New monthly employment numbers were released today showing a surprisingly-high 353,000 new jobs were created in January. The stock market is currently setting new all-time highs. The American economy has recovered from COVID far faster and far better than all other major countries, in fact. Inflation has come back down, gasoline prices are down, and wages are up (growing faster than inflation). Signups for Obamacare hit another record this year (outpacing last year's record by five million!) and America has the lowest uninsured rate in history. Domestic oil production is also setting records. So what are conservatives obsessed with in reaction to all this good news? Taylor Swift. No, really....

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In the Before-Times, back when Donald Trump was merely a minor television celebrity, anyone in politics or the media who openly espoused a theory that the Pentagon had for years been running a "psychological operation" (or "psy-op," which sounds so much cooler) to boost the fortunes of the most popular singer alive, and furthermore that because she and a star football player were now an item that the National Football League had (obviously!) conspired to advance his team to the Super Bowl (where the fix was already in for them to win) -- all so that the singer could then announce her endorsement of the sitting president -- would have been laughed off the national stage forthwith. The idea would have been considered no more than a product of the fever dreams of a conspiracy-spreading lunatic. The ravings of a nutter. Complete whackjobbery. "Tinfoil hats" would have been mentioned derisively, as America collectively guffawed at their craziness.

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House Republicans moved a big step closer to one of their goals today, as they voted on articles of impeachment for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Two articles of impeachment passed the relevant House committee on a party-line vote, and the full House could vote on the matter within days. This will fulfill a longstanding desire of the House Republicans to impeach somebody (anybody!) in Joe Biden's administration, and can be seen as a trial run for their real goal of impeaching Biden himself. This is all a purely political exercise, but that's certainly not going to stop them. The Republicans simply have no grounds for impeaching either one, but why let a little thing called the U.S. Constitution get in the way of their fun?

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There is an interesting idea making the rounds in the political punditry world of late, and I have to say it is an intriguing one. Nikki Haley has a very slim chance of chalking up any wins in Republican primaries, either before or on Super Tuesday, so sooner or later she's going to have to bow to the inevitable and drop out of the GOP race. This will leave Trump as the Republican nominee, but what if this isn't the end of the campaign trail for Haley? Instead of disappearing, what would happen if Haley then ran as the No Labels candidate?

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A staggering amount of Republican hypocrisy is now on full display in Washington. Pretty much ever since Joe Biden took office, Republicans have been screaming: "Border crisis! It's a crisis! This crisis needs immediate action!" This has been reinforced in an enormous way by the rightwing media echo chamber, who features the "Border Crisis!" storyline on a nightly basis for its audience. Scary images of border-crossers are shown, the word "invasion" is tossed about willy-nilly, and the fearmongering of immigrants is paramount.

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The mainstream media has had eight years to figure out how to cover Donald Trump. But quite obviously they still haven't really figured out the best way to do so. They ping-pong back and forth between largely ignoring him or giving him a huge (and free and unchecked) megaphone to use. This conundrum is upon us once again in a big way, since at this point Trump has to be seen as the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

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As I sit here watching the New Hampshire primary election results roll in, there don't seem to be any huge surprises developing yet -- most of the votes aren't in yet, so I suppose there's still time... but the chances are the headlines are soon going to be reading something along the lines of: "It's Over Almost Before It Began," as both Donald Trump and Joe Biden wrap up their respective nominations.

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As usual, the first presidential primary in the country will take place in New Hampshire tomorrow night. But this won't be your garden-variety Granite State primary, on either side of the aisle. For Republicans, their choices have already dwindled to only two, while on the Democratic side the frontrunner isn't even on the ballot. Neither one of those things is normal.

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President Joe Biden got some excellent news today: the "vibecession" seems to be over. For those unfamiliar with this neologism, the term was coined by an educator a while back to explain the disconnect between the economic reality (measured by all the economic indicators) and how people actually felt about the economy. The economy has been doing amazingly well in recovering from the COVID pandemic slump, while at the same time public perception has remained a lot gloomier.

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Nikki Haley, upon finishing third in the Iowa caucuses last night, had a rather bizarrely optimistic pronouncement. It ranks right up there with Bill Clinton proclaiming himself "The Comeback Kid" after finishing only second in New Hampshire, in fact (although, to be fair, Clinton's spin-job worked wonders for him). Here's what Haley had to say last night: "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race." The audience reportedly applauded and cheered.

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