Veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer read a commentary at the end of this week's Face The Nation that deserves some attention (and some applause, for that matter). He was speaking on a number of issues -- President Obama's recent press conference, the posturing both the White House and Congress is now engaged in over budget matters, and the impending government shutdown if a deal can't be worked out by the fourth of March. But, while circuitous, this commentary ended on a note which made me want to cheer [PDF download of the transcript, or watch the video]:

Now they’re [Congress] off for another vacation. This one to celebrate Presidents' Day, which reminds me: who but Congress gets a full week off for Presidents' Day? ... Here is the really scary part. Once the vacation break is over, there will be only four days or so to work out a compromise to keep the government running. Can they do it? Let’s hope so. But it is a long way to go with a short time to get there, which allows me to do my own posturing. What if we paid Congress only for the days members actually spent on the job here in Washington?

We might save a bundle on that one.

I have to say that I'm with you on that one, Bob.

Continue Reading »

Happy Presidents' Day, everyone!

The two formerly-individual holidays celebrating Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday have been merged into a single federal holiday -- a holiday which, while intended to honor both Washington and Lincoln, has now become somewhat "genericized" (in name, at least) into a celebration of all our presidents. But what about the forgotten presidents? [Or, to be scrupulously accurate, "presidents"?]

I'm not talking about all those nineteenth-century Presidents of the United States who are now little more than dull and meaningless names to be memorized at some point during our schooling. Presidents such as James Buchanan and Millard Fillmore (and all the rest) are now little more than answers to trivia quizzes for those of us who aren't historians. No, I'm talking about even-more-obscure names from our nation's past. At least everyone recognizes the name James Buchanan, in other words, but how many of us know the name John Hanson? Or Cyrus Griffin?

Continue Reading »

[Program Note: By popular request, I am reprinting the "meat" of Friday's column separately here today. I got a special request to run the "rant" portion as a standalone article, to facilitate linking to it. So if you've already read Friday Talking Points, Volume 155, there is no need to read the following -- but if you'd like to read the rant, without the rest of the FTP format, here you go.]

My "Class Warfare" Rant

Before I even begin here, I'd like to address what my critics will respond with, when they hear what I have to say. They're going to call these ideas "class warfare." You know what? They're right. I am calling on the middle class and the working class and all the other classes that make up over 19 out of every 20 Americans to start fighting back. Note that, please -- fighting back. Because there has indeed been class warfare waged in America in recent decades, and our class is losing -- and losing badly. The wealthiest of the wealthy -- the modern-day robber barons among us -- have been successfully waging class warfare on the rest of us for so long now that I am sick of it and I think it's time the rest of us fought back, rather than meekly submitting to the whims of the moneyed class. So, before my critics even have a chance to respond, I will save them the trouble -- you are damn right that there is class warfare happening in America. By admitting this, I'm urging the people who have borne the brunt of the situation to wake up and begin to stand up for what is right.

Continue Reading »

Whenever anyone on the Left timidly suggests that it might be a good idea to raise taxes on the richest of the rich in America, the Right trots out a tried-and-true slogan to combat it: "class warfare." This is supposed to be a bad thing, because it pits one segment of society against another. No matter that one of these segments is a tiny, tiny slice of the public and the other is over 95 percent of the public -- it's supposed to be downright unseemly for the poor, the lower class, the blue-collar class, the middle class, and the upper-middle class to band together against the ultra-wealthy class. Calling it "class warfare" is supposed to be some sort of magic phrase in the political arena which puts any suggestions of asking the wealthy to sacrifice somehow out of the bounds of acceptable conversation.

But you know what? This "war" goes on anyway, currently fought on the battlefield of "cutting spending" and "attacking the deficit." The only problem is, the 95 percent are the ones losing this war, and losing it badly. Sooner or later, it's going to become apparent to the average American just what it's going to cost to continue letting the wealthy avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

The past week was chock full of examples of this, led both by the Republican budget plans emerging from the House of Representatives and the situation in the Middle East where economic inequality is a major factor in driving crowds out into the streets demanding a voice. The situation in Wisconsin reminds us that angry crowds of people demanding their rights does not always happen on foreign shores, but sometimes is a homegrown affair as well.

All of this has prompted me to write a rant this week, instead of my usual talking points. It's not exactly a call to the barricades, but more of a wake-up call. Because we're getting very close to seeing basic government services that Americans have enjoyed for generations disappear entirely, never to return, sacrificed on the holy altar of deficit-cutting. And that, to me, is worthy of a rant.

Continue Reading »

Incoming Speakers of the House of Representatives always like to put their own personal stamp on things. Most of them make pledges to do things differently, and promise to make radical changes in the way the lower chamber of Congress does its business. Bold ideas are tried, but most of these usually fall by the wayside later (or become considerably dialed-back), as the status quo has its say.

John Boehner is no different -- he wants to run the House radically differently than it has for the better part of the last two decades. Of course, he's already had to compromise his principles for political expediency more than once, but he seems to be at least making a valid attempt to change the process of legislating in the House. Whether it'll turn out to be for the better, for the worse, or perhaps just "different than the way we have been doing things" remains to be seen, though.

Continue Reading »

The revolutionary tidal wave (or, if you prefer, the "Tunisami") sweeping the Middle East and North Africa spreads ever wider, as in country after country young protesters take to the streets in an attempt to change their countries' governments. But don't expect an outcome equal to the (mostly) peaceful overthrows in Tunis and Egypt in every single country now affected by this "people power" movement. There are major differences from country to country, both in terms of the form of government (and the military), and in terms of the likelihood of a victorious outcome for the protesters.

Examining a few of these countries will show that not all people-powered revolutions in the region are going to turn out the same. Here are my thoughts on the current state of revolution in these states in the Middle East, country by country (roughly listed by their possible chance of success).

Continue Reading »

We're going to do something today we haven't done for a while here -- take a cartoon break! Our resident cartoonist, C.W. Cunningham, has surfaced once again and sent in the following for you to enjoy.

-- Chris Weigant

About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy

It's "Budget Season" once again in Washington, and since it's going to be a particularly contentious and complex one this year, it's worth taking a moment at the beginning to provide an overview of the entire process which is about to play out over the next two or three months. There are, at this point, three main budget battles to be fought. One of these isn't strictly a budget battle, but will likely devolve into one, hence its inclusion in the list. Two of these have hard and fast calendar deadlines. All three of them are going to be major political battles, and it's unclear what the outcome of any of them is going to be at this point.

Let's look at these three items, in the order they're going to be fought on Capitol Hill, and then we'll take a look at some of the political constraints on each side of this fight.

Continue Reading »

The stunning news today of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak stepping down has all but eclipsed the other political news of the week. Who would have thought, a month ago, that a government that had oppressed its own people for over three decades would fall simply because a bunch of people marched in the streets and refused to give up?

American politicians are still trying to figure out how they should react. Although shocking to some, this is entirely normal. The people of Egypt have spoken, and before it happened, nobody could have foreseen how fast or how effective it was going to be. The demonstrations surprised the Egyptian government as well as the American government. The main lesson to be learned here is that sometimes, in our new cyberspace world, events move faster than analysis can hope to. That's one of the strengths of such "people power" movements -- their inherent unpredictability.

Of course, democracy is unpredictable as well. If Mubarak's exit truly does usher in an era of true democracy in Egypt, then the fact of the matter is that nobody knows what it will mean for the future. Nobody can predict who will win a free and fair election, what the Egyptian government will look like after one, or what it will mean for the region, the United States, Israel, or the rest of the world. But that is the nature of democracy.

Continue Reading »

Hoo boy.

What fun is a scandal if you don't even have time to make fun of it?

No, wait, let me start over....

Representative Chris Lee just set the Washington speed record for scandals, clocking in just under an astonishing three-and-a-half hours, from start to finish. This stunning display of the warp-speed nature of living in the 21st century will likely become the gold standard speed record of Washington scandals for some time to come. Or maybe not... maybe we'll enter into a cycle of ever-quicker scandals erupting and concluding with blinding speed.

The Chris Lee scandal unfolded fast. Really fast. It unfolded so fast, comedians didn't even have time to write jokes about it. It happened so fast, liberals didn't even get a single gleeful day of poking fun at the New York Republican. It happened so fast that nobody even had time to turn it into a "-gate" word! That's really fast indeed. The closest I've come across is the "Craigslist Congressman," which is amusing but not really on a world-class level, when it comes to slapping a cute label on a scandal.

Continue Reading »