[ Posted Friday, June 29th, 2018 – 17:04 UTC ]
Liberals had a very bad week at the Supreme Court last week. There's no denying it. Almost all of the final decisions of the year went against them, and that was before the news of Justice Anthony Kennedy's impending retirement hit Washington like a bombshell. Fears that President Donald Trump will pick an ultra-conservative to replace him mean that bedrock decisions such as Roe v. Wade are now hanging in the balance. Democrats are vowing to fight hard against the next justice's confirmation, but this is quite likely a fight they are going to lose.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 27th, 2018 – 16:31 UTC ]
I realize there is bigger news from the Supreme Court today, but since I wrote about them yesterday I'm not going to address Anthony Kennedy's retirement yet. Instead, I'd like to focus today on the latest round of primary election results, specifically from New York, Maryland, and Colorado. Because some big news was made within the Democratic Party last night.
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[ Posted Friday, June 15th, 2018 – 18:20 UTC ]
Fox News unwittingly (how else?) spoke a deep truth this week. Or perhaps a deep fantasy -- it's tough to tell, coming from Fox anchors. As President Trump descended the stairs from Air Force One in Singapore, Fox And Friends gushed: "This is history. Regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators, what we are seeing right now -- this is history." Um... how many dictators was that, again? The host later tried to walk back her unintentional gaffe, but is it really all that far off the mark?
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[ Posted Monday, June 11th, 2018 – 16:29 UTC ]
Donald Trump has apparently decided to take the advice of that impressive fount of political wisdom, South Park. It's hard to come to any other conclusion, really, when you recall that one of the songs from their first big movie (a song nominated for an Academy Award, no less) was titled: "Blame Canada." President Trump was obviously inspired by the lyrics: "With all their beady little eyes / And flapping heads so full of lies," when he began his tweetstorm against Justin Trudeau after Trump left the G-7 meeting early.
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[ Posted Friday, June 8th, 2018 – 18:08 UTC ]
As usual, there was a whole lot of political news this week, as President Trump continues to flail his way around the world in multiple unhinged ways. But this week, our eye was caught by the story that the Trump Justice Department has announced it is now conspiring to hand Democrats the midterm elections. Maybe Trump should appoint a special prosecutor to look into or something?
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 6th, 2018 – 17:27 UTC ]
I suppose, if one were more classically-minded, that slogan should be: "Year Of The Woman II." But whatever you call it, 2018 is shaping up to be even bigger for the fairer sex than 1992, the original Year Of The Woman in American politics. There are two reasons this is probably soon going to become conventional wisdom (if it already hasn't): impressive women candidates, and suburban and minority women as the key voting demographics.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 16:43 UTC ]
Eight states are holding primary elections today, making it the biggest election day until November. One-eighth of the entire country lives in California, making it the biggest primary contest for House races by far. But what people will be watching from the California returns isn't so much who will win each district as who will come in second. This is because of California's bizarre "top-two jungle primary," where only the two top vote-getters in the primary advance to the general election ballot no matter which party they are from. This sets up the possibility of voters being presented with two candidates from the same party, which is inherently unfair to all other political parties. But this time around, the campaigning has gotten downright weird, because people are attempting to game the top-two system like never before.
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[ Posted Friday, June 1st, 2018 – 17:11 UTC ]
It was another rollicking week in the world of politics, which is admittedly not saying much in the era of Trump. It was revealed this week that the death toll on Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria was not just higher than had been officially reported, but at least seventy times higher, and in fact was more than twice as high as the death toll from Hurricane Katrina. You'd think this would be a gigantic media story, but (sadly) you would be wrong. Just like everything else about the devastation, most certainly including the media's treatment of it, this bombshell report was largely ignored this week. No wonder Puerto Ricans feel like second-class citizens, when they keep getting second-class treatment like this.
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[ Posted Friday, May 25th, 2018 – 17:22 UTC ]
We've always been planning a meeting with Eastasia. What's that? Oh, wait... we've never been planning a meeting with Eastasia. Any suggestion of such a meeting has been tossed down the memory hole -- along with the commemorative coins we prematurely minted to celebrate it.
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[ Posted Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018 – 17:29 UTC ]
Last night, Stacey Abrams moved one step closer to making history, by easily defeating Stacey Evans in the Democratic primary for governor in the state of Georgia. If she can manage an upset win in November, she will become the first African-American woman governor in American history. So it would be a big milestone not only for the voters of Georgia, but nationwide.
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