Is It Time For Holder To Go?
[ Posted Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 – 16:05 UTC ]
Is it time for Attorney General Eric Holder to (as is frequently said in politics) "spend some more time with his family"?
Archive of Articles in the "Immigration" Category
Friday Talking Points [257] -- Wedgies For All!
[ Posted Friday, May 10th, 2013 – 16:25 UTC ]
Being a student of the political lexicon, I would like to propose a new definition for an old term -- a term we've all used since roughly the second grade. I refer, of course, to the "wedgie." For those who are astoundingly unaware of what this term literally means, I would refer you to your local second-grader (pick any boy age 7 or 8 and ask him... and after he rolls around the floor screaming with laughter for awhile, he'll explain and even demonstrate the "wedgie" for you, I'm sure). Ahem.
Obama Poll Watch -- April, 2013
[ Posted Monday, May 6th, 2013 – 15:00 UTC ]
Welcome back once again to our monthly examination of President Barack Obama's job approval polling numbers. In April, Obama's numbers returned to a normal level, after experiencing a very short post-election "honeymoon period" with the public which bounced his numbers up to a peak, and then bounced them right back down again. You can plainly see this effect in this month's chart:
Immigration Reform's Chances
[ Posted Monday, April 22nd, 2013 – 16:51 UTC ]
What are the chances comprehensive immigration reform is actually going to happen this year? Your guess is really as good as mine, since we're only at the beginning of a very long path -- one that leads to Obama's desk, but one that also has a lot of dead-ends and side branchings off to legislative doom. Whether a bill can make it through the Senate and (especially) the Republican-controlled House is a very open question, even without the complications of the Boston Marathon bombers.
Friday Talking Points [254] -- A Very Full Week
[ Posted Friday, April 19th, 2013 – 17:17 UTC ]
Some weeks, I sit down to write this weekly wrapup, and find that there isn't that much to talk about, because nothing much happened that particular week.
Obama Poll Watch -- March, 2013
[ Posted Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013 – 16:13 UTC ]
OK, with that out of the way, let's have a look at March's polling. President Obama lost almost all the ground he had gained late in the 2012 election season, and his numbers fell back to where he was roughly six months ago. This isn't as bad as some media have made it out to be, since it may represent Obama's true natural level of support. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, let's take a look at this month's chart:
Rubio On Deck
[ Posted Monday, April 1st, 2013 – 14:55 UTC ]
Senator Marco Rubio, Cuban-American from Florida, is now officially "on deck." He is idly swinging a practice bat back and forth, in anticipation of his first real major-league performance. This moment, it should be noted, has taken a long time to get here. Rubio was elected to the Senate, after all, in the Great Tea Party Shellacking Of 2010. He's had over two years in the Senate now but has yet to put his stamp of approval on any comprehensive immigration legislation, even though he treats it as his own private issue within the Republican Party. Rubio enjoys being seen as "working hard" on some sort of legislative breakthrough on immigration, but up until now, that breakthrough has never actually happened. There's a good reason for that, and the reason is that his fellow Tea Party Republicans (mostly over in the House) are quite content to have Marco Rubio "working hard" on an immigration bill, but they're never going to support anything he actually comes up with. By supporting Rubio "working hard" on the issue, they can conveniently do nothing and (they hope) defuse the issue among the voters.
Friday Talking Points [251] -- Don Young Shows GOP How Not To Reach Out To Minorities
[ Posted Friday, March 29th, 2013 – 17:14 UTC ]
The big news towards the end of the week was "stupid things Republicans say," of course, but we're saving most of that for the "Talking Points" part of the program.
Friday Talking Points [250] -- Happy Sestercentennial Column!
[ Posted Friday, March 22nd, 2013 – 17:08 UTC ]
Welcome to the 250th Friday Talking Points column!
RNC PR BS
[ Posted Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 – 16:39 UTC ]
Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus is in the news this week, for his "autopsy" report on the Republican Party in the 2012 election. Priebus and a few other hardy Republican souls took months to examine what went wrong for the party, and what should be done to set things right for the next time around. Their prescription for change, unfortunately, is to change how their message is delivered rather than to change much in the way of Republican policies. I'm certainly not the first to point this out, but this idea works out to exactly the same as what you are left with when you remove the vowels from the national party chairman's name: RNC PR BS.