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According to the news media, America's biggest concern right now should be the silliness of Jack Lew's signature. That's the kind of week it's been, at least among the inside-the-Beltway cocktail party circuit.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as "Obamacare") put Republican governors between an ideological rock and a very hard place for conservatives. After losing their court challenge on the constitutionality of Obamacare, each state's governor was faced with a clear choice: either set up a state-run health insurance marketplace (or "exchange"), or refuse to do so and pass the buck to the federal government, which will set up an exchange for states who opt not to create one on their own.
If we had a "best quote" awards category, we'd certainly have to nominate what outgoing House Republican Steven La Tourette had to say about the whole situation, after the Senate had voted 89-8 to approve the fiscal cliff avoidance deal: "We should not take a package put together by a bunch of sleep-deprived octogenarians on New Year's Eve." Now that's funny!
A happy chart indeed for Obama fans. Last month I predicted this rise by noting that many of the nationwide polling operations just ceased polling after the election was over. This dearth of data meant that while Obama's numbers were climbing fast, the "poll of polls" average at RealClearPolitics.com was dragged downwards by pre-election numbers still being averaged in. While I did predict that Obama's numbers would continue to rise in December (as more and more data came in), I will admit that even I was surprised at size of the post-election bump which Obama managed.
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
The mainstream media is letting American taxpayers down, once again. Because there's a change coming in everyone's first paycheck of the new year that most of the news stories about the fiscal cliff negotiations only occasionally mention, and usually just in passing. But the impact will be widely (almost "universally," in fact) felt, and it's going to mean a pay reduction for all workers of two percent. Taxes are going up by this two percent, meaning paychecks will be smaller. And -- here's the important part that gets lost in all the breathlessness over the fiscal cliff by blow-dried newsfolks -- this change is going to happen no matter what gets agreed upon to deal with the rest of the fiscal cliff.
Welcome to the seventh annual homage (which sounds so much nicer than "blatant ripoff," don't you think?) to the television show The McLaughlin Group, since they have the most extensive year-end award category list of anyone around. Since "extensive" is my middle name (well, not really, although I do tend to wander off into the parenthetical wilderness at times, do I not?), such a long list fits right in here.
Instead of a column today, I'll be working hard reviewing 2012 for tomorrow's big year-end awards column (see previous "Program Note" if you'd like to offer up nominees).
Rather than reading a column from my keyboard today, though, you can hear the interview I did this morning on the Uprising! show on KPFK radio (part of [...]
I realize that watching the fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington has been likened to stylized Kabuki theater more than once by pundits far and wide, but I'm going to push this metaphor for all it is worth today. You might even say I'm going to push it right over a cliff, but that would be a horrendous metaphor mixture indeed.
What's that? Mayans? Not Maya Rudolph? Man, I've got to start paying closer attention to these things. I'm still trying to figure out what sort of omen it is that Paul McCartney performed with Nirvana on 12/12/12, personally. Maybe not the end times, but certainly the strange times.