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"Boehner's trouble isn't even that he's trying to herd cats -- it's that he's trying to herd stupid insane cats."
We begin today with some awfully short memories, from both the Right and the Left, on the crossover subjects of presidential debates, television, and Hillary Clinton. It all stems from the news that the Republican National Committee has announced it will not sanction 2016 Republican candidate debates on CNN and NBC, because the two stations are both putting together movies about Hillary Clinton. The RNC feels that this will unacceptably prejudice the networks in the 2016 presidential race, in which Clinton is likely to be a Democratic candidate.
Just so no one makes the accusation that I'm belittling Attorney General Eric Holder's speech today; if my headline were longer, it would conclude: "...and one giant leap for the Department of Justice." Holder's speech today, and his new policy announcements and proposals, are indeed a significant leap forward for the federal government, which -- ever since Nancy Reagan and the tragic death of Len Bias -- has been locking people up for drug offenses at a rate unparalleled in American history. What Holder said today was that it's time for this outdated, expensive, and largely futile policy to end, or at least be severely curtailed. And that, indeed, is a giant rhetorical and philosophical leap forward.
The big political news today, of course, was President Obama's press conference. While the subject matter largely revolved around the National Security Agency reforms Obama is belatedly proposing, I found the rest of the presser to be more interesting, personally -- mostly because the excerpt we're going to provide will in all likelihood be virtually ignored in most media reports. But we'll get to all that in the remainder of the column.
Attorney General Eric Holder seems to be signaling that he'll soon be announcing major changes in the federal government's policies on illegal drugs. If this turns out to be true, it will indeed be a welcome change in the approach the Justice Department has taken under President Barack Obama. Obama is now the third president to have admitted smoking marijuana before he entered office (well, OK, the second one who admitted inhaling, technically, but still...), so any changes are indeed long overdue.
It was a busy week in Washington, since all the congresscritters were eager to get out of town for their not-so-well-earned five weeks of vacation. It'll take awhile for the dust to settle, so let's take a look at some of what's been happening while it does.
The news of Bradley Manning's conviction today on multiple charges (and his acquittal on the most serious one) has people lining up to either defend or denounce the verdict. We'll probably be hearing about it all week, in fact. When he is sentenced, it will spur another round of this debate, no doubt.
Marijuana seems to be all over the news today, so I thought I'd just give a quick rundown of the recent developments, with a little call to action at the end.
OK, we've got somewhat of a backlog to take care of here, due to summertime laziness striking early this year. So we're just going to plow through the swirling storm of craziness as fast as possible. Insert your own "Sharknado" joke, if you feel so inclined.
Well, we've been away for two weeks, and those two weeks were just chock-full of political news, so we've got a lot to cover. The reason for the interruption in columns was, of course, our attending Netroots Nation, the yearly conclave of bloggers, Progressives, and all and sundry who like hanging out with them. Which brings us to this week's unusual title -- today's Friday Talking Points, for the first time ever, are going to be professionally-produced and focus-group-tested. More on this later.