[ Posted Wednesday, January 14th, 2015 – 17:37 UTC ]
In less than a week, President Obama will give his State Of The Union speech to Congress and the nation. Sitting presidents usually get a bump in the polls immediately afterwards, since it is always the most-watched political speech of the entire year. But what's interesting to note, one week out, is that Obama is already enjoying somewhat of a bounce in his job approval polling. What's more, Obama seems poised to rise even higher in public approval, since the next issue teed up for a major political battle is one where Obama's stance is a lot more popular than the Republican position: immigration reform. All in all, ever since his forceful response to the midterm elections, Obama seems to be getting more and more popular.
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[ Posted Friday, January 9th, 2015 – 18:13 UTC ]
Je suis Charlie. In fact, let's go even further: Nous sommes Charlie Hebdo. Because we are all Charlie, this week.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 7th, 2015 – 18:19 UTC ]
As dawn metaphorically breaks over the new 114th Congress, the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy is going through one of their periodic bouts of self-delusion over how wonderfully everyone is going to get along for the next two years. Sanity and comity will reign supreme on Capitol Hill, they blithely predict, and all kinds of stuff will get accomplished. The only real question is which side of the aisle will be signing melody and which will be harmonizing, as everyone joins in a rousing chorus of "Kumbaya." You'll have to forgive me for not being so easily convinced, mostly because I can accurately remember back past roughly two weeks ago, which seems to be the attention span for some of these pontificators.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 6th, 2015 – 17:39 UTC ]
Millions of Americans just got a raise. Their first 2015 paycheck will be substantially bigger in many states, as new minimum wages take effect. This is great news for those at the bottom of the pay scale, and it will likely generate some upward pressure on those making slightly more than minimum wage as well. The supervisors of minimum-wage earners will demand to be paid more than those they are supervising, and the managers of the supervisors will use the same logic. J.F.K.'s "rising tide" will lift a lot of boats, in other words. But there's an even bigger change coming soon for those in the middle class, which should help to rectify the problem of income equality for tens of millions of hard-working Americans. The big change that President Obama is going to soon unveil is an update of the mandatory overtime rule.
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[ Posted Monday, January 5th, 2015 – 16:59 UTC ]
President Obama is doing the preparatory work for his upcoming State Of The Union speech this week, by visiting three states to tout his successes and also to build support for the proposals he's likely to make in the big speech. This is all standard politics, really. But Democrats should really join in a loud chorus right now to help Obama achieve the first of those goals -- claiming credit for turning the American economy around. This is important for two reasons. The first is that Democrats (and Obama), up until now, have been too timid to claim much of any credit for the economy, out of fears that it could take a turn for the worse and they'd end up looking like Pollyannas (Obama already got his fingers burnt on this previously, with the supposed summer of "green shoots," quite a while back). The second reason it behooves Democrats to claim some credit right now is that if they don't, Republicans are already chomping at the bit to claim all that credit for themselves.
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[ Posted Friday, January 2nd, 2015 – 17:31 UTC ]
Barack Obama's job approval polling numbers, at times, seem to follow seasonal trends. He usually loses ground in the summer, particularly in August. In winter, however, he usually gains ground. This year Obama seems likely to repeat this pattern, if December's numbers are any indication.
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[ Posted Monday, December 29th, 2014 – 18:28 UTC ]
Today's article is nothing more than a giant collection of links to some stories you may have missed during 2014. Another way to put this is: I am clearing out my list of "things I should write about, when I have the time" -- articles which got me thinking, but which I never followed up on by actually writing about them. I'm cleaning up my bookmarks, and so I thought I'd dump all these out there for others to read, perhaps waiting for a flight home or perhaps hiding in your old bedroom because you are sick of dealing with your extended family's drama right now. Ahem.
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[ Posted Friday, December 26th, 2014 – 19:14 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
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[ Posted Friday, December 19th, 2014 – 19:34 UTC ]
As we do every year, we are pre-empting our "Friday Talking Points" columns for the next two weeks, to bring you our best and worst of 2014. And, yes, we are going to continue our supercilious and no-doubt-annoying habit of using the editorial "we" throughout these two columns, so thanks for asking! Heh.
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 17th, 2014 – 17:13 UTC ]
Today, the Cold War's end is finally in sight. Begun almost immediately after World War II, the Cold War was the defining issue in American foreign policy right up to 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. One final legacy remained for another quarter-century after the Berlin Wall came down, though: America's Cuba policy. This final leftover from the Cold War will now be brought to an end, decades after it had been proven not to work. President Barack Obama just spoke on the telephone with the leader of Cuba to finalize the two countries' new relations -- an event that hadn't happened in over half a century. The Cold War is now almost completely a matter of interest only to historians, to put things into context.
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