[ Posted Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 – 17:07 UTC ]
The issue of what, exactly, "three co-equal branches" means in American government -- and, more importantly, what happens when two of them disagree -- goes back a long way. Further than Franklin Roosevelt, further even than Abraham Lincoln. The first president to truly tangle with the Supreme Court was actually Andrew Jackson, who fought the court on two separate issues: Jackson's policy of "Indian removal," and the Second Bank of the United States. The first one is where Jackson responded (according to legend -- he may not have actually said this) to a court ruling against him: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" By doing so, Jackson was stating his open defiance of a Supreme Court decision, and pointing out that the Executive Branch actually controlled the levers of federal power, and not the Judicial Branch.
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[ Posted Thursday, October 13th, 2011 – 16:57 UTC ]
Because Mormonism is in the news again, due to a Rick Perry supporter calling it a "cult," I thought it was high time to re-run the following column.
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[ Posted Monday, September 19th, 2011 – 16:57 UTC ]
"Populism" is a word that gets thrown around with abandon by folks masquerading as journalists on television these days. Sarah Palin had the word used to describe her, and later, the entire Tea Party movement was labeled "populist" by the chattering classes. Today, President Obama unveiled a truly populist agenda, by proposing to tax millionaires at the same tax rate that middle-class Americans pay. By doing so, Obama will (hopefully) redefine the term "populism" in the political conversation. Or, to be technical, he will re-redefine the word back to what it originally meant.
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[ Posted Monday, August 22nd, 2011 – 17:05 UTC ]
Even with all those caveats, however, Obama deserves a victory lap at this point. At the heart of Obama's war plan for Libya was an enormous gamble that could have failed in any number of ways. It didn't. America successfully cleared the skies of Libya, and then "within days, not weeks" we bowed out of the lead role in the fight. The French, the British, and the rest of N.A.T.O. stepped up to the plate and performed admirably well. The American military continued in a support role -- exactly as Obama told us would happen -- and the outcome, at this point in time, has to be judged a clear success.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 – 15:57 UTC ]
This is unacceptable. This is beyond dysfunctional. This is, in fact, an outrage. So I'm giving Congress a grace period of precisely two days, to get their butts back to Washington to fix this problem immediately. If I don't have a bill on my desk by the end of this Friday, I will instruct my Attorney General to immediately put every member of Congress on the "no-fly" list. To be blunt, if they can't find the time to fund the F.A.A. and prefer to take weeks off on vacation instead, then they will not be allowed to use the F.A.A.'s services in the meantime. Period.
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[ Posted Friday, July 29th, 2011 – 16:37 UTC ]
If I were a Hobbit, right about now I would be wondering just how the heck I wound up at the center of this Washington intraparty political fight, personally. What (I would ponder in my metaphorical Hobbit hole) had I done to any of these folks to deserve being dragged into this fracas?
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[ Posted Thursday, July 28th, 2011 – 16:33 UTC ]
As I write this, the House of Representatives has still not voted on Speaker John Boehner's plan to raise the debt ceiling. But no matter how the vote goes, the real question behind this week's action in the Republican caucus in the House may be whether Boehner will still be Speaker when the shouting's over and done. The simmering Tea Party factionalism may be about to explode into public view, in other words.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 – 15:07 UTC ]
There are now only a handful of possible outcomes of the debt ceiling standoff in Washington. We'll get to them all in a minute in more detail. One way or another, it's a pretty safe bet that the issue will (at least temporarily) be resolved by the fifth of August, at the absolute latest. Bank on it. The reason for such certainty is a simple one: if the debate goes on in any way past that date, then it will start to cut into Congress' month-long summer vacation. Which is (as any observer of American politics should know full well) the one unthinkable bridge-too-far in Washington. Because Congress' vacations are sacred... at least, to them.
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[ Posted Friday, July 22nd, 2011 – 17:12 UTC ]
The bigger space news this week, sadly, was not that exciting. The final space shuttle mission just ended. Although I didn't see it specifically, a newspaper headline-writer with a sense of irony would have set the story under: "The Shuttle Has Landed." Because this week also saw an anniversary of import to the discussion -- 42 years ago this Wednesday, Neil Armstrong radioed back to Houston the immortal phrase: "The Eagle has landed," marking the first safe landing on Earth's natural satellite by the human species.
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[ Posted Friday, July 15th, 2011 – 16:50 UTC ]
Are we seeing the new model of Barack Obama's presidency? Is this (in the parlance of Silicon Valley) "Obama 2.0"?
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