[ Posted Wednesday, October 19th, 2016 – 22:10 UTC ]
Tonight was (finally!) the last presidential debate of the 2016 election season. I thought it was a better debate (if less entertaining) than the first two, personally. A lot of actual policy positions were discussed, the candidates interacted with each other without so much of the "everyone's screaming at once" interludes, and the moderator kept the subjects moving along at a good clip. So my overall impression of the final debate was that it was a lot more like a normal presidential debate than the previous two.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, October 18th, 2016 – 17:09 UTC ]
Senator John McCain just got caught in a "Kinsley gaffe," which is defined as: "a Washington politician accidentally admitting an obvious truth." For which I'd like to thank McCain, because it could actually pave the way for Senate Democrats to combat Republican obstructionism in a very effective manner. McCain's gaffe was on the subject of the Senate's confirmation process for Supreme Court justices. He confirmed what some had already been suspecting -- if Hillary Clinton becomes president, the Senate Republicans might just band together to refuse to confirm anyone she names to the high court. Period.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, October 7th, 2016 – 17:09 UTC ]
Hoo boy. Every Friday morning, we sit down and review all the news stories from the past week, in preparation for writing this column. After spending a few hours reading and taking notes and copying URLs, the writing begins. But we've learned, over the years, to do a last-minute check on the headlines right before we stop reading the news and start typing. Because every so often, a big bombshell lands that simply cannot be ignored. This is, to put it mildly, one of those times we're glad we checked, because a bombshell just exploded all over the presidential race.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, October 5th, 2016 – 16:55 UTC ]
There is a major political debate currently happening in many parts of this country, but the astonishing thing is that most politicians -- especially those on the national stage -- seem to want to pretend the debate doesn't even exist. We saw this previously on the issue of gay marriage, when even the Democratic candidates for president in 2008 wouldn't support the idea for fear of losing votes -- even though it was obviously the right thing to do. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would only support half-measures whose time had already passed, saying they were in favor of "civil unions," but that "marriage" was too sacred a word to use for these unions. That was only eight years ago, and the political shift since then has been monumental. These days, it would be hard for any Democrat to get elected who didn't wholeheartedly support marriage equality for all. The people led, and the leaders eventually followed.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, September 30th, 2016 – 15:57 UTC ]
Our subtitle today is not original, so we've got to start by giving credit where credit is due. David French, a writer for the ultraconservative National Review (and a man once so horrified by Donald Trump's candidacy that he considered running himself), had the funniest metaphor for Trump's performance in Monday's first presidential debate:
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, September 29th, 2016 – 17:23 UTC ]
With only about four months left to go in his second term in office, President Barack Obama just had his first veto overturned by Congress. Considering Obama's rather aloof attitude towards Congress (including even members of his own party), what is extraordinary isn't so much that Obama just got overturned -- it's that it hasn't happened before now. The contentiousness between the White House and the Capitol has been pretty fierce during Obama's term, but up until this week none of his vetoes has been overturned.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, September 12th, 2016 – 17:31 UTC ]
Hillary Clinton made a deplorable basket case this weekend. That is, she made the case that "half" of the supporters of Donald Trump belong in a "basket of deplorables." It just sounds funnier to say it the first way, that's all.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, September 2nd, 2016 – 17:19 UTC ]
Donald Trump going to Mexico could have had a certain "Nixon goes to China" flavor about it, and he actually was getting some good reviews for crossing the very low bar of "not totally embarrassing himself or his country" -- at least for the first few hours. Then he went to Phoenix, and Mr. Hyde came back out.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, August 19th, 2016 – 17:26 UTC ]
Some weeks, it's tough coming up with a subtitle for these columns. Some weeks, not so much. This is one of the latter, because the juxtaposition of a colorful (to say the least) description of Donald Trump with a soap opera's title just naturally presented itself.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, August 12th, 2016 – 16:56 UTC ]
This column has always loved a good rant. Most of the time, we provide our own rant at the end of the column, on a subject too big to be contained in talking points. This week, we provide a number of rants from Republicans about their very own party's presidential nominee. Yes, it's only August and the Republican Party is coming apart at the seams. Which, of course, makes for great summertime reading for all!
Read Complete Article »
