[ Posted Friday, September 14th, 2012 – 15:22 UTC ]
The second item of note is that today marks the fifth "birthday" of this column series. September 14, 2007 saw the very first Friday Talking Points column ever (although the name and the column format wouldn't solidify for a few months). Since then, almost every Friday, we've been attempting to provide Democratic talking points for politicians to use to get their point across in a snappy and memorable fashion. How much success we've had doing so is open to interpretation, but we're still here doing it, which tends to indicate that Democrats still have a ways to go to match the Republican ability to keep "on script" during interviews. To put this another way, it's the old Democratic "herding cats" problem.
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[ Posted Friday, August 10th, 2012 – 16:56 UTC ]
With that "fair warning" out of the way, there are two highly amusing talking points coming from the Republican camp this week. If your irony-detector is as acute as mine, you'll appreciate the GOP completely and utterly destroying two of their bedrock positions just to score a few cheap political points. I don't know about you, but I find this sort of thing to be one of the more enjoyable forms of political entertainment around.
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[ Posted Friday, July 27th, 2012 – 16:27 UTC ]
In a surprise announcement today, the International Olympic Committee has filed a lawsuit against Mitt Romney and his entire family. Not, as some might have expected, for his recent comments about the London Olympics, but rather because Mitt has been using the term "Romney Olympics" to describe a summer festival held at his palatial vacation home, up to and including this year. The I.O.C. is famously protective of the term "Olympics" and who is allowed to use it, and according to their press release, they are merely protecting their brand. No word on what financial penalty the I.O.C. will be seeking, as an I.O.C. spokesperson told us, "We're going to have to subpoena Mitt's tax returns before we can answer that." He also added, "Mitt's dancing horse will be disqualified from the dressage event, as well."
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 17th, 2012 – 16:59 UTC ]
Democrats in the Senate, led by folks such as Sheldon Whitehouse, Al Franken, and Carl Levin (as well as plenty of others), held a late-night vigil last night to force a vote. Today, they held a second vote. Both times, Republicans killed the legislation on party lines.
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[ Posted Wednesday, July 11th, 2012 – 15:39 UTC ]
In fact, I'd go further and advise other special interest groups dive into the same pond and create your own super PAC. How about a "Populist PAC," for instance? Or even an "Occupy PAC" or a "99% PAC"? Perhaps, a super PAC devoted to passing a "corporations aren't persons" amendment? I see nothing wrong with any of these, to tell the truth.
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[ Posted Friday, June 22nd, 2012 – 17:44 UTC ]
For political wonks, this has been a week of waiting. Starting last weekend, we've all been waiting for Mitt Romney to address the issue of Barack Obama's new immigration policy. This waiting has been fruitless, and will continue for some time to come, apparently. Picture a phone ringing endlessly with nobody there to answer it... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 20th, 2012 – 17:21 UTC ]
But while the phrase sounds noble, in reality what the different branches of our government regularly engage in is much more like a tug-of-war. This is what we're seeing today, between the Executive and Legislative branches. More on this in a moment.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 13th, 2012 – 15:41 UTC ]
Where are the grand messages of the campaigns? Being held in reserve for the post-convention season, perhaps? That's at least an understandable answer, but ultimately not a very satisfying one. Neither Obama nor Romney has yet clearly articulated what their big ideas are for the next four years, and both of them are missing the chance to pound their message into the American psyche for the next two or three months.
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[ Posted Friday, May 25th, 2012 – 17:12 UTC ]
Liberals are apparently being mean to the Supreme Court, which (as we all know) Republicans would never in a million years think of doing... (pause for extended laughing fit)... (wipes eyes)... seriously, you guys just crack me up sometimes.
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[ Posted Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 – 17:20 UTC ]
Luckily for all of us, this is never going to happen. Even if New York Republicans had their way, and actually passed their so-called Internet Protection Act, once it arrived in a federal court it would be tossed out in a "New York minute" (as they say).
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