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I should begin by saying that if you have no idea what I'm talking about at all, you are in good company. Most Americans don't even know there's a light bulb debate happening right now in Congress. If you live in California, however, you likely have already realized what is going on: standard light bulbs are being effectively banned.
The silly season has come early to Washington, it seems. The root cause is a simple fact of American politics these days -- sometimes, there just can't be transparency. That's a fairly provocative statement, so allow me to explain my reasoning in detail. Then, later on (in the talking points section of our program), we'll get into the option of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and how Obama should be using it right about now. But for now, it's time for a sober assessment of where Washington currently stands.
The mainstream media love to use opinion poll numbers to highlight the American public's disapproval of certain persons and institutions. But there's one poll number they never seem to get around to adequately reporting: their own. There's a reason for this, and it is a simple one. The media doesn't report their own poll numbers because their poll numbers stink, and it's less embarrassing to just ignore this fact rather than to report it.
Since the year is now exactly half over, I took the opportunity yesterday to tally up how much vacation time Congress has taken this year, so far. The answer is pretty shocking -- the House has taken 46 out of a possible 125 non-holiday weekdays off, and the Senate (not to be outdone) has gone on vacation for 49 days out of those 125. To put this another way, out of 26 weeks Congress could have worked, the House took over nine weeks off on vacation, and the Senate took almost ten weeks to play rather than work. Something for everyone to ponder as we all enjoy our measly three-day vacation this weekend!
Michele Bachmann's political fortunes are visibly on the rise. Mostly due to a well-received debate performance and a single good poll in Iowa, Bachmann is now the newest shining star to emerge on the stage of the Republican presidential nomination contest. Whether she later proves to be a flavor-of-the-week or whether she actually has staying power is still an open question, at this point. But what appears increasingly obvious is that Bachmann's rise is coming at the expense of another Republican woman's draw on the Republican primary electorate: Sarah Palin.
Well, it's certainly been an eventful couple of weeks, hasn't it?
We're back on our regular weekly schedule here after returning home from our second trip this month (this one to Netroots Nation), after which I can firmly conclude that flying, these days, sucks. Big time. Sigh.
The Republican presidential field for the 2012 presidential election will be on full display this evening, as CNN airs the second nationally-televised candidate debate, this one from the early-voting state of New Hampshire. Since the first debate was a little light on heavyweight candidates, this is the first chance a lot of Republican primary voters will have to assess the biggest names in the race.
Having just gotten back from a trip abroad where the news was dominated by the story of a politician facing severe consequences (and the end of his political career) for his sexual misconduct, I opened up the pages of the American news to find... well, pretty much the same thing.
This month was the best month President Barack Obama has ever had in the polls, when measured as change over the previous month. If you count it one way (measured by absolute values) Obama's best month was technically the second month into his term -- when he was still enjoying his "honeymoon" period, and had 63.4 percent support from the public. But in terms of actually changing public opinion, May was indeed the best month Obama's had, by far.
Sometimes special elections are harbingers of things to come. And sometimes they are not. The tricky part is that nobody can tell the difference until long afterwards. Which certainly doesn't stop rampant speculation in the meantime. Last night, a Democrat pulled off a surprising upset in New York's 26th congressional district, in an election that was forced due to the resignation of a House member who got caught trolling the internet (with shirtless pictures, no less) for extramarital fun and games. What this signifies for the 2012 election is anyone's guess, at this point.