[ Posted Friday, February 18th, 2022 – 17:17 UTC ]
The world pauses and holds its collective breath as we all wonder the same thing: What is Vladimir Putin up to? Will he invade Ukraine? Is this all some sort of bluff or feint? Or is he deadly serious about reconstituting the Soviet Union's sphere of influence (of satellite states subservient to Moscow)? Is he just waiting for the Olympics to end as some sort of favor to China? Or will the troops eventually go home and the whole crisis blows over?
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[ Posted Thursday, February 17th, 2022 – 16:33 UTC ]
The Republican Party, these days, is the Party of Donald Trump. The question the 2022 elections might answer is precisely how Trumpy the party is going to get, for at least the next two years. A corollary question is how big Trump's influence truly is with both Republican voters and Republican donors. Many are fervently hoping Trump's influence will fade to at least some degree if a few of his anointed candidates lose spectacularly, but no matter how many wind up losing, the near-certainty is that Donald Trump is going to make another presidential run in 2024 -- meaning the 2022 results may not actually matter all that much. An election with no Trump on the ballot is one thing, but if he's at the top of the ballot the next time around then all bets will -- once again -- be off.
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 15th, 2022 – 16:46 UTC ]
That headline is specific because I have my own personal bias from living in California, but it really could have been generic instead: "All States Should Vote The Way Alaska Votes." Because Alaska (of all places) seems to have come up with the best mix of new ideas in redesigning how people get to vote. They've combined the "jungle primary" system with "ranked-choice voting" and by doing so eliminated the worst aspects of both while keeping the best parts intact. That's quite a feat, which is why I am so strongly endorsing their concept.
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[ Posted Friday, February 11th, 2022 – 16:41 UTC ]
Did what happened at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021 constitute "legitimate political discourse" or not? That was the question that has divided the Republican Party all week, and may serve to be the one memorable phrase that sums up the difference between those in the GOP who have completely surrendered all their morals and thought processes and attachment to reality to Donald Trump -- and those who have not. Because that's what it all boils down to, really.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 10th, 2022 – 16:53 UTC ]
Inflation is rapidly turning into President Joe Biden's Achilles' heel. In the midst of an economy that is by every other measure booming, inflation remains the unsolved problem that affects all Americans at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and at the used car lot. Unlike more esoteric economic indicators, people see inflation's effects very directly, as they pay more for basic supplies every week. This represents an enormous political problem not just for Democrats but for Joe Biden personally.
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[ Posted Monday, February 7th, 2022 – 16:38 UTC ]
Today Politico caused somewhat of a stir, by publishing an article that examined the question of the chances Democrats will have to avoid getting wiped out in the midterm elections this November. Up until now, the conventional inside-the-Beltway cocktail-party-chattering-class wisdom was that Democrats were toast and might as well not even bother running much of a campaign at all. Historical trends were against them, gerrymandering was going to take the House of Representatives away from them, and Republicans were going to emerge with new congressional majorities pretty much no matter what Democrats did or said in the meantime.
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[ Posted Friday, February 4th, 2022 – 17:38 UTC ]
President Joe Biden had a pretty good week, as political weeks go in Washington. First and foremost, the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 pandemic is fading fast -- the numbers are now down below half of the peak they hit roughly two weeks ago. That's good news for everybody, not just President Biden.
Then it was announced that the United States military had taken out the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. Questions still remain about the mechanics of this daring raid in Syria, but nobody is questioning the fact that the targeted terrorist leader is now dead.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 3rd, 2022 – 16:52 UTC ]
At this juncture in time, what was once seen as a radical suggestion seems more and more to now be a very smart course of action. This is far from ideal, since the original plans would have been far, far better... but we are where we are. So perhaps it is time for Democrats in Congress to consider using the budget reconciliation rules in the Senate to achieve only one of their stated objectives. And there is no more pressing concern for the voters than limiting pharmaceutical companies from their continual greed when it comes to setting the price of their wares for the American public. Lowering prescription drug prices via reconciliation would chalk up an enormous political win for Democrats, heading into the midterm campaign season.
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[ Posted Monday, January 31st, 2022 – 15:55 UTC ]
In his dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell wrote of how truth could be manipulated to control a population. He wrote his novel in the late 1940s, immediately after the horrors of World War II. American schoolchildren are often assigned this book to read, since it is such a literary masterpiece of speculative fiction. Or, at least, they used to regularly be assigned the book. Who knows how many will get to read it in the future?
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[ Posted Friday, January 28th, 2022 – 17:33 UTC ]
We have always been a total sucker for "First Pets," we fully admit. Especially First Cats. So we simply must begin this weekly roundup by extending our warmest welcome to newly-announced First Cat Willow Biden. From the New York Times announcement:
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