[ Posted Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020 – 17:35 UTC ]
As the Iowa caucuses draw nearer and nearer, the Democratic presidential candidates are getting a little sharper-edged towards each other, it seems. I say "it seems" because all I know of the dustups is what I read in the media, and they're an often-inaccurate judge of what is really going on. The candidates might have been this sharp all along and it is only now that the media has noticed, to give just one example of how they might be misleading us. But whether new or just the media's current obsession, the attacks flying between the candidates (and former candidates, now) are all being covered with breathless glee.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 21st, 2020 – 19:05 UTC ]
Today is the first day of the impeachment trial, some of which I watched earlier. However, nothing of any real note will happen today as the whole debate currently is over the rules the Senate will agree to for the trial itself -- and Mitch McConnell seems to have the GOP votes locked down to push through his own version of the rules. Notably, these will not be as stringent as he initially proposed, but that victory apparently came from pushback from within his own party, not from Democrats. In any case, we'll have plenty of time in the coming days to discuss the trial, so today instead I decided to take a look at what Iowa and New Hampshire will mean for the leading Democratic presidential candidates instead.
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[ Posted Monday, January 20th, 2020 – 18:13 UTC ]
Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior was a radical, which is oft forgotten in all the praise we heap upon him on his birthday. The reason it gets overlooked so frequently is that we'll all hear miniature clips of King today which highlight the positive aspects of his agenda and his movement while editing out all the harder edges of what he had to say. He was non-violent, to be true, but radical does not equate to violent. Most people think of the two as interlinked, but they're not. Dr. King preached non-violent radicalism.
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[ Posted Friday, January 17th, 2020 – 17:46 UTC ]
This doublethink continued this week, as every sitting senator (except the one who was absent due to a family medical emergency) swore a solemn oath to be an impartial juror -- an oath that several Republicans have already publicly promised to utterly disregard. Because, you know, all that business about being for law and order and all that tut-tutting over the sins of "moral relativism" is so 1990s.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 16th, 2020 – 17:43 UTC ]
I have to begin with an apology to The Wizard Of Oz for that title. But somehow it seemed appropriate in the latest of the so-called "culture wars." Because I think most everyone is missing the point about Donald Trump's newfound focus on household appliances.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 15th, 2020 – 00:12 UTC ]
To use a sports metaphor, we're right at the end of the pre-season and about to start the actual games that count. Tonight was the last presidential debate between the Democratic candidates before Iowa votes in its caucuses. From now on, in each subsequent debate, we'll know not just who is up in the public opinion polling, but who has done better at the actual polls, where voters cast their ballots for the Democratic nomination.
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[ Posted Monday, January 13th, 2020 – 18:21 UTC ]
As you may have heard, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are now locked in a political deathmatch, trading body blows and viciously attacking each other. Except for the fact that this isn't really true, of course. But the media loves confrontation, so when there isn't much to work with, they just hype the heck out of whatever thin reeds they have available.
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[ Posted Friday, January 10th, 2020 – 18:29 UTC ]
We've said it before and we're sure we'll have to say it again before the year's out, but President Trump is the personification of what Richard Nixon used to call the "Madman Theory" of foreign policy. Back then, it was a bluff -- if Nixon acted crazy enough, then perhaps the North Vietnamese would think he was so crazy he might just drop a nuclear bomb on them. This would tend to restrain them more than if they were sure he wouldn't.
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[ Posted Friday, January 3rd, 2020 – 18:23 UTC ]
As we sit down to write this, America is on the brink... of a lot of things, all at once. Largest among these: we are now on the brink of another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran. We could also be on the brink of a North Korean nuclear test or I.C.B.M. launch, which would probably signal a disastrous end to the Trump diplomatic bromance with Kim Jong Un. We're on the brink of a presidential impeachment trial in the Senate -- only the third one in our entire history. We're on the brink of a presidential primary season. And we're on the brink of a new political decade. All are pretty momentous, meaning that 2020 could turn out to be even more chaotic than the three years which preceded it. There's a scary (or just plain exhausting) thought, indeed.
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[ Posted Friday, December 27th, 2019 – 19:41 UTC ]
Welcome back to the second and final installment of our year-end awards columns! If you missed last week's column, you should probably check that out, too.
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