[ Posted Thursday, February 14th, 2019 – 18:09 UTC ]
Freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has unveiled her first legislative effort, the "Green New Deal" resolution. The rollout was a little rocky, with some rookie mistakes made. But putting all that aside, I thought it'd be worthwhile to take a look at the actual text of the resolution itself. It's already being demonized by Republicans in a way not seen since the "death panels" demonization of Obamacare, so it's important to see what is actually in it, rather than the caricature of it that its opponents are already creating.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, February 13th, 2019 – 18:00 UTC ]
Do we need new labels to adequately describe the Democratic Party's ever-widening 2020 presidential field -- and, beyond, to more accurately describe the factions currently at play within the party at large? Because when most everyone agrees on the goals but differs mainly on the tactics that should be used to get there (or how fast we should try to get there), this doesn't really fit the old "leftist-versus-centrist" political scale at all anymore.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, February 8th, 2019 – 18:52 UTC ]
It's been an eventful week, with Trump's second State Of The Union speech and Virginia politics entering complete free-fall. Democrats in the House began work in earnest this week as well, on both the legislative and investigative fronts. Also, there are now some new Boondocks comics! So the week was anything but dull, although it was a bit disjointed.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 – 23:21 UTC ]
As usual, what follows are my own snap reactions to President Donald Trump's second State Of The Union speech (he's actually now given three such addresses to Congress, but the first one doesn't technically count as a State Of The Union speech). I write all of this before hearing or reading what other pundits thought, so I won't be influenced by any sort of groupthink about the speech.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, February 1st, 2019 – 19:38 UTC ]
The biggest news on the Democratic side of the aisle -- as it will be from now until at least the spring of 2020 -- is the presidential contest. The race is getting bigger, as more and more people toss their chapeaux into the ring.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, February 1st, 2019 – 18:29 UTC ]
There's something new in the air in Democratic politics, or at the very least something old that is now getting a whole lot more attention now than it has in a long time. Nothing shows the pivot in the Democratic Party away from Clintonian centrism (or corporatism) back to the party's workingman roots as much as the newfound eagerness to tax the rich. So far, the only real disagreements among Democrats are how to tax the rich, not over whether they should be taxed more at all. This is a sea-change from what the party stood for back in the 1990s, when being "business-friendly" was something Democratic politicians strove for.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 17:52 UTC ]
Denial, as the punny saying goes, is not just a river in Egypt. President Donald Trump seems to still be floating down De Nile, however, oblivious to the world of reality around him. This isn't exactly a crisis yet, but it certainly will become a lot more noticeable as time goes by.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 18:28 UTC ]
President Donald Trump's government shutdown became only the second-biggest media story this morning, after the news broke of an early-morning raid that wound up with the arrest of Roger Stone on charges of obstruction and witness-tampering. Bob Mueller's investigation just caught another witch, in other words. Trump, of course, can't stand to see (1) news about Mueller, and (2) any television news story that isn't all about him, so he immediately decided to make even bigger news, by caving completely on the shutdown and handing Nancy Pelosi exactly what she's been demanding all along.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, January 24th, 2019 – 18:00 UTC ]
A scant few months ago, the topic du jour at the Washington cocktail parties was whether Nancy Pelosi would even become the next speaker of the House. Maybe a revolt-from-within would take her down. She was seen as (pick one): too old, too weak to fight Trump effectively, too centrist, or too squishy when the going got tough. These arguments now seem laughable, but an outsized amount of attention was paid to them in the punditocracy, and not all that long ago. Is anyone now still wondering whether Pelosi can effectively take on Trump, or whether her age precludes her from being an effective Democratic leader?
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 – 17:25 UTC ]
That headline is a little acronym-heavy, so allow me to spell it out: the President Of The United States is locked in a battle of wills with the Speaker Of The House over the State Of The Union speech. How this all ends is anyone's guess, since it is nothing more than a side drama in the grand government-shutdown Kabuki theater we're all now trapped within. So far, it looks like Nancy Pelosi has the upper hand in the standoff, but you never really know what Donald Trump is going to do next, so it's anyone's guess precisely what is going to happen next Tuesday night.
Read Complete Article »
