[ Posted Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 – 16:13 UTC ]
President Barack Obama made an announcement last week just after Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced his impending retirement. In it, the president spoke of the qualities he is looking for in his first nominee to the highest bench in the land. He used the word "empathy" which, strangely enough, Republicans pounced on. They lost no time in denouncing "empathy" as a "code word" meaning Obama was about to appoint Michael Moore to the court. Or something. Their logic, at times, gets a wee bit confusing, I have to admit. But seriously, conservatives are gearing up for a confirmation battle (which they will lose), and this was the first pre-emptive strike in that battle. But in my own opinion, if Obama was speaking in "code" (which is debatable in the first place), I think everyone missed his point. Because by speaking of "empathy," I think Obama was doing nothing more than signaling he's about to put a woman on the Supreme Court.
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[ Posted Friday, May 1st, 2009 – 17:46 UTC ]
OK, with that out of the way, we must (sadly) turn our eyes to the Republican Party. Because they appear to be losing all touch with reality, so it's best to keep an eye on them at this point. For starters, they are calling a special Republican National Committee meeting in the next month to vote on (as if they could) forcing their opposition to change their name to what is variously described as the "Socialist Democratic Party" or the "Democratic Socialist Party" (as well as variations where they intentionally leave out the "-ic" just to twist the knife).
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[ Posted Friday, April 24th, 2009 – 18:04 UTC ]
I admit, I am getting the jump on the rest of the media here, by writing my "First 100 Days" article six days early (some would say five days early, but they would be wrong). I have jumped this particular gun already, I should point out, having already written one article (after Obama's first week in office) entitled "Obama's First 168 Hours." So today we are going to pre-empt the usual Friday Talking Points article this week with a special edition on President Obama's "First 100 Days," since everyone will be talking about it starting this weekend.
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[ Posted Thursday, April 16th, 2009 – 17:46 UTC ]
The "Tea Party" tax day protests which took place yesterday apparently got mixed reviews from all concerned. They did get a lot of media coverage, most of which at least tried to be respectful of their views. That's more than most protests get from the media, but this was largely due to the fact that Fox News was a de facto sponsor of the events. They reportedly broadcast live from several locations throughout the day. One of these was in Sacramento, where a Fox News personality attended the rally. Right down the road, Fresno, California also had a big turnout for their tea party. The rural areas which surround these cities are fairly conservative, even though they are in the heart of California, so it's not too surprising that they both got a good turnout.
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[ Posted Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 – 16:44 UTC ]
American Violet is not a "horror movie." It has no monsters, zombies, or mass murderers in it. Just people. But the movie's powerful message on the role racism plays in the Drug War will likely horrify you just the same. So while American Violet is about as far from the "horror" genre in moviemaking as you can get, audiences may indeed be horrified (or perhaps outraged) at the injustice displayed by one district attorney in Texas.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 – 16:44 UTC ]
ChrisWeigant.com is proud to announce that our much-beloved resident cartoonist C.W. Cunningham has been honored by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, by being featured in their "Jefferson Muzzles" awards column.
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[ Posted Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 – 16:33 UTC ]
Perhaps I am just being alarmist here. Perhaps I am wrong about all of this. Or perhaps we will look back at Jaynes in the future with horror, as our inboxes fill up with mudslinging about the candidates. I truly hope I am mistaken about this, and not prophetic.
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[ Posted Monday, March 30th, 2009 – 16:24 UTC ]
In the era of Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, and Bobby Jindal, it's pretty hard to stand out in the world of conservative lunatic ravings. But Andrew Breitbart's recent opinion piece in the Washington Times truly raises (lowers?) the bar for the rest of the field in right-wing Crazytown. His thesis is that liberal blog commenters are ruining things for the conservatives' attempts to have a nice online chat.
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[ Posted Friday, March 27th, 2009 – 17:15 UTC ]
"After 27 days, the best House Republicans could come up with is a 19-page pamphlet that does not include a single real budget proposal or estimate. There are more numbers in my last sentence than there are in the entire House GOP 'budget.' "
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[ Posted Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 – 16:07 UTC ]
President Obama is taking your questions now, and will answer them tomorrow. In a move to make Obama more accessible and answerable to the public, the White House web site is soliciting questions from the public for Obama to answer on their new "Open For Questions" page. So, given the opportunity, what question would you ask the president? Personally, I would choose: "Will drug policy be included in your new science-based approach to government, or will you let politics continue to trump science in this arena?" Because there have been two specific news items in the past few weeks, and while they are almost completely unrelated, they both come from the "science/politics" debate on drugs. The first is the "morning after" pill, and the second is medical marijuana.
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