[ Posted Tuesday, June 25th, 2013 – 18:39 UTC ]
The Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision today, striking down part of the Voting Rights Act. In essence, the court told Congress to come up with a better formula to determine which jurisdictions will have to pre-clear changes to their voting laws (because the old formula is outdated). This has caused much consternation and outcry, but what was notable was that the court did not throw out the concept of preclearance itself.
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[ Posted Friday, June 21st, 2013 – 16:00 UTC ]
Arizona is a truly beautiful state. It has many spectacular sights, of which the Grand Canyon is the most awe-inspiring. But Arizona is also a state of forbidding landscapes -- much of the state is desert or near-desert, where the heat of the midday sun is a force of nature to be heavily respected, if not downright feared. But what has put Arizona into the news recently is its "forbidding" political landscape. Specifically, on immigration.
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[ Posted Thursday, June 20th, 2013 – 16:00 UTC ]
Does comprehensive immigration reform have a chance of becoming law in 2013?
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 – 16:00 UTC ]
We stand at the beginning of a grand debate on immigration. America goes through these grand debates every generation or so, and what remains constant is that both sides in the fight can be counted upon to accuse the other side of "playing politics" with the immigration issue. This has, indeed already begun.
Republicans are offering up a splendid display of doublethink on the issue, in order to be able to say: "Hah! We were right all along," no matter what happens. Republicans make two accusations, which are completely contradictory (which doesn't seem to bother them at all), that the whole thing is just a cynical political game: (1) Obama and the Democrats want to legalize 11 million people who will then immediately become reliable Democratic voters, and/or (2) Obama and the Democrats will somehow find a way to scuttle the deal because they really don't want to pass any law, they just want to use the issue to beat up Republicans, in election after election. As I mentioned, no matter what happens, they'll be able to fall back on one of these tropes. Democrats, however, are using the second of these (with slight modification) to explain their own wariness: Republicans just want to be able to say: "We tried something" during the next election, and they will find a way to scuttle the deal in the end while blaming Democrats for the legislative failure.
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[ Posted Friday, June 14th, 2013 – 16:37 UTC ]
Last week, Republicans seem to have decided that the whole "autopsy" business after they got beaten so badly in the 2012 elections was just hogwash, and that they should double-down on their demonization and scapegoatery efforts. The "Plum Line" blog over at WashingtonPost.com has a good rundown (although now that the site is disappearing behind a paywall, I may have to reconsider linking to its articles in the future).
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[ Posted Friday, June 7th, 2013 – 16:33 UTC ]
Every so often as I sit down to write these Friday columns, the spirit of the rant overtakes me. Instead of our usual Talking Points section this week, I offer up such a rant, on the death of the Fourth Amendment. You have all been warned. I did consider calling this rant an "Ode To Dianne Feinstein," but then I thought that was too limiting -- she certainly isn't the only one out there singing from the same hymnbook. And I certainly wouldn't want to have anyone feel left out.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 5th, 2013 – 17:08 UTC ]
President Obama should really stop fighting against the idea of making the morning-after pill available to anyone who needs to buy it. He really should instruct Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder to admit defeat on the issue, and to just move on. Because what he's fighting for, ultimately, is his own political hypocrisy. Politically, this should be reason enough to throw in the towel on this fight.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 4th, 2013 – 17:10 UTC ]
The death of Senator Frank Lautenberg has given New Jersey's governor an interesting choice. Who will Chris Christie appoint to fill the vacancy, and what will it mean for his own political future?
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[ Posted Monday, June 3rd, 2013 – 17:22 UTC ]
Barack Obama had a pretty bad month inside the Beltway, with Republicans on the warpath over multiple scandals. Outside Washington, Obama didn't have too bad a month at all, as his job approval ratings barely budged. While this calm may seem to indicate that the public has a much higher tolerance for what constitutes a "scandal" than congressional Republicans, there were indications at the end of the month that this may just be a calm before much stormier poll numbers for the president. But first, let's look back on last month. Here's the chart:
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[ Posted Friday, May 31st, 2013 – 16:25 UTC ]
"You know, after watching the popularity arc of such Tea Party favorites as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, I can't help but wonder why they don't just skip over what appears to be the hardest part of becoming famous for them -- the part about serving in office. Why not just go straight towards being a media darling on the Right? The Fox network could get in on the action in a big way, and broadcast a reality show once a year to search the nation for the next Tea Party superstar. They could call it 'So You Think You Can Rant?' and hire Palin, Bachmann, and Donald Trump to be judges. I bet it'd be a ratings smash, personally."
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