With less than three months to go, I thought it'd be a good time to take a quick look at how the midterm elections are shaping up in the Senate. For now, we'll ignore the House races (because, truth be told, there are just too many of them to keep track of in such a microscopic fashion). While there are still a few remaining primary races to lock in who will be the nominee, in most states the slate is set for the Senate at this point. Which means we can finally take a close look at the situation.

I should say, up front, that I think Democrats are going to lose a few seats in the Senate, but that they will retain control of the chamber after the votes are counted. But while the House remains volatile in this respect, the landscape for the Senate has noticeably improved for the Democrats. So there's a little good news and a little bad news for everyone.

Continue Reading »

Since we've had quite a number of very contentious columns for the past few weeks, I thought we could all use a break, so that I may present a totally and utterly self-serving column.

That's right -- this column is all about this column today. No news, no opinions, nothing to see here but navel-gazing. This is fair warning -- anyone expecting anything else today, don't even bother reading this, and tune in tomorrow when we jump right back into the fray as usual.

Today, instead, I'd like to talk about the Friday Talking Points awards. Again, if you do not instantly recognize this subject matter, I really would advise skipping today's column.

Continue Reading »

President Barack Obama, in a White House Ramadan address last Friday, expressed his thoughts on the "Ground Zero mosque" debate, and in doing so not only got it exactly right, but also managed to change the debate in a considerable way which few have noticed yet. Because in his comments Friday (and in his off-the-cuff comment the next day), the president refocused the debate from the notion of "should be allowed" to the question of "should." In doing so, Obama elevated the level of the debate for both him and the project's detractors.

The initial controversy over building an Islamic cultural center two and a half blocks away from "Ground Zero" was cast in the harsh light of "there oughta be a law" by most of the people who were outraged at the very idea. A mother who lost her child on 9/11 put it thusly: "I think it's despicable, and I think it's atrocious that anyone would even consider allowing them to build a mosque near the World Trade Center." Note that "allowing them to build." As I said, before the zoning board ruled, the argument was that the government should act, and prevent the mosque from being built. Unfortunately, this would have been impossibly unconstitutional -- the government cannot prevent a mosque from being built there, unless we're all ready to throw the First Amendment in the garbage can. This fact, though, didn't stop those opposed to the idea from demanding that the government "do something" about the plans to build the mosque (Bill of Rights be damned!).

Continue Reading »

Happy Friday the Thirteenth, everyone. It's actually a fitting day for this column, which I'll explain in a bit.

Because before we get to that, we simply must begin our column the way we do every week here, which is to call for the abolition of the Pentagon. Yes, as we've done consistently for the past 133 weeks, we demand that the Defense Department's budget be zeroed out entirely. Oh, and also that we immediately adopt a Canadian-style health care system. Can't forget that, as we've been railing about it for ever since Friday Talking Points, Volume One. And lest we forget, President Obama is nothing more than George W. Bush's third term. As I said, none of this will come as any surprise to faithful readers, since we've been saying this sort of thing all along, ever since we were massively disappointed that Dennis Kucinich didn't win the presidency.

Now, you'll have to excuse us, as we're late for our drug test.

What's that? This column has never said any of that, you say? Well, if that's true, it must be news to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who took the entire "professional left" to task this week for doing exactly that. He later narrowed this down to folks on "cable news," so I guess the Lefty Blogosphere is off the hook. Since, as fellow Huffington Post blogger Matt Osborne is fond of saying, "I'm still waiting for my first check from George Soros," I would likely only qualify for the "semi-pro left" or perhaps "triple-A minor league left" anyway, so I guess I'm not even included in Gibbs' sentiments. Whew!

Continue Reading »

Colorado just held their primary election, and the results are in. On the Democratic side, Michael Bennet won the chance to run for a full term, beating out Andrew Romanoff in a race that had drawn national attention. On the Republican side, Tea Party candidate Ken Buck won the nomination, beating out Jane Norton.

On the surface, this looks like a victory for the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party over the establishment wing, who had backed Norton. On the Democratic side, the results are tougher to read, since Barack Obama backed Bennet, but former president Bill Clinton backed Romanoff. But still, most see this as a victory for the establishment wing of the Democrats.

But those are just the lessons of the primary. You could draw facile conclusions from them -- "Tea Party Ascendant, Progressive Defeated" -- but the real question is what it all means for the general election.

Continue Reading »

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently expressed his frustration with what he called the "professional left," in no uncertain terms. Which, ironically, means the White House and the "professional left" have now achieved parity in that both sides express withering contempt for the other. The irony lies in the fact that both are probably thinking the exact same thing about each other: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

From the White House's point of view, Lefties are not giving them sufficient credit for the things which President Obama has managed to achieve with a fractious Congress, and with an opposition party dedicated to the failure of any small shred of his agenda. From the Left's point of view, these are mostly hollow victories and were achieved at great price -- gutting the real reforms proposed, in exchange for something so watered-down it was barely worth passing (and certainly not worth praising). What all of this may mean is the opening round of the Washington game "Who's to blame?" which will likely start in earnest the day after the midterm elections this year.

Continue Reading »

About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy

Last week, a federal judge handed down his decision in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which said (in no uncertain terms) that gay marriage was a civil right, and should be guaranteed to all -- no matter what voters thought about it -- in much the same way that interracial marriage is a constitutional right guaranteed to all (which happened via a similarly-contentious federal court ruling in the 1960s). While this ruling was rightfully hailed by gay rights supporters, everyone knows that there is still a long road ahead until it reaches the Supreme Court, where the matter may be fundamentally decided.

While the outcome in the highest court in the land is obviously uncertain, what strikes me is that even people who support gay marriage winning in the courts may not have fully appreciated what such a victory would bring. Because it would be monumental, and change forever the status of gay rights in this country in a very fundamental way -- one which would likely be impossible to touch, from that point onwards. I don't think I'm overstating the case when I say that if the Supreme Court upholds the decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, it will become the "final battle" for gay rights. Not that America would change overnight into some sort of Utopia for gays, but that the battles for legal equality would be decided once and for all, and (other than a few minor skirmishes) gay rights activists would move on to making sure that their rights were adequately implemented and defended from that point onwards, rather than having to fight to gain legal recognition of these rights in the first place.

Continue Reading »

August in Washington means the beginning of the official "silly season" of politics. This is because Congress takes the whole month off, and political news stories become rather thin on the ground. Intrepid political reporters, wishing to be on vacation themselves, get lazy and start going crazy over non-stories hyped into political wildfires seemingly overnight -- over the silliest of subjects. But these fun and games have not quite yet begun, because the Senate wrapped up work this week, and a few legal decisions of great moment were in the news.

Silly Season '10 may not even begin next week, since Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the House back into a rare vacation-interrupting session, so they can get some emergency money out to the states to save thousands upon thousands of jobs for firefighters, teachers, and cops. The Republicans, in a stunning display of hubris, called this a giveaway to "special interests," but more on that later.

Perhaps an early harbinger of this year's silly season was the Capitol Police allowing a protest group to hang a senator in effigy, but drew the line at beating the effigy with sticks (although slapping him apparently met their standards). So, anyone planning an effigy party in the near future, be warned -- the line has now been drawn. Hanging an effigy -- OK. Beating said effigy with sticks -- not OK. And both the senator involved and the group protesting hail from the Right, making the silliness all that more enjoyable.

Continue Reading »

There are certain court cases everyone schooled in America at least recognizes the names of: Marbury v. Madison, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and, most recently, Roe v. Wade. Even if you don't remember the particular details in these cases, chances are you'll at least have heard all of these names before. And we could be on the brink of another landmark case entering this pantheon of pivotal legal decisions: Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Yes, California's "Governator" may go down in history as being on the wrong side of this case (even though he personally supports overturning Proposition 8).

But I do have to caution that there's only a chance of this happening -- and even if it does happen, it's going to take awhile. While the closest "landmark" case in American history to the subject at hand would be Loving v. Virginia, which overturned miscegenation laws and allowed interracial marriages everywhere in America, the question at this point is whether Perry v. Schwarzenegger will turn out to be this generation's Plessy v. Ferguson, or rather the Brown v. Board of Education of our era. This will depend on whether gay marriage wins or loses in the Supreme Court, of course.

Continue Reading »