[ Posted Monday, June 30th, 2014 – 17:55 UTC ]
The makeup of the current Supreme Court can be seen, in one way, as a big success story for certain minorities. It is a triumph, in fact, for two groups which have historically had to put up with a lot of discrimination and lack of political representation in America. These two groups are not defined by gender or race, but rather by religion. Broken down on religious lines, today's Supreme Court has members from just two religions, both of which had been historically underrepresented on the highest court: Roman Catholics and Jews. There are six Roman Catholics currently serving on the court (Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Sonia Sotomayor, and Clarence Thomas) and three Jews (Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Elena Kagen). This is undoubtedly a story of rising up from underrepresentation. But, bearing in mind that America is a country with almost too many religions to count, have we actually moved into a problem of overrepresentation or lack of diversity? The question is on my mind today, obviously, as a result of the decision today in the Hobby Lobby contraception case. Three Jewish Justices and one Roman Catholic voted against five other Roman Catholics in a case defining the dividing line between religion and government -- a decision which affects us all.
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[ Posted Friday, June 27th, 2014 – 16:52 UTC ]
'Tis the season when the political press all goes a-courtin'. So to speak.
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[ Posted Monday, June 23rd, 2014 – 16:07 UTC ]
In all the pontificating on what now should be done (and what should have been done previously) in Iraq, one subject oddly never seems to be on the table. I find this a bit strange, because it really should be a subject worthy of debate -- if only to add to the finger-pointing about what could have been done to avoid the current situation. From hawks to isolationists, though, nobody seems to ever bring up the possibility of Iraqis performing their own airstrikes. To put this another way: where is the Iraqi Air Force?
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[ Posted Friday, June 20th, 2014 – 17:07 UTC ]
Today, we're going to have a special edition of the talking points, where we get to know a Montana politician who seems to be seriously considering taking on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. But before we do so, it was a busy week otherwise, so let's just dive right into it. First, a look at what's going with Republicans.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 18th, 2014 – 17:56 UTC ]
Vice President Joe Biden was right. Let's begin with that.
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[ Posted Friday, June 13th, 2014 – 17:39 UTC ]
I have to begin this week by apologizing for the irreverent nature of that title, but then how often do you get a chance to coin a cool word like "selenofriggatriskaidekaphobia"? The proper answer is that the chance won't come again until 2049, which explains why we couldn't resist. The word is a mashup of two phobias, the fear of a full moon (selenophobia) and the fear of Friday the 13th (friggatriskaidekaphobia, not to be confused with fear of the number 13, which is just triskaidekaphobia, of course). The rare occurrence of a full moon on a Friday the 13th won't happen again for another 35 years, so today's pretty much it for this generation of selenofriggatriskaidekaphobics, at least. But enough of this looney etymological fun, let's get on with a week chock-full of political happenings, shall we?
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 11th, 2014 – 16:51 UTC ]
Every so often, the American political world is turned upside down. Last night was one of those moments, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was "primaried" out of a job. Nobody (including me) predicted this upset. Today, pundits are falling all over themselves to come up with an appropriate metaphor for the magnitude of Cantor's loss on the political scene. Living in California as I do, I'm going to go with earthquake terminology: this was a massive and cataclysmic temblor for Republicans -- the equivalent of about a 9.0 on the political Richter scale.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 10th, 2014 – 18:51 UTC ]
When we look back at this particular week much later on, it seems we'll remember it as the week the 2016 presidential race truly began in earnest. Measured by the sheer volume of headlines generated and punditry produced, now will be seen as the moment when Hillary Clinton reintroduced herself to America. With the kickoff of her book tour, Clinton has already started tongues wagging (in a major way) about what her chances will be in 2016.
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[ Posted Monday, June 9th, 2014 – 16:58 UTC ]
A proposal from Senator Elizabeth Warren would drastically change the program, but so far it hasn't gotten President Obama's full-throated support. While I understand that Obama can rightly say that he's doing what he can on student loans outside of Congress, if he truly wanted to reform the program he would get solidly behind Warren's proposal and push it as hard as possible, in an effort to shame at least the Senate into acting upon it.
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[ Posted Friday, June 6th, 2014 – 16:43 UTC ]
This week was notable in many respects in the political world, but one subject overwhelmed almost everything else. We're going to address the prisoner swap and Bowe Bergdahl in an unusual way this week, in lieu of our regular talking points at the end of the column. But first, we're going to take a very quick look at what else happened this week, and then hand out the weekly awards.
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