[ Posted Monday, February 16th, 2015 – 16:54 UTC ]
The Republican Party and the political media world are already off to the 2016 horseraces. With endless fascination, the latest polling from Iowa and New Hampshire is examined under the microscopes of the pundits and sweeping pronouncements are made as to who the eventual frontrunners will be. Of course, it is way too early for any real analysis of the public's mood, but that doesn't stop the oddsmaking within the Beltway. After all, the Democratic nomination race is setting up to be a snoozer, so why not get started obsessing over the Republican race?
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[ Posted Friday, February 13th, 2015 – 21:02 UTC ]
Had the best of intentions, but slept something like 18 hours today (even the cat's impressed at my feline behavior). Hopefully I'll be well enough to type by Monday. Have a good weekend, everyone, and stay healthy!
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
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[ Posted Thursday, February 12th, 2015 – 18:48 UTC ]
Due to illness, there will be no column today, sorry. Can't think straight, no energy. I'll try to get a Friday column out tomorrow, but no promises.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 – 19:04 UTC ]
The 1828 presidential campaign was one of the most vicious in all of American history. While campaigning on what would today be called populism (complete with a "Let the people rule" slogan), Andrew Jackson was called a nothing short of a "jackass" by his opponents. Jackson, in a feat of political jiu-jitsu, then embraced the jackass label as his own. This is why, today, the Democratic Party is often represented by an image of a jackass (which is usually euphemistically referred to as a "donkey"). This historical introduction is necessary to put Speaker John Boehner's recent comments regarding Senate Democrats into context and perspective.
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 10th, 2015 – 16:52 UTC ]
While the fight for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination is already fiercely heating up, over on the Democratic side there is really only one question even being asked right now -- when will Hillary Clinton formally declare her candidacy? Will she wait until summer, or throw her hat in the ring during the spring? Whenever she does launch her campaign, she will inevitably face the same problem she grappled with the last time she ran. Call it her inevitability problem (or maybe her "inevitable inevitability problem," if you're trying to come up with a clever headline).
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[ Posted Monday, February 9th, 2015 – 18:18 UTC ]
Roy Moore, the chief justice of Alabama's state supreme court, is making a stand in the courthouse door. This is not literally happening, the way it did back in 1963 when Alabama's Governor George Wallace made a similar stand in the schoolhouse door. But the motivation is similar; a classic standoff between states' rights and federal legal supremacy over state law. In both Moore's and Wallace's cases, high Alabama officials are defying federal civil rights legal orders -- and the United States Supreme Court -- to preserve the state's ability to legally discriminate against a segment of its population.
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[ Posted Sunday, February 8th, 2015 – 00:14 UTC ]
I will be running a few live tests this weekend, updating the site's code. There may be temporary interruptions of service, which may result in you getting incomprehensible "error messages" instead of seeing the site. I apologize for these in advance, should this happen to you. I'm working hard to update some [...]
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[ Posted Friday, February 6th, 2015 – 18:04 UTC ]
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams (or, as we affectionately refer to him, "BriWi") was ruthlessly mocked online this week, after a war story he told turned out to be a complete fabrication. Our headline today refers to the funniest mockery we've yet seen on the subject, titled "That one live shot I did from the moon," for no other reason than it makes a funny headline. We really have no news to report from the moon, although (as usual) there are quite a few bits of lunacy to report from the political world. As for BriWi, well, we'll see what happens next. Perhaps it's time to give Lester Holt a shot at the big chair? It's a little hard to feel too sorry for BriWi, since he reportedly rakes in $10 million a year to read the news to America every night. Nice work if you can get it, eh? Or hold onto it, for that matter.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 5th, 2015 – 18:15 UTC ]
To be more literal than metaphorical, that headline should really read something like "...Doesn't Crash And Burn" or maybe "...Misremembers Crashing And Burning." One can only imagine what the late-night comedy jokes are going to be like, starting tonight. On Twitter, Williams is already being lampooned to hilarious effect (best one I've seen so far: "That one live shot I did from the moon"). The big question is whether he'll be able to keep his job now or not, seeing as how he has damaged his own credibility -- possibly beyond repair -- with his embellishment of his Iraq War story of being in a helicopter shot down by enemy fire.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 4th, 2015 – 15:48 UTC ]
Republicans in Congress have, once again, successfully painted themselves into a corner. Even though they've done exactly this previously (in exactly the same way), they now have absolutely no idea how to get out of this dilemma (which they created for themselves). They've got a few weeks to figure something out, but at the moment it appears they have no clue. That's not just liberal snark talking, either. I've seen multiple Republicans interviewed in the past few days and they all universally offer up some form of: "We have no idea what plan B will be."
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