My 2016 "McLaughlin Awards" [Part 2]
[ Posted Friday, December 30th, 2016 – 18:22 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
Archive of Articles in the "The Constitution" Category
One Big Idea
[ 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.
Friday Talking Points [415] -- Donald Trump And Andrew Jackson
[ 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.
Friday Talking Points [414] -- Special Election Edition
[ 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.
A Mountain Of GOP Hypocrisy, Dead Ahead
[ 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.
Nasty At The End
[ 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.
Thank You, John McCain
[ Posted Tuesday, October 18th, 2016 – 17:09 UTC ]
Senator John McCain just got caught in a "Kinsley gaffe," which is defined as: "a Washington politician accidentally admitting an obvious truth." For which I'd like to thank McCain, because it could actually pave the way for Senate Democrats to combat Republican obstructionism in a very effective manner. McCain's gaffe was on the subject of the Senate's confirmation process for Supreme Court justices. He confirmed what some had already been suspecting -- if Hillary Clinton becomes president, the Senate Republicans might just band together to refuse to confirm anyone she names to the high court. Period.
First Debate Reactions
[ Posted Monday, September 26th, 2016 – 22:27 UTC ]
Well, the first presidential debate is a done deal, and as always I like to quickly type out my own personal reactions before reading everyone else's, to give you an opinion uninfluenced by the herd mentality of the rest of the media.
Friday Talking Points [403] -- GOP Anti-Trump Rants
[ Posted Friday, August 12th, 2016 – 16:56 UTC ]
This column has always loved a good rant. Most of the time, we provide our own rant at the end of the column, on a subject too big to be contained in talking points. This week, we provide a number of rants from Republicans about their very own party's presidential nominee. Yes, it's only August and the Republican Party is coming apart at the seams. Which, of course, makes for great summertime reading for all!
Will Hillary Face Bill's Mandate Problem?
[ Posted Wednesday, August 10th, 2016 – 16:03 UTC ]
It has been an extraordinary two weeks on the presidential campaign trail, but then again that statement could have been uttered pretty much at any point during the past year and still have been just as true. This time around, I'm referring to Donald Trump obviously starting to consider the possibility that he's going to lose the general election. He never used to talk about (or even acknowledge) this possibility before now, but all his dismal post-convention polling may have forced him to begin to think about it.