[ Posted Wednesday, January 29th, 2014 – 17:37 UTC ]
Last night, President Obama gave his annual address to Congress and the American people. Reactions, as usual, were all over the map. Listening to some of them, though, I found myself wondering what will happen if the conventional Washington wisdom proves wrong in the 2014 midterm election. Because while I didn't actually hear anyone toss out the "lame duck" term to describe Obama, most commentators were assuming that it's going to be a good Republican year at the polls, and that the only real question is whether Republicans will win control of the Senate or not. But what if this proves not to be true? Call me a cock-eyed optimist if you will, but I couldn't help wondering how different next year's State Of The Union speech will be if Democrats have a much better year than expected, and not only hold the Senate but win control of the House.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 – 22:38 UTC ]
OK, as usual, I'm sitting down to write this without really dipping into the oceans of ink (and electrons) that are being spilled right now by other pundits, so that my reactions to both the "State Of The Union" speech and the Republican response are untainted by either groupthink or the herd mentality. So there's a very good chance (as always) that what I thought will be a long way away from what others think (on both sides of the aisle).
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[ Posted Monday, January 27th, 2014 – 16:46 UTC ]
As the city of Washington prepares for its time in the spotlight tomorrow night (the "State Of The Union" speech being approximately Washington's "Oscar night" on primetime television), pundits will go into overdrive on the question of "what it all means," for roughly the next week or so. Every paragraph of the speech will be examined microscopically, supporters will cheer, opponents will boo, and conclusions will be drawn among the inside-the-Beltway set.
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[ Posted Friday, January 24th, 2014 – 18:37 UTC ]
Sooner or later, though, whether it is 2014 or 2016 or beyond, the "Year Of The Marijuana Voter" is coming.
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[ Posted Monday, January 20th, 2014 – 18:41 UTC ]
Almost immediately after Martin Luther King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Council (S.C.L.C.) in 1957, the F.B.I. began a trail of internal memos warning that the group was "a likely target for communist infiltration." Within a year, King had his own personal F.B.I. file. But it wasn't until 1962 that surveillance of King would be ratcheted up -- which was approved personally by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. By November of 1963, all of King's phones -- both at home and at the S.C.L.C.'s offices -- would be wiretapped.
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[ Posted Friday, January 17th, 2014 – 18:07 UTC ]
Before we begin this week's political wrapup, please be advised that President Obama's speech on reforming the National Security Agency won't be covered here today. Obama just gave the speech this morning, and we feel it is too important to offer up snap judgments, preferring instead to let it percolate for a few days before commenting on the substance of the speech or the newly-announced policies.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 15th, 2014 – 17:32 UTC ]
President Barack Obama is scheduled to give a speech later this week where he will outline changes to be made to the National Security Agency and their ability to collect information. This will be a pivotal speech in the realm of national security and how the federal government operates, especially with regards to the privacy of its own citizens. There is no mistaking the truth, however, that this presidential shift in attitude has come as the result of one man's actions: Edward Snowden. Without Snowden's revelations about the N.S.A., we simply wouldn't be at this point in history.
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[ Posted Monday, January 13th, 2014 – 18:04 UTC ]
We return to our occasional series of "Wildly Early 2016 Presidential Speculation" articles, because of Washington's current obsession over how much damage Chris Christie has done to his chances to become the next Republican nominee for president. Has Christie hurt his chances beyond all repair? Or will (as some of his supporters are beginning to claim) the entire episode actually help out Christie, two years from now?
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[ Posted Friday, January 10th, 2014 – 17:43 UTC ]
Welcome back to our regular Friday roundup of politics! We've been on hiatus for quite a while now, since we took two weeks off to dole out our year-end awards, and then last week we were just sick as a dog, which precluded all rational thought (much less trying to type coherently). So we've got a lot to cover this week, and our apologies in advance for all the stuff we're bound to have missed in the past month.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 9th, 2014 – 17:35 UTC ]
New Jersey governor Chris Christie is in full damage-control mode today, in a desperate attempt to salvage his political career from the depths of a rather ugly scandal. To this end, Christie gave a rather extraordinary two-hour press conference where he concentrated mostly on himself (as is his normal style). Whether he'll be successful at distancing himself from the ugliness or whether it'll sink his future chances of attaining higher office remain to be seen, at this point. But since the rest of the political universe seems to adequately be covering this key question, I thought I'd take a bigger-picture sort of viewpoint today, to ask a crucial question of my own: "Bridgegate? Really?"
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