This week, Congress -- moving with its usual less-than-blinding speed -- passed a Wall Street reform bill, a mere two years after the crisis hit. Wall Street responded by pulling a secret lever which caused the biggest earthquake Washington has ever felt.

Well, actually, that's not strictly accurate. The D.C. area did experience a mild (by Californian standards) 3.6 earthquake, but I would pin its cause on the fact that the Nationals baseball team now has a hot pitcher. Anyone who laughs at the possibility of baseball influencing plate tectonics obviously wasn't in the San Francisco Bay area for the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, which happened at the exact time the third game of the World Series was about to begin -- between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. It was obvious to anyone who felt the quake that fault-line tension among baseball fans across the bay was the reason the stresses in the earth were triggered.

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President Obama got two pieces of good news today: the Senate passed Wall Street reform, and the volcano of oil on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico may finally have been brought under control. Whether this does him any good with the public remains to be seen, however.

The passage of Wall Street reform today is very big news indeed, but -- unlike with the healthcare reform effort -- most Americans simply aren't paying that much attention. Even the ones who are paying attention to this landmark legislation are often hard-put to describe all the ins and outs of the new law. Financial markets are very complicated and confusing, and regulating the financial markets is equally arcane and mind-numbingly boring to most folks (who wouldn't know a credit default swap if one came up and offered to rub sunscreen on their back). The fight -- both pro and con -- on Wall Street reform never really echoed much outside of lower Manhattan and Washington, D.C. Which means that the success of passing the new law may also go unnoticed by many folks out there.

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The next few weeks could turn out to be the most important politically in the remainder of this year. Because this may be the last chance Congress has of passing any big or contentious legislation, before politics consumes everything (even more than at the current time). This is due to a combination of factors, but mostly boils down to the congressional calendar and the midterm election season.

Congress is back in session in Washington, D.C. In another few weeks, they'll be taking their traditional five or six weeks off for August. September they'll get back together again, and go through the motions, but don't expect a lot to be passed so close to the actual election. Then, if the past is any measure, they'll all take most of October and the beginning of November off again, to finish campaigning. After the ballots are counted, there may be a rousing lame duck session, and then we'll be into next year and a new Congress.

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Republican Senator Jon Kyl, appearing on the weekly "Fox News Sunday" program yesterday, made an extraordinary admission that Democrats should put front and center of their campaigning -- because it points out the gigantic flaw in the Republican argument on the federal budget, the deficit, and the national debt. Republicans have been trying to have it both ways on this issue, and it took Fox's Chris Wallace to ask the question which exposed their double standard.

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Since we took last week off to write something patriotic for Independence Day weekend, we've got two weeks to cover today. Fortunately, every other week in Washington (or so it seems) is vacation time for Congress, meaning they were only in session (or "working") for one week of that. Add to this the fact that Congress usually defines "a work week" as from noon on Tuesday to noon on Thursday (nice work if you can get it, eh?), and it puts it all in perspective.

But since it's still going to take a while to cover all this (and we're not even bothering to cover crazy Republican statements, other than Michael Steele's), we're going to skip this whole "intro" section this week, and move straight to the awards. Then, in lieu of Friday Talking Points, we're going to take a look at a speech by President Obama and an interview given by Rahm Emanuel, with a bit of commentary. So let's get right to it!

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I have to apologize right away for that headline. But it is hard to resist the urge to use the "what have you been smoking?" joke when discussing California Attorney General Jerry Brown's recent comments on marijuana, since Brown is talking such patent nonsense.

Of course, Brown's got a good reason to be doing so: he's running for Governor. And no prominent Democrat in the state has so far come out in support of Proposition 19, which will (if it passes) legalize, tax, and regulate recreational (as opposed to medical, which is already legal) sales of cannabis to California adults, in much the same way alcohol is regulated and taxed. Democrats have been shy of politically supporting such things ever since Nancy Reagan did her "Just Say No" thing decades ago. Democratic politicians can easily visualize the ads which would run against them if they took such a stand: "Jerry Brown wants to teach your six-year-old daughter how to roll a joint!!!" So it's not really surprising that Brown has come out against the idea.

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Inching back down again

To begin with, a slight apology for taking a full week to get the monthly Obama Poll Watch column done. Last Wednesday was the end of the month, so the data weren't yet complete, Fridays are "Friday Talking Points" days, and Monday was a holiday. So here we are, one week later, taking a look back at President Obama's poll numbers for June. Apologies for the delay, and also for the fact that this will be a shorter-than-normal look at Obama's poll numbers this month.

Obama, after gaining a bit in his average approval ratings in May, slipped back in June. But the reversal was slight, continuing a five-month streak of amazingly stable numbers. Since February, Obama's approval rating has stayed within one half of one percentage point, which is pretty remarkable. Unfortunately, this trend may be at an end, and his numbers may be headed even further downwards in July.

But before we get into speculation about what it all means, here is the updated graph of Obama's average monthly approval numbers:

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

June, 2010

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The Tea Party movement could possibly be generalized as a group of people who are proud of (and sometimes revel in) being impossible to generalize. This, of course, doesn't stop the media from trying. In today's sad state of American journalism, everything's got to have a simplistic narrative that fits within a 15-second soundbite, at the very maximum. Nuances and subtleties are out. Strong statements beginning with phrases like: "The Tea Partiers are..." (or "...believe...", or "....as a group...") are what is in. But even given this reduction in critical thinking, what's amazing is how wrong the media has gotten the Tea Partiers (or, at the least, a goodly portion of them).

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To celebrate the traditional "Day After The Fourth Of July, Because All Federal Holidays Are Now Three-Day Weekends No Matter When The Date Actually Is," as it were, means there will be no column today.

Instead, as a surprise, we welcome back our in-house cartoonist who has been held captive by a roving band of wild secretaries. Ransom is being asked on the order of seven dollars and 42 cents, but so far, no takers. He managed to get this cartoon smuggled out with the aid of a trained squirrel.

Enjoy!

About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy

[Program Note: Our usual Friday Talking Points column is going on a one-week hiatus, so that we are able to present a special offering today, for the Independence Day weekend. So as not to cause withdrawal symptoms among our fan base, we offer up two do-it-yourself suggestions for discussion this week (which sounds way better than: "assigning summer homework"), which were so unbelievable that they deserve mention here before we get all patriotic. The first comes from Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, who just wrote possibly the most monumentally stupid column she's ever penned (which is saying a lot, for her), titled: "Obama: Our First Female President" -- bringing the art of emasculation to new lows. Secondly (and much more fun to respond to) was John Boehner's interview with a Pittsburgh newspaper, in which he described the effort to pass Wall Street reform as "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon." Democrats have begun jumping on Boehner's comments, as well they should. Feel free to write your own talking points on these subjects in the comments section. Friday Talking Points will return in its normal time slot next week.]

The Revolutionary War lasted a lot longer than most of us realize. Begun in 1775, the war didn't end for six long years, and wasn't fully resolved for another two. During this time, American forces had some notable victories, and also more than a few ignoble defeats at the hands of the British. Some of these battles have been inscribed on the nation's consciousness so deeply they are remembered in name (if not in complete detail) by its citizenry more than two centuries later. For instance, as schoolchildren we all learned the following names: Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Fort Ticonderoga, Valley Forge, and Trenton (or "Washington crossing the Delaware"). This litany of sacred spots (which includes Valley Forge even though no battle was fought there, since we all know the name), began with "the shot heard 'round the world," and ended decisively with the surrender of the British General Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia. Yorktown was the endpoint of the war, we all learned as children, and the surrender of the British forces to the ragtag Americans was the decisive victory which forced the British to negotiate an end to the entire conflict. But what we weren't taught is that this battle may not have been such a key one if it hadn't been for a naval battle which had happened over a month earlier. This battle -- called variously the "Battle of the Chesapeake," or the "Battle of the Virginia Capes" -- is one very few Americans have even heard of. This is probably due to the fact that no Americans took part in the battle -- or even witnessed it (except perhaps from afar) -- because it was a slugfest between the British and the French navies. But if the Battle of the Chesapeake hadn't happened, it is very likely General Washington wouldn't have won the Siege of Yorktown, and the American Revolution would have continued on for a lot longer than it did -- and may have been lost, in the end. Which is why it's a shame that almost nobody remembers such a turning point in our country's history.

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