[ Posted Monday, September 29th, 2014 – 16:03 UTC ]
The United States Congress is currently abdicating one of its most solemn duties: declaring when America is at war, and with whom. This is nothing short of disgraceful, and every member of Congress who didn't actively push their leadership to hold a vote should be ashamed of themselves right now. Because by completely abdicating their constitutional warmaking power to the executive branch, they are displaying nothing short of their own "profiles in cowardice."
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[ Posted Friday, September 26th, 2014 – 17:18 UTC ]
Holder certainly had a momentous term in office. Depending on when he is officially replaced, his will either be the fourth-longest or third-longest record as Attorney General in American history. Liberals found him lacking on civil liberties issues (especially in Obama's first term), and conservatives just despised him because he was serving a president they really, really hated (he's also the first Attorney General to be found in contempt of Congress by the House).
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[ Posted Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014 – 16:48 UTC ]
Zombies are in the news again. Not actual zombies, but instead the growing governmental awareness that the citizenry needs to be prepared against any possible future zombie attack. And, no, I'm not kidding. It's the time of the season.
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[ Posted Monday, September 22nd, 2014 – 17:09 UTC ]
The prosecution objects. That's one way to put it, at any rate.
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[ Posted Friday, September 19th, 2014 – 16:57 UTC ]
Congress followed up their recent five-week vacation with almost two whole weeks of actually doing their jobs, so to reward themselves they're now going to take off on another vacation. Until mid-November. The American people will show their disgust at this pathetic work ethic by returning upwards of ninety percent of them to office, if this year is anything like a typical one. The big question on everyone's mind is whether the Democrats will hold onto control of the Senate, which will mean two years of gridlock with the Republican House, or whether Republicans will gain control of the Senate, which will mean two years of gridlock with both the Tea Party and the president.
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[ Posted Thursday, September 18th, 2014 – 16:36 UTC ]
"Aha!" I thought, "Hillary Clinton attending a Steak Fry (which is not a steak fry, simultaneously) is a perfect political metaphor: she is Schrödinger's candidate!"
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[ Posted Wednesday, September 17th, 2014 – 16:10 UTC ]
It is time to once again take a broad look at the upcoming Senate midterm elections. As always in non-presidential election years, I seldom pay much attention to the House races, for a number of reasons. First, there are a lot of them -- too many for one person to reasonably keep track of. Second, this year seems like a pretty foregone conclusion: the House will remain Republican, and the only two real questions are whether (and by how much) they will increase their lead, and how strong the Tea Party faction will be after the dust settles on election night.
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[ Posted Tuesday, September 16th, 2014 – 17:05 UTC ]
What I find interesting in the debate over Scottish independence is the larger question of whether Europe itself is coming together or flying apart. Or, perhaps, whether it could manage to do both at the same time.
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[ Posted Friday, September 12th, 2014 – 15:56 UTC ]
Back in 2007, I thought it would be a good idea to write congressional Democrats a memo, in the hopes they could begin to learn a skill Republicans seem to be born with: the ability to stay on-topic and present your political ideas and agenda items succinctly and memorably to the public. I had grown tired of watching the Sunday political shows where Republicans all sang off the same songsheet while Democrats were easily led into the weeds with long rambling tangents to what they should have been saying that particular week. This early effort grew, in the following weeks and months, into the format we now use weekly: a quick rundown of amusing items in the political news of the week, the awarding of the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week and the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week, and then seven numerated talking points suggested for all Democrats to use to explain the Democratic position to all and sundry (especially on Sundry morning talk shows... so to speak...).
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[ Posted Thursday, September 11th, 2014 – 16:04 UTC ]
OK, with that out of the way, let's take a look at how President Obama did in job approval polling last month. The results were mixed, but overall fairly positive. Here's the new chart:
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