[ Posted Wednesday, June 21st, 2017 – 15:26 UTC ]
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is about to make a big legislative throw of the dice tomorrow, when he (finally) unveils the super-secret Senate Republican healthcare bill not only to the public, but also to the rest of his own caucus. It's a pretty big gamble for McConnell, since he has no way of knowing if he's got the votes to pass it or not. Either way -- whether successful or not -- McConnell says the effort will be over by the Independence Day holiday. Either they pass the bill, or the Senate will just move on to other agenda items.
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[ Posted Tuesday, June 20th, 2017 – 16:08 UTC ]
To me, at least, that's a shocking headline. Because for the life of me, I can't remember this stunning proposal ever before being seriously considered on Capitol Hill. Some Republicans in Congress are now saying that they should all forgo their monthlong August vacation period and actually work instead. Stunning!
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[ Posted Friday, June 16th, 2017 – 17:00 UTC ]
President Donald J. Trump turned 71 years old this week. He held a party and invited all his cabinet members, who were all allowed to sing his praises in a manner one reporter summed up as: "honestly this is like a scene from the Third World." The internet, of course, had a field day afterwards. But it's pretty easy to understand why Trump felt the need to hold a public ass-kissing event to celebrate. After all, pretty much all of his other birthday presents were stinkers.
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[ Posted Monday, June 12th, 2017 – 17:11 UTC ]
There are three separate court cases which are making news today, so I thought it'd be worthwhile to take a quick look at all of them, to see the potential impact they might have. The three cases are in very different stages of completion. One was just filed in federal court. One got a just got a ruling from the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. And one is about to be ruled on by the Supreme Court. So let's take them one at a time.
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[ Posted Friday, June 9th, 2017 – 17:20 UTC ]
President Donald Trump and former F.B.I. chief James Comey engaged this week in an extended game of "Liar, liar!" Or, more properly: "Liar!" "No, you're a liar!" Yes, it was "Super Bowl" week in Washington, folks!
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[ Posted Friday, June 2nd, 2017 – 17:45 UTC ]
Yesterday, Donald Trump finished off a two-week stretch of diminishing America's standing in the world by announcing he was pulling out of the historic Paris climate agreement. In Trumpian terms, this means we're all covfefeed now.
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[ Posted Tuesday, May 30th, 2017 – 16:42 UTC ]
These days, Congress rarely does much of anything without a deadline staring them in the face. The only substantive piece of legislation Congress has so far put on President Trump's desk (four months into his term) has been a continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year. Not exactly a spectacular record of achievement for the GOP to be proud of, but then that's pretty much par for the course for the Republican Congress these days. What will quite likely be the second major piece of legislation that gets passed, at this rate, will be raising the debt ceiling.
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[ Posted Friday, May 26th, 2017 – 17:22 UTC ]
President Donald Trump went on a tour of foreign countries this week, and World War III did not erupt. So things could have been worse.
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[ Posted Monday, May 22nd, 2017 – 16:41 UTC ]
President Donald Trump has only just begun his first road trip outside the United States, and he's already "exhausted," according to one of his own advisors. This may or may not be true, since anything either Trump or any of his spokespeople say at this point has to be taken with a grain of salt -- especially considering the "exhausted" comment was given as an excuse for a Trump gaffe (more on that in a bit). But this week's calendar for Trump seems to have been constructed on the theme of: "Any Trump campaign promises left unbroken? Well, let's see how many we can break in a single week!"
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[ Posted Thursday, May 11th, 2017 – 18:01 UTC ]
There must be something to the myths, though, even if only in a Jungian-archetypical kind of way. Because they certainly still remain with us. In today's world, of course, they are not dressed in motley (well, some less so than others...); and instead of a perch near the throne, they crack wise on television shows to an audience of millions. They are our late-night comedians. Two of them were in the news earlier this week, but before I get to Monday night's performances by Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers, I'd like to confess my own evolution in favor of our modern court jesters.
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