[ Posted Monday, March 10th, 2014 – 18:26 UTC ]
Is the gay marriage issue beginning to disappear from the Republican Party's playbook? Are Republicans on the verge of admitting defeat and deciding to move on? The answer is likely "not quite yet" to both of those questions, but the fact that they can even now be seriously asked seems like progress of a sort. It'll likely be years before we see Republicans (at least on the national stage) boldly taking pro-marriage-equality stands, and it'll likely take at least one more groundbreaking Supreme Court decision before the issue loses all of its political weight in the party. But glimmers of such a future can at least now be seen, which wasn't true even as recently as one year ago (the first two landmark Supreme Court gay marriage case decisions were announced only at the end of last June). Previously unimaginable, these questions are now in the realm of the possible, to put it another way. Because (to borrow President Obama's term) the Republican Party has finally started to "evolve" on the subject.
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[ Posted Friday, March 7th, 2014 – 17:59 UTC ]
It's been a busy week in politics -- even without all the CPAC follies -- so let's get right to it.
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[ Posted Friday, February 28th, 2014 – 18:40 UTC ]
Instead, we're mostly going to focus on what appears to be an astonishing amount of Republican self-inflicted political wounds from the past week. It's as if someone somewhere gave Republicans an order: "Stick your foot way out, now... ready... aim... fire!" Even when Republicans weren't shooting at their own feet this week, it appears they were conducting a circular firing squad instead. The 2014 campaign, in other words, is off to a raucous start... and it's only February.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 27th, 2014 – 17:20 UTC ]
I thought that now, immediately after Arizona's governor just vetoed a very discriminatory bill, was a good time to repeat my claims about how the tide had turned. The bill in question is even instructive, because it shows how the anti-marriage-equality folks are grasping at straws -- they are passing state laws in full anticipation of marriage equality becoming the law in the entire nation. In other words, they know they're fighting a losing battle, and they are looking for ways to strategically retreat.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 26th, 2014 – 17:10 UTC ]
Our heroine, Libby R. Terryan, wakes up to a bright new beautiful world in which citizens and businesses are free to act without governmental restraint upon their deeply-held religious beliefs. Libby breathes in this sweet air of freedom as she gets ready for work. Because of all this intoxicating freedom, Libby finds herself running a bit late.
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[ Posted Friday, February 21st, 2014 – 18:29 UTC ]
We've got a lot to get to in our weekly roundup of politics this week, it seems.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 19th, 2014 – 18:23 UTC ]
Marijuana is in the news today, as the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (the best-financed advocacy group in California) have stated that they will not, after all, be moving forward with a ballot initiative in 2014 to legalize recreational use of marijuana. After considering their ballot measure's chances (the "Control, Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act"), the group has decided to wait until 2016 to move forward. This may come as a blow to California marijuana supporters, but in the long run it may have been the smart thing to do. Waiting another two years isn't a welcome prospect to many, but it may produce a better law and broader public support in the end.
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[ Posted Friday, February 14th, 2014 – 19:10 UTC ]
John Boehner has a song in his heart. That song is "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," which he was heard quoting from as he was busy passing a clean debt ceiling bill in his House. He followed up with another lyric from the tune: "Plenty of sunshine coming my way." Mr. Boehner is, of course, being amusingly ironic. He does not, in fact, have a song in his heart, and he is not looking for beams of sunshine heading his way from his fellow Republicans.
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[ Posted Friday, February 7th, 2014 – 19:18 UTC ]
Americans across the land are banding together to solve one of the country's most pressing problems, it seems: demanding that Justin Bieber be deported!
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[ Posted Thursday, February 6th, 2014 – 18:03 UTC ]
Constitutional legal cases are, at times, ponderous and dense with seemingly-arcane hairsplitting to determine what the Constitution really means in the modern word, or when viewed with modern attitudes. Sometimes, however, constitutional cases are pretty easy to understand, because virtually everyone can relate to the circumstances which brought it to court in the first place. An injunction just issued by a federal judge falls into the second category, because it affirms the right to free speech -- specifically, the free speech of an automobilist flashing his headlights at oncoming traffic to warn of an impending speed trap. Obviously, this is something most who have driven cars can relate to on a very personal level.
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