[ Posted Friday, July 29th, 2022 – 17:18 UTC ]
That title, of course, is intended as a spoof of what some consider the most overused go-to headline in the Washington punditocracy's toolbox: "Democrats In Disarray!" For once, the absolute opposite seems to be true, and it is so glaringly obvious that even the political press's pooh-bahs have had to admit it (full credit where it is due: we got the title from a Politico article). Because Senator Joe Manchin (of all people!) just turned a very rainy day into some beautiful sunshine.
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[ Posted Tuesday, July 26th, 2022 – 15:50 UTC ]
President Joe Biden is hoping for a few legislative wins before the midterms. Three bills in particular seem to have a better-than-average chance of success. They're a far cry from the agenda Biden attempted to achieve last year, but having to deal with two corporatist Democratic senators derailed almost all of these lofty ambitions. So Americans will not be getting tuition-free community college, subsidized child care, free preschool, student loan forgiveness, action on climate change, and a whole host of other ideas that would have dramatically improved the lives of hundreds of millions of American citizens. Thanks, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, for nothing.
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[ Posted Friday, July 22nd, 2022 – 16:10 UTC ]
Initially, tonight's hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6th was supposed to be the final hearing. That was before all the rest of the hearings caused so many other witnesses and tangential stories to come out of the woodwork. Nevertheless, it was indeed (as I wrote yesterday) the "season finale" of the summer miniseries of televised hearings. The committee is now promising to reconvene and hold more public hearings in September, to cover all the new information. The committee will stay busy during the August congressional break, digging into all the new evidence and witnesses who have come forward, and then they'll report back afterwards to the public. So there's all that to look forward to....
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[ Posted Friday, July 15th, 2022 – 17:51 UTC ]
And so, once again, we find ourselves in a very familiar place. Senator Joe Manchin has just yanked the rug out from under the lion's share of what he was supposedly negotiating in good faith with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (and the entire rest of the Democratic Party). Manchin let it be known that two of the biggest things he himself had said he was going to strongly support (in the pared-down version of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan) were suddenly verboten and off the table. In other words, Joe Manchin successfully wasted everyone's time -- once again -- for months on end.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 14th, 2022 – 16:23 UTC ]
How Americans feel about "the economy" often depends on what the biggest problems or fears they have at any particular moment. Right now, by many indicators, the economy is doing great -- record numbers of people are working, record numbers of jobs are available, employers are hiring people in droves, unemployment is within 0.2 percent of the record low, wages are going up, most of the supply chain problems have been worked out, and COVID has faded into the background of daily life for most people. That's all good news, obviously, but that's not how most consumers see the economy these days. What is on the top of people's minds is inflation, and nothing exemplifies inflation more than the price of gas.
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[ Posted Friday, July 8th, 2022 – 16:59 UTC ]
President Joe Biden capped off a pretty good week with a pretty good speech today, given right before he signed an executive order to do what he could to protect women's rights. Biden did so, of course, in response to the "extreme" Supreme Court decision which overturned Roe v. Wade.
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[ Posted Thursday, July 7th, 2022 – 15:00 UTC ]
Hey, kiddies, it's time to play "shadow boxing with Joe Manchin" once again! Yes, his teasing game has begun anew, where Democrats get their hopes up that Senator Manchin will finally agree to pass something -- anything -- from President Joe Biden's agenda, in the hopes of counteracting the predicted coming "red wave" in November's midterm elections. Once again, Manchin is playing it coy, as he is "in negotiations" with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, but has not actually committed to much of anything. The deadline this time around is the end of July, right before all of Congress disappears into the summer breeze for an entire month. Of course, they're all still on their two-week July 4th vacation this week, so nothing will really happen until next week, which leaves a rather abbreviated window.
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[ Posted Thursday, June 23rd, 2022 – 18:56 UTC ]
Today saw the final June hearing of the House Select Committee on January 6th. Next week, Congress scarpers off on one of their many two-week holiday breaks, ostensibly for the July 4th holiday, so we won't be getting another of these hearings until the week of July 11th, at the earliest. But the committee does indeed plan to hold more public hearings, although they continue to hold their cards very close to the vest on exactly how many such hearings will take place, as well as the subject of any of the upcoming hearings. Perhaps this is done to build tension and interest among the public, or perhaps it is just because they are now reportedly being flooded with new information and new testimony, all offered up since the beginning of the public hearings earlier this month.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 7th, 2022 – 15:17 UTC ]
There is a debate currently taking place within the editorial departments of some of the nation's biggest newspapers, on the subject of what their own professional ethics and standards should be when it comes to showing the aftermath of violent mass shootings. What it boils down to is this: "Does the country need another 'Emmett Till moment' -- a photo of a child's badly-mangled body who was killed by gunfire in a mass shooting?" Which is an interesting editorial question, seeing as how the American media has gotten more and more timid over time when it comes to showing the results of any violence, really.
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[ Posted Monday, May 30th, 2022 – 16:28 UTC ]
On a lonely hill outside the small town of Cobh, Ireland (pronounced: "cove"), is a mass grave marked by three somber headstones. As mass graves go, it's a fairly small one; holding not tens of thousands or even thousands, but merely a few hundred bodies. But the relative size of the grave on the scale of human misery is beside the point -- because while few, their deaths had monumental consequences for America. The dead were civilians, not soldiers (more on them in a minute). But their deaths deserve memorializing today just as much as those we remember who wore the uniform of our country. Because this is the final resting place of the people onboard the Lusitania.
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