[ Posted Tuesday, January 31st, 2017 – 17:45 UTC ]
It didn't take Donald Trump long before he had a chance to use his famous catchphrase as president. He has now fired not only the Acting Attorney General, but also a growing number of high-ranking federal employees in a number of departments and agencies (the State Department, and today, the immigration enforcement agency). Whether this is a good thing for the country or even a good thing for Trump politically is debatable, of course. But no matter where you come down on the Trump firings so far, they are not in any way illegal or unconstitutional. The president has wide discretion to fire people, although only down to a certain red line.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 25th, 2017 – 17:44 UTC ]
That headline is an obvious attempt at a play on words, but while "taking the Fifth" (refusing to testify on the grounds that it would tend to incriminate you, a right guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) happens on a daily basis in America, "taking the Twenty-Fifth" has never happened -- at least not in the way some are now contemplating. I first briefly wrote about this issue two weeks ago, but since then more and more people -- from both the right and the left -- have been noticing this constitutional oddity. But few are taking the time to read the entire section, instead quoting the start of it and ignoring the rest of it, which deals with the actual procedure itself. If you seriously are considering removing the president in a constitutional coup, however, it's worth taking a strong look at the Twenty-Fifth, in full.
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[ Posted Friday, January 13th, 2017 – 17:47 UTC ]
We know there's that pesky clause in the Constitution and all, but doesn't it seem like today would have been more appropriate for Donald Trump's inauguration? That's our way of saying "Happy Friday the 13th" to everyone, we should point out. Ahem.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 12th, 2017 – 17:57 UTC ]
I've been taking a look back at the Obama presidency this week, so I thought it'd only be fair to look forward today and lay out the possible outcomes of the presidency of Donald Trump. Now, before I even start, I realize this is largely a fool's errand, for any number of reasons. But that's never stopped me before, and today I intend not to make predictions of what will happen, but rather run the whole gamut of what could conceivably happen. If rampant speculation without a shred of conclusion isn't your cup of tea, then I'd advise just skipping today's column altogether.
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[ Posted Friday, December 30th, 2016 – 18:22 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
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[ Posted Tuesday, November 15th, 2016 – 18:00 UTC ]
Democrats are, to put it mildly, in disarray right now. There's a very open debate taking place as to which direction the party should head, and who should be leading it. This is all normal after losing an election. The 2016 election was a disaster at the top of the ticket, but wasn't so bad further down. Democrats actually picked up some House seats, and flipped two Senate seats back. Of course, this was disappointing because they had expected to pick up a lot more seats in both houses, but it could have been much worse -- Republicans might have expanded their majorities.
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[ Posted Friday, November 11th, 2016 – 17:34 UTC ]
Last week, we pre-empted our usual Talking Points format for a pre-election column. This week, we're going to do the same for a post-election column. The shock has not worn off, and it just feels too soon to return to analyzing Democratic politics. Democrats are in disarray right now, which is probably a good thing in the long run, at least if it leads to some major course corrections. But the wounds are still too raw for us to rub any further salt in them, so instead today we'd like to take a detour into history instead. If history bores you in general, we'd suggest you skip the rest of this column. For everyone else, let's take a look back today.
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[ Posted Friday, November 4th, 2016 – 17:06 UTC ]
However, regular readers of this column are going to have to wait yet another week for a standard Friday Talking Points offering. This week we are throwing out our format entirely, and instead providing an explanation of who we're voting for, followed by a call for reform in an effort to inject a possible silver lining to what promises to be a very contentious Election Day (no matter who wins). Yes, there will be optimism at the end of this column, specifically provided for people who are tired of the apocalyptic tone of the final pre-election week. So there's that to look forward to.
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[ Posted Tuesday, October 25th, 2016 – 16:35 UTC ]
Assuming the polls are not "rigged," and barring any last-minute revelations in the campaign season, Hillary Clinton is going to be our next president. The chances of this becoming true have been increasing ever since the first general election debate, and they now seem to have crossed the borderline into near-certainty. If Democrats also pick up at least four Senate seats as well, we should all be prepared for a steaming pile of hypocrisy from Republican senators immediately thereafter, as they fall all over themselves in a rush to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court before Barack Obama leaves office.
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 19th, 2016 – 22:10 UTC ]
Tonight was (finally!) the last presidential debate of the 2016 election season. I thought it was a better debate (if less entertaining) than the first two, personally. A lot of actual policy positions were discussed, the candidates interacted with each other without so much of the "everyone's screaming at once" interludes, and the moderator kept the subjects moving along at a good clip. So my overall impression of the final debate was that it was a lot more like a normal presidential debate than the previous two.
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