holding double debates, when the contest has quite obviously narrowed to include only viable candidates. At some point, the secondary debate is going to be seen as so pointless (and so devoid of an actual viewing audience) that it will be eliminated altogether. Hopefully, at any rate. After having watched most of these, for me that time could easily be now -- but then again, I'm not a television executive.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 13th, 2016 – 17:44 UTC ]
Every so often, I write what I call a "blue-sky" article, just for fun. This is where you sit back in your chair, allow your eyes to unfocus, and ponder a far-fetched "What if...?" scenario, because you've got nothing better to write about that particular day. And I'll fully admit it -- the more outlandish a proposition you begin with, the more fun such an article is to write. Very occasionally, though, one of these scenarios actually becomes reality. This, of course, allows you to bask in the special pundit's glow of looking downright prescient. Much more commonly, though, the far-fetched remains unreal and never comes to pass, and the outlandish article you wrote predicting it remains (hopefully) forgotten. This is all just an introduction to me revisiting one of those columns, which I wrote last August. It was cheekily titled: "Sanders Versus Trump Would Be Fun."
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[ Posted Friday, January 8th, 2016 – 19:15 UTC ]
That sub-headline may take the prize for the most bizarre we've ever offered up, although it'd have to beat the current champion -- which is, of course: "The Corpse-Like Stench Of Washington's Giant Misshapen Penis." That's pretty tough to beat, if truth be told.
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 30th, 2015 – 18:02 UTC ]
That's a fairly depressing headline to wind up 2015, I fully realize. However, I've been noticing that Democrats -- all the way up to and including Hillary Clinton herself -- seem to be awfully complacent about the possible outcomes of next year's presidential race. This could be dangerous, because nothing in politics is ever written in stone, and this election cycle has been more unpredictable than most already. While most people inside the Beltway are slowly wrapping their minds around the concept that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination, the conventional wisdom is that if the race boils down to Trump versus Clinton, the foregone conclusion will be Hillary handily defeating The Donald in the general election.
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[ Posted Friday, December 18th, 2015 – 19:24 UTC ]
Welcome to our year-end awards columns!
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 16th, 2015 – 17:56 UTC ]
It's that time of year when Congress actually gets things done, so they don't have to work through the holidays. This is always a powerful incentive, and this year is no different. Paul Ryan actually bargained with Democrats instead of following the hotheads in his party into another government shutdown, which bodes well for the future of the House of Representatives (and America at large). But, as with all big omnibus budget bills, this means all kinds of unrelated issues -- from health care for 9/11 first responders to whether we export oil or not -- are tossed into the giant, must-pass bill. And along with the wave of other single-issue items came some good news for marijuana legal reformers.
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