Your generous
donations help keep
this site running.
Visa/MC/PayPal accepted.
What's that? Mayans? Not Maya Rudolph? Man, I've got to start paying closer attention to these things. I'm still trying to figure out what sort of omen it is that Paul McCartney performed with Nirvana on 12/12/12, personally. Maybe not the end times, but certainly the strange times.
The news that the Supreme Court will be taking up two important gay marriage cases was expected, but nonetheless created a burst of commentary. But I can't help but wonder if people are getting the cases slightly backwards. In short, I think the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) case is going to prove to be more important than the Proposition 8 case from California.
Where to begin? Let's see, Obama's job approval polling is not completely through the roof, but it certainly has scraped the ceiling. The Associated Press just released a new poll that has Obama at 57 percent approval, 41 percent disapproval -- a job approval level the president hasn't seen since Osama Bin Laden's death. Added to today's unemployment rate dropping to the lowest point since Obama has held office, and you've got to believe that the folks in the White House have plenty to celebrate this holiday season.
Before his second term has even begun, are we seeing "Obama 2.0" in action? This is the question swirling around right now in the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy, and it's a refreshing one to contemplate: has President Barack Obama finally learned his lesson that his old method of legislative negotiation simply was not working? Has he, to put it another way, grown some backbone?
In a way, I'm glad that David Petraeus's sex scandal is playing out across the pages and television screens of the mass media. Because one of the alternative ways it could have been handled is so much worse.
This is a roundabout way of introducing this column, by pointing out that we all saw the same Cheech and Chong movies, growing up. Which is doubtlessly why the governor of Colorado felt it was appropriate to send out the following as a response to the voters of his state approving marijuana legalization:
No, seriously. All kidding aside. I've got the winning issue that -- if Republicans were to jump on it right at this very moment, and get out in front and show some leadership -- could revitalize their entire party, save them from the brink of demographic extinction, and enormously boost their chances to win future national elections.
Seriously, a man running for the most powerful office in the country didn't bother to plan for one of the two contingencies that were guaranteed to happen last night? And he wanted us to let him make crucial decisions for all of us? Willard Mitt Romney's shocking lack of preparedness last night, when it came to speech time, was truly the icing on the sweet, sweet cake of Barack Hussein Obama's second victorious election, at least for me.
No, this is not going to be a column about Donald Trump, who is apparently trying to get his face in the news again over Barack Obama's college records. Instead, we are going to feature a cartoon about education, from Joshua L. Eisenstein, PhD., in collaboration with cartoonist Sushila Oliphant.
As always, we are here to bring you the burning questions of the day that nobody else is asking. Today's question: What will we call the 2012 women?