[ Posted Thursday, July 29th, 2010 – 00:34 UTC ]
Crack cocaine, it is widely known, causes irrational behavior. I speak not of irrational behavior among the drug's users, but rather among politicians. It has done so ever since crack appeared on the scene in America during the 1980s. Today it was announced that Congress has approved a bill (which will now head for President Obama's desk) which will scale back the worst of the irrational legislation which passed in the Reagan era. Somewhat. In true incrementalist fashion, Democrats have now made things slightly less unfair, but fell far short of actual fairness. It's as if, right after the Civil War, Congress announced that black people would now count as four-fifths of a person, instead of the previous three-fifths -- in other words, a step towards equality, but not exactly the giant leap of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Which makes it rather hard to praise such an effort, even though it does represent (some) progress.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 – 17:00 UTC ]
Another dispatch from our resident cartoonist, C.W. Cunningham. And you thought there would be nothing here but a reprint of an old column today... surprise!
About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy
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[ Posted Monday, July 19th, 2010 – 17:29 UTC ]
The White House is, quite obviously, getting back into campaign mode. This is a good thing for Democrats, because it means putting the last spadeful of dirt on the carcass of President Obama's hopes of bipartisanship in Washington during his term of office. But while Obama has recently begun to make the case to voters why electing Democrats this November is a good idea, Vice President Joe Biden has apparently been doing a much better job in terms of framing the debate on Democratic terms. Which means the smartest thing Obama could do right now is to send the Vice President out in front of the media and in front of campaign events to make the case a lot more strongly than Obama could (or should). In other words: more Biden, please.
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[ Posted Friday, July 16th, 2010 – 16:14 UTC ]
This week, Congress -- moving with its usual less-than-blinding speed -- passed a Wall Street reform bill, a mere two years after the crisis hit. Wall Street responded by pulling a secret lever which caused the biggest earthquake Washington has ever felt.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 15th, 2010 – 16:32 UTC ]
President Obama got two pieces of good news today: the Senate passed Wall Street reform, and the volcano of oil on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico may finally have been brought under control. Whether this does him any good with the public remains to be seen, however.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 – 16:11 UTC ]
The next few weeks could turn out to be the most important politically in the remainder of this year. Because this may be the last chance Congress has of passing any big or contentious legislation, before politics consumes everything (even more than at the current time). This is due to a combination of factors, but mostly boils down to the congressional calendar and the midterm election season.
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[ Posted Monday, July 12th, 2010 – 16:57 UTC ]
But this blade cuts both ways. If Republicans are going to stop a bill to extend unemployment which costs less than $40 billion, then how can they turn around and advocate extending the Bush tax cuts on the rich which would cost almost seven hundred billion dollars and still say with a straight face that they're some sort of "deficit hawks"?
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[ Posted Friday, July 9th, 2010 – 17:17 UTC ]
My biggest problem with both Obama's speech and Emanuel's interview is that neither one of them truly seems to understand that an election is underway. The word "Republican" is not uttered once by President Obama. Rahm only uses the word four times, and only two of those are really drawing distinctions between what Democrats want to do, and what Republicans want to do (or, more to the point, not to do). And neither one of them uses the word "Democrat" (or "Democrats" or "Democratic") once.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 8th, 2010 – 16:46 UTC ]
I have to apologize right away for that headline. But it is hard to resist the urge to use the "what have you been smoking?" joke when discussing California Attorney General Jerry Brown's recent comments on marijuana, since Brown is talking such patent nonsense.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 – 15:29 UTC ]
Obama, after gaining a bit in his average approval ratings in May, slipped back in June. But the reversal was slight, continuing a five-month streak of amazingly stable numbers. Since February, Obama's approval rating has stayed within one half of one percentage point, which is pretty remarkable. Unfortunately, this trend may be at an end, and his numbers may be headed even further downwards in July.
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