[ Posted Tuesday, May 12th, 2015 – 16:42 UTC ]
I certainly never thought I'd have this opportunity, but today's title is a quote from one of the funniest episodes of one of the funniest television shows of all time: the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans." If you haven't ever seen it, you should. The show features John Cleese of Monty Python fame, and while it only lasted one season is still absolutely hilarious. Cleese, as Basil Fawlty, owns a hotel he runs with his wife. During the episode, he repeatedly gets knocked on the head (even once fleeing the hospital instead of recovering from a particularly bad knock), and then in a daze manages to offend his German guests by "mentioning" World War II in practically everything that comes out of his mouth. The goose-stepping scene is one of Cleese's finest comedic performances, in fact.
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[ Posted Friday, May 8th, 2015 – 18:01 UTC ]
When it comes to the 2016 field of Republican presidential candidates, the rule of thumb this time around is obviously going to be "the more, the merrier!" The number of officially-announced Republican candidates actually doubled this week (from three to six), as Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee all tossed their hats into the ring.
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[ Posted Monday, May 4th, 2015 – 17:18 UTC ]
Last week, the field of officially-announced Democratic presidential candidates doubled in size, from one person to two. This week, the Republican presidential field is likewise going to double, from three candidates to six. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio have all previously officially announced their candidacies, and this week they will be joined by Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson (who announced today), and Mike Huckabee (scheduled to announce tomorrow).
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[ Posted Friday, May 1st, 2015 – 16:34 UTC ]
We've got everything from hippies to Satanists to cover this week, so let's just dive right in, shall we?
The Supreme Court heard a monumental case on marriage equality, which could indeed be their last case ever on the subject (if Justice Kennedy votes the way many expect him to, resulting in gay marriage in all [...]
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[ Posted Friday, April 24th, 2015 – 17:26 UTC ]
We'll get to other political news in a moment, but since last week contained the date 4/20, we're going to first run down all the marijuana news. Coincidentally or not, there was a lot of it this week. So let's just begin by "getting into the weeds" of politics, as it were (the ponies come along later, never fear).
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 21st, 2015 – 17:26 UTC ]
A few words of introduction are necessary today. I spent most of the day dealing with email (cleaning out my mailbox and fishing for quotes for tomorrow's article), so instead of a fresh column today, I'm re-running a speech from Hillary Clinton from November of 2007.
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[ Posted Monday, April 20th, 2015 – 17:28 UTC ]
I write today to challenge what is fast becoming conventional wisdom in the political world. In particular, the notion that Hillary Clinton really needs a strong primary challenge to "toughen her up" for the upcoming race with whomever the Republicans decide upon. When you deconstruct the logic behind this idea, however, it falls apart.
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[ Posted Friday, April 17th, 2015 – 17:11 UTC ]
Strange but true, the "Scooby van" is now part of our political lexicon. Hillary Clinton herself is apparently to blame for this one, as this was the playful name she came up with for the van she used to get from New York to Iowa this week. The media, as it will be doing for the next year and a half over pretty much any new aspect of Hillary Clinton's campaign (and we do mean "any new aspect at all -- even the laughably trivial"), quite predictably, freaked out.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 14th, 2015 – 15:10 UTC ]
Yesterday, Senator Marco Rubio became the fourth candidate to officially announce his intentions for the 2016 presidential run. He now joins Ted Cruz and Rand Paul in his own party, and Hillary Clinton across the aisle, as official candidates. I have to say, one thing about Rubio's candidacy is impressive, even if you don't agree with anything the man stands for. Rubio is going "all in," in poker terms. If he doesn't win his party's nomination and go on to win the White House, then he will almost certainly be out of a job when the dust settles. That shows a degree of commitment that few other politicians ever make these days, casting aside a cushy Senate seat for the chance at becoming president. As in poker, he's shoved all his chips to the middle of the table for one bet that could leave him at the top or flat broke. And, I have to say, that in and of itself is an admirable thing.
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[ Posted Monday, April 13th, 2015 – 16:54 UTC ]
And so it begins. Hillary Clinton is now officially in the race for the White House. Her announcement, like pretty much everything else about her upcoming campaign, will be microscopically analyzed within an inch of its life. Was she too generic? Was she appealing enough? Where were the specifics? What about Bill? And what was up with that laughably 1970s campaign logo? Most of these deep-dive analyses won't make a tiny bit of difference, in the long run (well, OK, that logo is pretty bad, hopefully that's the first thing Team Hillary decides to change...). But it'll certainly give all the pundits something to do in the meantime.
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