President Obama has been having a pretty good week. Actually, to be perfectly accurate, President Obama's legacy has been having a pretty good week. At the end of all presidencies, everything they've achieved and failed to achieve is lumped together under this term, so that historians can debate about the president's legacy for decades to come. It's a normal part of the American cycle. This week, Obama won a preliminary victory in Congress and he just won a resounding court confirmation of his biggest legislative victory to date, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which has become the eponymous "Obamacare"). Next week, the Supreme Court is expected to declare marriage equality for all, in every state. As I said, a pretty good week all around, legacy-wise.

In fact [warning: this paragraph is intended for regular readers of this column], if tomorrow was a working day for me, I would definitely be handing Obama the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, without even really considering anyone else for the honor. This is a sideways method of reminding folks that I'll be on vacation both Friday and Monday, so while I will try to post some re-run columns for everyone to enjoy, original columns won't resume until next Tuesday. OK, end of program note -- and my apologies for just cramming it into the text like this.

Continue Reading »

Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, just became the 13th Republican candidate for president. Whether this will prove to be lucky or unlucky remains to be seen. Even though the field is already incredibly crowded, Jindal will not be the last Republican to announce -- there are at least two other contenders who will likely jump in (Scott Walker and Chris Christie), with the possibility of a few more longshot candidates as well. The more crowded the field gets, the harder it is going to be for any one of them to stand out, which is precisely Jindal's main problem.

It's hard, after all, to differentiate yourself when there are so many other candidates who are so similar. Jindal's going to be looking for the evangelical vote, but Mike Huckabee may have more luck. Jindal's the first Indian-American to make a presidential bid, but there are two other children of immigrants running (Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio), who might pull in a larger share of the electorate due to being Latino. And there are plenty of other state governors running, some with much more successful state economies to brag about. So it's going to be extremely hard for Jindal to be seen as unique among all the other diverse candidates.

Continue Reading »

Large corporations are getting more involved in politics. Whether that is seen as a good thing or a bad thing depends upon the political issue involved and the side the corporation takes (and, of course, the side you're personally on). Conservatives cheer when corporations take a stand on abortion, liberals cheer when a corporation stands up for gay or civil rights. But it does seem like we're entering into a new era of corporate political behavior, or (since they're apparently people now) perhaps "corporate citizenship" might be a better term.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about corporate campaign cash, or at least not directly. I'm not talking about the effects of the Citizens United decision, to put this another way. I'm talking instead about a more subtle thing than the outright purchasing of politicians or super PAC groups. I'm talking about corporations acting for what are essentially moral reasons.

Continue Reading »

So vexillology is in the news. Vexillology (as fans of The Big Bang Theory should already know) is the study of flags. A spirited debate is taking place about South Carolina's law which dictates that the Confederate battle flag be prominently displayed on the grounds of the statehouse. This flag used to fly over the statehouse dome, but was moved to a Civil War monument the last time this debate raged, as a form of compromise that was deemed politically acceptable at the time.

It's an important debate to have. The state government is honoring a flag which many see as a racist symbol -- one used by those against civil rights since the 1940s (the "Dixiecrat" campaign of Strom Thurmond was the real launching point of the Confederate battle flag into the world of politics). Those against flying the flag, from President Obama on down, are arguing that the flag should be moved "to a museum" instead of flying in a place of honor on the statehouse grounds. The argument is that the flag is so offensive to so many that the state's government should not legitimize it by flying it at the people's statehouse.

I happen to agree with this argument, but I am astonished that those making it are currently giving the state of Mississippi such a pass. Here is the official state flag of Mississippi:

Continue Reading »

It's been a rollercoaster week in the political world, beginning with Hillary Clinton shifting the gears of her campaign by holding her first big rally, which was immediately followed by the man we're going to call "Jeb! Bush!" finally officially announcing his own candidacy.

For those who are wondering, yes, we here at the Friday Talking Points editorial board are indeed seriously contemplating making our own executive editorial decision to call him "Jeb! Bush!" throughout the entire campaign season. Jimmy Fallon actually made a good suggestion on The Tonight Show this week, that we all (in an imitation Regis Philbin voice) scream "Jeb!" whenever discussing the candidate out loud (another editorial idea we are endorsing). Earlier in the week I toyed with "Jeb?" (which has got to be the shortest headline I've ever written in nine years of blogging), or possibly "...Jeb..." but neither truly captures the ridiculousness of the exclamation mark. So we're thinking of just doubling down on exclamatory punctuation and calling him "Jeb! Bush!" in the upcoming months. Let us know your thoughts in the comments, as always. If it gets too annoying, we'll stop, how's that?

After Jeb! Bush! and Hillary's rallies, the entire world of late-night comics loudly praised all that they hold holy, when the news broke that Donald Trump was semi-officially entering the Republican presidential race (note: he still hasn't filed his official paperwork). The jokes just write themselves!

Continue Reading »

The Supreme Court handed down two decisions today on free speech cases, both of which did some hair-splitting on the role government has in regulating certain types of speech. What's interesting is that they seemed a bit contradictory at first glance, since one was decided in favor of government regulation of free speech and one was not, but these are awfully fine hairs to be split and in reality the cases are only superficially similar.

Continue Reading »

Is Fox News on the brink of becoming (as Pinocchio might say) a "real news organization" instead of the wooden de facto propaganda wing of the Republican Party? This might have been seen as a wildly speculative (and unrealistic) question just a short time ago, but events seem to be moving quickly and it now can be seen as a distinct possibility.

Change is coming soon to the entire 21st Century Fox media conglomerate, since Rupert Murdoch recently announced he'll be stepping down as its head. He'll be turning the operations over to his two sons James and Lachlan, who are 42 and 43 years old, respectively. Both sons (as Salon put it) "reportedly detest" Fox News.

Continue Reading »

When the 2016 presidential campaign season began earlier this year, I started writing articles about every candidate when they officially announced their candidacies. I made a promise in many of these columns, that I would take each candidate seriously no matter what I personally thought their chances of winning were, or how much I agreed or disagreed with their platform. I promised not to be snarky, above all. I think that running for president is a serious business, and even though it does occasionally include what I would call "not really serious" candidates, I still wanted to give a measure of respect to each entrant to the race at the very start of their campaign. As I put it repeatedly, there will be plenty of time for being snarky later (usually on Fridays, of course).

But I did add one qualification, virtually every time I made my snark-free promise in the introduction to these articles. I promised a serious look at all new candidates, but I also warned I'd be likely to break my promise if Donald Trump entered the race (in fact, I already broke this promise back in February, by writing an article where I begged Trump to actually run). Because every man's got his limit as to how long he can stick to his principles, and the concept of "President Trump" would stretch mine to the breaking point, obviously. Today, Donald Trump entered the presidential race. Hence, the snark-free promise is declared null and void for today (it will be reinstated for the remaining entrants, never fear).

Donald Trump as president. Sure boggles the mind, don't it? Heh. Can't wait for him to try "You're fired!" with senators or Supreme Court justices -- that'd be a laugh riot! His campaign, as he would say, is "gonna be yuuuuuuuge!" Is America waiting for President Trump? Well, we're all surely about to find that out.

Continue Reading »

Today, Jeb Bush formally entered the race for the Republican nomination for president. I should point out, as a bit of personal trivia, that his new campaign logo ("Jeb!") has allowed me to create what I believe is the shortest headline I have ever written (in over 2,000 blog posts).

Beyond punctuation fun (in reality, the most accurate slogan would likely be a sort of "ho-hum, well I guess so" use of punctuation: "...Jeb..."), Jeb's entry into the race also brings up another bit of political trivia I have so far been too lazy to research, namely what all the state rules are for candidate names on the official ballots. This is because, in reality, there is no "Jeb Bush" running. His full legal name is John Ellis Bush, and his nickname is nothing more than his initials ("J.E.B."), meaning that even writing "JEB Bush" is a grammatical redundancy (akin to "ATM machine" or "PIN number"). So how will he appear on a ballot? John "Jeb" Bush, maybe? Again, I haven't had the time or energy to research this, but it may become more important later, since John Ellis isn't the only one in the Republican field (Piyush Jindal and Rafael Cruz also spring to mind) with possibly-problematic nicknames.

The biggest knock against John (Jeb?) Bush is, of course, the same one Hillary Clinton faces: do Americans really want only dynastic choices for president? Jeb is, of course, the brother of the previous Republican president (George W.) and the son of the one before that (George H. W.). He's even a distant relation (through Barbara) of Franklin Pierce. I suppose we should at least be thankful he isn't named "George Herbert Bush," since future schoolchildren would have such a tough time remembering them in order if that were the case. But no matter what appears on each state's ballots, the family name "Bush" will definitely appear, which is such a big problem for Jeb that he left it out of his campaign logo entirely.

Continue Reading »

We begin with a story which is just ripe for mixing a few metaphors: The Iowa Republican Party just announced today that they are cancelling the Iowa Straw Poll.

The metaphors can immediately get twisted, since "the final straw which broke the camel's back" doesn't really work -- it'd have to be "the final straw which broke the elephant's back," of course! Then there's always the classic anti-war spin on things: "What if they gave a straw poll and nobody showed up?" And finally, the most delicious piece of irony: Michele Bachmann will go down in history as the winner of the final Iowa Straw Poll, held back in 2012. Remember the reign of President Bachmann? Me neither.

The Iowa Straw Poll had already outlasted whatever usefulness it may or may not ever have had, even back in 2012. It's not some centuries-old tradition, as the first one was held in 1979. Its core reason for being has always been to transfer money from all the Republican presidential campaigns directly into the coffers of the state Republican Party organization. The entire "poll" was nothing but a sham where the candidates tried to outdo each other in nakedly buying votes. So we certainly are joining in the chorus saying "good riddance" to this mockery of democracy.

Continue Reading »