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To his supporters, one of Ron Paul's most endearing qualities is his forthrightness. Paul doesn't mince words, he tells you to your face exactly what he thinks. And, to give the man credit, he keeps to his positions even when it would be a lot easier for him to either fudge an answer or tone down his beliefs, the way most politicians do (at certain times).
This should force pundits across the political spectrum to re-evaluate Rick Perry's campaign. Instead of seeing through the lens of: "what my circle of friends thinks of Rick Perry's gaffes," this time the pundits should focus a little more closely on: "what Republican primary voters think of Rick Perry as a candidate." Because, so far, they seem to be flocking to support Perry -- to the visible detriment of Mitt Romney's standing in the polls.
It's silly season in the political world, once again. And this year -- just like every year a Democrat occupies the White House -- an old favorite of a story is making the rounds. It involves some very thinly-veneered outrage, which is completely fabricated and hypocritical in the extreme.
Almost a full month ago, I placed four names in the "Frontrunners" category: Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney. This list hasn't changed at all, although Palin will fall back the next time around if she doesn't announce in the next three or four weeks (more on this in a bit).
But perhaps I'm being too harsh. The reason the clip was edited down so much was that the other heckling clip was so much better -- Romney misspeaking, and then instead of just immediately walking it back, actually digging the hole deeper. In answer to a question about raising taxes on corporations, Romney answered (at first) that he wasn't going to raise taxes "on people." When the questioner yelled back "Corporations, not people!" Romney could easily have said something along the lines of "Sorry, I meant to say corporations -- I'm actually not going to raise taxes on people or on corporations, and here's why...." It would have just melded the whole thing into standard Republican dogma, and Romney would have been safe.
Since the news this morning out of Wisconsin is a bit depressing for progressives (and Progressives), I thought it was time to mark an important upcoming centennial there. On the first of September in 1911, the first constitutional workers' compensation law took full effect in Wisconsin. The law had been passed on May 3, 1911. By all rights, I should have written about it back then, or waited until September for the anniversary of the law taking effect, but I thought today was a good day to reminisce about when Wisconsin was at the forefront of the Labor movement, instead of where they find themselves today.
This week is being touted, in the political world, as a big week in the state of Iowa. There will be a nationally-televised Republican presidential candidate debate, and then a few days later the Ames Straw Poll will take place. The straw poll is (as always) being hyped in the media as the "first voting" in the upcoming presidential nominating contest. But the media should pay more attention to what is happening in Wisconsin this week, because rather than some "vote"-buying exercise (that always proves itself to be completely meaningless in the grand scheme of the presidential election process), Wisconsin could prove to be a much better weathervane in terms of predicting which way the political winds will be blowing, come next year.
With the conclusion of the debt ceiling "crisis," the media pivoted swiftly to their standard larger questions (to them, at any rate) about any political event these days: "Who won? Who lost?"
This is unacceptable. This is beyond dysfunctional. This is, in fact, an outrage. So I'm giving Congress a grace period of precisely two days, to get their butts back to Washington to fix this problem immediately. If I don't have a bill on my desk by the end of this Friday, I will instruct my Attorney General to immediately put every member of Congress on the "no-fly" list. To be blunt, if they can't find the time to fund the F.A.A. and prefer to take weeks off on vacation instead, then they will not be allowed to use the F.A.A.'s services in the meantime. Period.
The House and Senate are getting ready to vote on the deal struck to avoid America defaulting on her debts. Nobody knows exactly the magnitude of what is being cut in detail yet, and the news media seem more interested in the eternal "who's up/who's down" horserace nonsense than in informing the public what exactly has been agreed to in this deal. This should come as no surprise, since it is (as always) ever so much more fun for "journalists" to blather on about "what it all means" seen through the political lens, instead of "what it all means" in terms of... well, what it actually is going to mean for America. Perhaps in a few days, when they get bored with the political aspects, we'll finally find out exactly what the cuts are going to cover.