[ Posted Friday, May 3rd, 2019 – 17:54 UTC ]
Those are strong words to use in a subtitle, as well as so dated as to almost be anachronistic. But we feel this is the perfect phrase to sum up Stephen Moore's announcement that he's withdrawing from consideration for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Because apparently Moore has been in a coma since just before Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in a tennis match billed as the "Battle Of The Sexes."
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[ Posted Wednesday, May 1st, 2019 – 17:16 UTC ]
Congressional Democrats, especially those in the House (where they enjoy a majority, and can thus get things done), should counter a recent Trumpian dodge by taking up his challenge and drafting some very specific bills dealing with presidential and campaign ethics. Not only will this head the false GOP talking point off at the pass, it will also add to the developing Democratic platform for the 2020 elections (both presidential and congressional). A win-win situation, in other words.
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[ Posted Wednesday, April 24th, 2019 – 16:51 UTC ]
Monday night, Bernie Sanders appeared on a CNN town hall, and was asked a rather unusual question. An audience member asked whether Bernie supported enfranchising prisoners such as the Boston Marathon bomber or people convicted of sexual assault. Bernie's answer was surprising to many, because he spoke not only in favor of incarcerated prisoners voting, but cut to the heart of the matter: to Bernie, it's a question of basic rights.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019 – 17:04 UTC ]
The use of the word "begins" in that headline might be a bit puzzling, since President Donald Trump has pushed back on any number of things during the course of his presidency, most often on Twitter. But today we're not talking about exchanging schoolyard insults with his political opponents, but actual legal pushback from the executive department. Which is somewhat new, and can be expected to grow over the coming months.
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[ Posted Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 17:41 UTC ]
Yesterday, Robert Mueller's investigative report on Donald Trump was made (mostly) public. Today, Trump and his cheerleaders are insisting that he has been totally vindicated and exonerated, while some Democratic candidates for president are demanding that impeachment proceedings be launched in the House of Representatives. That's a pretty wide gulf in perception, but at this point it was to be expected.
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[ Posted Thursday, March 28th, 2019 – 17:19 UTC ]
[Program Note: Still too far under the weather to write today, sorry. But I did see that Democrats have now introduced a bill in Congress which would make Puerto Rico our 51st state, so I thought it was time to dust off the following column, written over 10 years ago. Obviously, the issues [...]
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[ Posted Tuesday, March 19th, 2019 – 18:03 UTC ]
As I wrote about yesterday, the Democratic 2020 presidential field is getting bigger all the time. With so many viable candidates running, it's getting tougher and tougher for each one of them to stand out in any appreciable way. Most of the attention in the media so far has focused on rather superficial traits about the candidates (this is nothing new, I should mention), but that doesn't mean that substantive policy proposals aren't being put forward. So today I'd like to zero in one on particular candidate who seems to be proposing some of the boldest ideas in the field (at least for now). Because whatever else you may think of her, Elizabeth Warren has certainly staked out a few cutting-edge positions.
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[ Posted Friday, March 15th, 2019 – 18:03 UTC ]
President Donald Trump just got humiliated three times in the same week. By his own party. Could this be a trend? One would certainly like to think so, but that may be premature (or overly optimistic).
Of course, it's debatable whether Trump can even be humiliated, because it's tough to humiliate someone who does not know the meaning of the word humility. You can call Trump many things (and we often do), but "humble" certainly isn't one of them.
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[ Posted Thursday, March 14th, 2019 – 16:49 UTC ]
It has been a rather astonishing 24 hours in Congress. Last night, the Senate passed a bill which would force President Donald Trump to end American involvement in the war Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen, by a healthy margin of 54-46. Today, they followed this rebuke by passing the House bill to rescind Trump's "national emergency" declaration of a non-emergency on the southern border by an even-more-astonishing margin of 59-41. The House, not to be outdone, then unanimously passed (420-0) a resolution demanding that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's eventual report to the attorney general be made public. That's a whole lot of presidential rebuke for one single day, you've got to admit. And a whole lot of Republicans voting against a president of their own party.
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[ Posted Wednesday, March 13th, 2019 – 16:26 UTC ]
If I had been in a more pedantic mood, that headline would have more-properly read: "And Then There Were Fifty-Two," but that doesn't really have the same ring to it. Whichever math you prefer, there is now a solid majority in the Senate to pass the House's measure rescinding President Trump's "national emergency" declaration at the southern border. A fifth Republican senator, Mike Lee, just announced he'll be voting for the measure, which means there are already 52 votes for it in advance of tomorrow's floor vote. This should assure its passage, and will likely lead to the first presidential veto of Trump's tenure in office.
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