Finally, some good news

While I would immediately caution everyone not to get overly optimistic about what I'm about to say, President Obama's approval rating was looking up in April. Gains were modest, but were pretty much across the board. Although, as I said, the end of the month saw a slight reversal to this trend, likely the result of the drip, drip, drip nature (or, more properly, "gush, gush, gush") of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

More on all of that in a bit. As well as a special look, at the end here, at how Obama stacks up against Ronald Reagan's first term. We're interrupting our march backwards through time, comparing Obama to all previous presidents for whom polling data is available, to highlight the Obama versus Reagan picture. Of course, graphs comparing Obama with every previous president back to Eisenhower are always available at the Obama Poll Watch website, for your perusal.

Continue Reading »

It is a great temptation for people in government to mete out harsh punishment after something happens which they do not agree with or support. Whenever some incident bursts onto the public consciousness and raises an outcry, government officials almost always feel the urge to use their power to explicitly punish whoever is responsible. The BP oil spill is just the most recent (and most glaring) example of this right now. But there's one problem with national politicians elbowing each other out of the way to punish individuals or companies in such a fashion -- it's not only illegal, it's downright unconstitutional to do so.

Here is the relevant text:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
-United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 9

Continue Reading »

Memorial Day is the time to memorialize all the brave individuals who served our country throughout its history, and sometimes paid the ultimate price for doing so. But, in particular, this year I'd like to focus on all those who did their duty for their country, and fought for the American ideal of equality for all citizens -- even while they did not enjoy such rights themselves, either in the military or in American life at the time. These second-class citizens, one would think, would have even less reason than citizens accorded full rights under the law to risk death on a foreign battlefield, and therefore would not have volunteered to do so. One would be wrong in thinking this, however.

Continue Reading »

Our headline today quite obviously references the legislative progress this week on banning the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (of not allowing gay people to openly serve their country)... but we've got another asking-and-telling issue which we simply must deal with first, before we get to any of that.

You see, the Republicans are asking you -- that's right, you, Mr. and Mrs. America -- to tell them exactly what they should be doing in Congress. Over the Intertubes. And so far, it's not been going exactly as planned. In fact, it could adequately be described (in youngster-of-today vernacular) as an "epic fail."

The idea itself was a simple one. Put up a website, let ordinary people suggest things Republicans should be doing in Congress, and let them vote on all the wonderful ideas. The problem is, well... those Intertubes have some awfully wacky folks on them, don't they?

Continue Reading »

President Barack Obama, as expected, was asked at today's press conference about the assertation by Representative Joe Sestak, who is running for the Senate from Pennsylvania, that the White House offered him a job in order to sideline him from the primary race against Arlen Specter (which Sestak then won). Obama's answer was to kick the can down the road a bit. This is not too surprising, since this is what his White House has been doing with the issue for three months now. Here is Obama's response to the question:

Continue Reading »

President Obama has just announced he'll hold a (for him, rare) press conference tomorrow. The questions asked will largely be focused on the oil spill in the Gulf.... as well as the usual assorted inanity from the White House press corps (has anyone else noticed that the intelligence of a question these reporters ask is inversely proportional to the amount of money that reporter makes?). But there's a "big picture" type of question which really should be asked -- or, even better, that Obama should answer, even before the question round begins. And that is the fundamental disconnect a lot of federal agencies have at their core: their mission statement is both to award permission (and rake in fees for doing so), and also to enforce the laws the permission is bestowed under. In other words, these departments (and there are many of them) act as both a salesman and a cop.

Continue Reading »

Optimism is growing this week that Congress will repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy of not allowing gays to serve openly in the United States military. To be more accurate, what Congress is proposing is a watered-down version of a full repeal. Which is ironic, because the purpose of their "compromise" is to fix DADT -- which itself was the original compromise on the issue that President Clinton signed.

But it may be enough, for now. If it passes. President Obama and the White House had a much more incremental plan, which was for the Pentagon to study the issue all year long, publish their study right before the end of the year (conveniently, after the midterm elections), and then next year Congress could tackle the issue from their end. This was to provide political cover for Democrats, so they didn't have to vote on such a hot-button issue in an election year.

Continue Reading »

The recent controversy over Republican senatorial nominee Rand Paul's comments and views on civil rights (and on the role of the federal government versus private business and private individuals in general), is certainly entertaining and quite possibly damaging to his candidacy (or possibly not, this is Kentucky we're talking about, after all), but at the same time it is probably not going to be the key issue that decides Kentucky voters this November. It's a pretty safe assumption that most people for whom civil rights are a top voting issue have already made up their minds not to vote for Paul anyway. But there's a much more fundamental argument to have with Tea Party candidates like Paul (and Republican candidates in general) which, so far, has been missing in the media debate. The real question that should be asked is: "What, exactly, in the federal budget will you cut to 'rein in Washington spending' and attack the deficit?" Because the answers to that are going to be the most effective argument to make against the Tea Party movement's surge within the Republican Party -- because my guess is that no matter what they answer, the voters are not going to like it.

Continue Reading »

New ads are coming. They're likely going to be annoying. Sorry about that, but I feel it's better to take the advertisers' money than to beg for donations, personally.

This weekend, we'll be playing around with the ad layouts. If anything looks horrendous to you, or breaks your browser, let me know.

We're starting today, with a banner ad. It may have problems -- I've always had formatting problems with my header image, so it will come as no surprise. But let me know if it has totally broken your ability to view the site, as well as all other feedback.

And thanks, as always, for your patience.

-- Chris Weigant

We certainly have a lot of ground to cover this week, so let's dig right in.

I'd like to start with a declaration, though: Bristol Palin is now fair game for public criticism. Bristol's mother, Sarah Palin, made much of how the media were launching such attacks at her children on the campaign trail (although she certainly left herself open to such attacks by using her children as political props at every possible opportunity). Then-candidate Barack Obama agreed with Sarah Palin, on the principled point that "politicians' children should be off limits" (he has kids of his own, of course). At the time, I agreed with both Palin and Obama, mostly because I saw what the media put Amy Carter through, way back when.

Continue Reading »