This week is going to be chock full of big political stories, including Donald Trump testifying in his fraud trial in New York today and the third Republican debate on Wednesday. But today I thought it was worth taking a look at the other big political story of the week, since tomorrow's elections have several interesting possibilities that could reverberate beyond the borders of the states where they are held. Three states in particular are going to be impactful, no matter what the outcomes may be: Mississippi, Virginia, and Ohio.

Read Complete Article »

Polling for the likeliest of general election matchups this far out -- almost exactly one year until people actually get to vote for president next November -- cannot be seen as definitive, but it also cannot be brushed aside as irrelevant (since it's pretty obvious at this point that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are going to wind up winning the two major parties' nominations). But it won't actually be just a two-man contest, since there will be other names on the ballot, in what is likely to be enough states to make a big difference. Both Robert F. Kennedy Junior and Cornel West have announced they are going to be running as independents, and who knows who the Green Party or the nascent No Labels effort will decide to nominate? At the very least, there may be four names for voters to choose from. Perhaps even five or six.

Read Complete Article »

After three weeks of junior-high-school levels of adolescent slap-fighting, Republicans in the House of Representatives finally (!) chose a speaker. Was this largely due to fatigue at how tawdry the whole clown show was, or was it the fear that some moderate members were actually considering working with Democrats to come up with a solution? We'll never know, but we certainly are glad it's over. For now, that is. The rule on the "motion to vacate" hasn't changed, so while Speaker Mike Johnson seems to be enjoying something of a honeymoon period with even the furthest-right of his caucus, things could always go south for him, since all it would take would be five disgruntled Republicans to kick him out too. And disgruntled is what MAGA extremists do best, so we'll have to see whether this comes to pass or not in the weeks ahead.

Read Complete Article »

It is rare in American politics when Democrats manage to win a political "messaging" war with Republicans, but it certainly seems like they've got a doozy of an opportunity to do just that, on the issue of lowering prescription drug prices. This messaging battle really began in earnest this week, and so far Republicans are losing badly.

Read Complete Article »

Could we finally be approaching the official end to the federal "War On Weed"? That possibility now exists thanks to the Department of Health and Human Services, who just made a recommendation to the Drug Enforcement Agency. And while it is not the unconditional surrender that pro-cannabis activists have been hoping for, it certainly would be the first major retreat in this metaphorical battlefield ever. If the H.H.S. advice is adopted by the D.E.A., the federal government would scale back a position that can only be described as "Draconian," and instead adopt a position that is a whole lot closer to reality.

Read Complete Article »

The nation celebrated its 247th birthday this year, leaving only three more to go until the second-biggest celebration of our lifetime (as we still personally remember the ushering in the bicentennial in Washington D.C.). But since it was a short week, what with Independence Day falling on a Tuesday, we are hoping this will be a short column (for once). Well, short-ish at any rate. We are cautiously optimistic.

Cautious optimism is a good place to start, actually. We stumbled across an interesting paper from two Democratic strategists (Celinda Lake and Mike Lux) which confidently states: "All the elements are in place for a big Democratic victory in 2024," and predicts that the "trifecta" of winning the House back, holding the Senate and keeping Joe Biden in the White House is well within grasp.

Read Complete Article »

Because it is a slow political news week (and for the salacious nature of it all), the mainstream media is currently digging into every aspect of the "Cocaine Found At White House" story. News articles are being written summarizing all possible past rumors or actual instances of drug use at the White House. My favorite came at the end of a Washington Post article on this theme, under the heading: "Rocker Grace Slick." But I found their rundown of what happened awfully sparse, so as a public service today I am going to run an extended excerpt from Grace Slick's autobiography Somebody To Love, of which (of course) I have my own copy (signed and personalized, even...).

Read Complete Article »

There were two notable deaths in the world of politics today, both of which inspire such strong negative feelings within me that I have to step outside the norm of: "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum." Both of these men were odious creatures in their own right, with one of them far more odious than the other. But the more odious one -- Pat Robertson -- is being adequately vilified elsewhere today, and I had a column all ready to go for the other one anyway, so this (repeat) column is dedicated to the memory of President Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Interior, James Watt. This column was published eight years ago, and thankfully the nation has made great progress since then. It was written to celebrate only the third state (Alaska, after Colorado and Washington) and Washington D.C. legalizing the recreational usage of marijuana. Today, that tally stands at 23 states plus D.C.

Read Complete Article »

Let's make sure we all get this correct. Donald Trump is now technically not a "convicted rapist." He's not a convicted anything, because the verdict handed down against him this week was in civil (not criminal) court. And the jury balked at declaring that Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll, but they did find Trump liable for sexually attacking her and defaming her publicly. To the tune of $5 million. It only took them about three hours to do so, meaning the case was pretty iron-clad to begin with. So Donald Trump is merely the first ex-president to be found liable of being a sexual predator rather than being an actual convicted rapist.

Read Complete Article »

We admit using that subtitle dates us in a way, since we are indeed old enough to remember the popular song of the same name -- but we couldn't resist, since this week started out with Fox News caving at the last possible moment as a civil defamation trial was set to begin against them. First the trial was delayed a day and then came the bombshell news that Fox had settled with Dominion Voting Systems for a jaw-dropping $787.5 million. To state the patently obvious, you don't settle a case you fully expect to win. Fox knew it was in danger of not just losing the case (Dominion had sued for $1.6 billion, a little more than twice what Fox settled for) but having the network's dirty laundry exposed in even more painful fashion than it already had been (through releases of internal communications between executives and network personalities that were already embarrassing enough). Fox was indeed on the run, to the tune of over three-quarters of a billion dollars.

Read Complete Article »