[ Posted Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 – 16:23 UTC ]
President Obama ended up his first term by consolidating the job approval polling gains he made in his re-election. His numbers have settled into a new range, and were remarkably steady all month long. Obama's "second honeymoon" period with the public may not last more than a few months, but for now seems to be holding steady. With the election fading into the past, Obama's in a pretty good position right now in terms of "political capital," but this will likely change as legislative reality sets in.
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 5th, 2013 – 18:05 UTC ]
It is fashionable nowadays for pundits to decry the partisan polarization in Washington, and to bemoan how "broken" Congress is. Nothing will get done with such divided government, such conventional wisdom dictates. We're in for a long and bitter two years of legislative gridlock. I try to be an eternal optimist (while still staying within the bounds of reasonableness), and I can't help but wonder if this thinking may turn out to be wrong. Perhaps -- just perhaps, mind you -- the 113th Congress will be able to actually get a few important things done.
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[ Posted Friday, February 1st, 2013 – 18:48 UTC ]
We seem to have a gang problem on Capitol Hill once again.
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[ Posted Friday, January 18th, 2013 – 16:02 UTC ]
Eric Cantor, much to our surprise, almost just did something we not only would have agreed with, but in fact given our wholehearted support to. Almost.
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[ Posted Friday, January 4th, 2013 – 17:32 UTC ]
If we had a "best quote" awards category, we'd certainly have to nominate what outgoing House Republican Steven La Tourette had to say about the whole situation, after the Senate had voted 89-8 to approve the fiscal cliff avoidance deal: "We should not take a package put together by a bunch of sleep-deprived octogenarians on New Year's Eve." Now that's funny!
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013 – 17:17 UTC ]
A happy chart indeed for Obama fans. Last month I predicted this rise by noting that many of the nationwide polling operations just ceased polling after the election was over. This dearth of data meant that while Obama's numbers were climbing fast, the "poll of polls" average at RealClearPolitics.com was dragged downwards by pre-election numbers still being averaged in. While I did predict that Obama's numbers would continue to rise in December (as more and more data came in), I will admit that even I was surprised at size of the post-election bump which Obama managed.
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[ Posted Friday, December 28th, 2012 – 18:02 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
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[ Posted Thursday, December 27th, 2012 – 16:22 UTC ]
The mainstream media is letting American taxpayers down, once again. Because there's a change coming in everyone's first paycheck of the new year that most of the news stories about the fiscal cliff negotiations only occasionally mention, and usually just in passing. But the impact will be widely (almost "universally," in fact) felt, and it's going to mean a pay reduction for all workers of two percent. Taxes are going up by this two percent, meaning paychecks will be smaller. And -- here's the important part that gets lost in all the breathlessness over the fiscal cliff by blow-dried newsfolks -- this change is going to happen no matter what gets agreed upon to deal with the rest of the fiscal cliff.
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[ Posted Friday, December 21st, 2012 – 18:13 UTC ]
Welcome to the seventh annual homage (which sounds so much nicer than "blatant ripoff," don't you think?) to the television show The McLaughlin Group, since they have the most extensive year-end award category list of anyone around. Since "extensive" is my middle name (well, not really, although I do tend to wander off into the parenthetical wilderness at times, do I not?), such a long list fits right in here.
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[ Posted Thursday, December 20th, 2012 – 12:30 UTC ]
Instead of a column today, I'll be working hard reviewing 2012 for tomorrow's big year-end awards column (see previous "Program Note" if you'd like to offer up nominees).
Rather than reading a column from my keyboard today, though, you can hear the interview I did this morning on the Uprising! show on KPFK radio (part of [...]
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