You know, it strikes me that this week may be one politics-watchers look back on when proving the thesis: "Anything can happen in politics, and usually does." I can picture seeing some wise pundit a few years down the road making the historical reference: "Yeah, but remember when Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul were leading the polls in the Iowa caucuses? Anything can happen... just anything..."

Read Complete Article »

Two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote the following column, hoping that the Obama administration was going to live up to its promise to have a "science-based" drug policy. I spoke of two examples: medical marijuana, and the "morning after" pill. Today seemed a real good day to re-run this column.

Read Complete Article »

So here's my proposal: Congress should pass a new schedule of fines. Each would be worded thusly: "the fine shall be $10 million, or 10 percent of the profits the company reported on its annual shareholders' report last year, whichever is larger." That'd be for a minor fine, of course, like a parking ticket. A bigger infraction would lead to, say, "50 percent," or "100 percent," or even higher.

Read Complete Article »

The big question for the Occupy protests has now become: What next? With the multiple evictions across the country, the Occupiers have been given an ultimatum of sorts by the powers-that-be: protest and rally all you want, but you can't "occupy" these places any longer by erecting tents and making them your residences.

Read Complete Article »

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement seems to be at a crossroads. The path it chooses to take next may be the deciding moment for whether it declines into irrelevance or grows beyond its current boundaries into something larger.

Read Complete Article »

Every so often, I am so impressed by a comment to one of my columns that I offer to just turn my column over to the author, and let them have my soapbox. This doesn't happen often, usually around once per year.
I've written a few columns so far about the Occupy Wall Street protest, [...]

Read Complete Article »

Like many Americans, I watched the events unfold in Oakland this week with some trepidation. Occupy Oakland tried two new tactics in protesting, and both were very successful at achieving a key goal -- that of getting your message across. Both the general strike and the temporary port shutdown were successful, in this regard. Later in the night, however, a group of jerks came close to ruining all this, by their criminal behavior.

Read Complete Article »

This was, to put it mildly, completely unacceptable to a large swath of the Republican base. Cain hastily backtracked, and is now as "pro-life" as he can humanly be, stating that abortion should be illegal in every single case -- no matter what the extenuating circumstances.

Read Complete Article »

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement seems to be at a crossroads. The path it chooses to take next may be the deciding moment for whether it declines into irrelevance or grows beyond its current boundaries into something larger.

Read Complete Article »

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.

Read Complete Article »