[ Posted Friday, September 4th, 2015 – 16:29 UTC ]
President Obama had some fun this week, and by doing so actually forced the media to tackle a serious subject on his agenda. The fun part was taking the whole press corps up to Alaska, and even filming an episode of Bear Gryll's celebrity survivalist show. I certainly never thought I'd type a sentence linking President Obama and Bear Grylls, but then we certainly do live in strange times. In a more normal political (but no less partisan) atmosphere, Obama might have been roundly criticized for acting almost Putin-like, being photographed as a tough guy in the great outdoors. Who knows, when the episode airs, he still may face such carping from Republicans. But seeing as how the Republican presidential race is currently redefining the term "cult of personality" in a major way, I don't think the charge is going to carry much weight. It's hard to argue that the dignity of the Oval Office means not appearing in a reality television show when the guy leading the pack on your side is a reality-show television star, after all.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 – 16:31 UTC ]
The Republican Party is now the party of Donald Trump. That's a pretty astounding statement, but as Trump continues to not only lead in all the primary polls but also to drive the debate for all the other contenders, it would be hard to make the case that Trump hasn't completed what might be called a hostile takeover of the Republican Party brand. This could always change, of course -- nothing is ever set in stone in a presidential race. But for the time being, Trump's not only the party frontrunner, he is actually defining the race for everyone else.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, August 14th, 2015 – 18:07 UTC ]
We're going to begin today with a wrapup of the week that was in the presidential campaigns, and as befitting his status as the Republican frontrunner, we're going to start with Donald Trump (if you're sick of hearing about Trump, just skip down eight or ten paragraphs and continue reading).
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, August 3rd, 2015 – 20:55 UTC ]
I just finished watching the first "candidates' forum" (don't call it a debate!) of the season, where 14 of the 17 Republicans running for president all appeared on the same stage in New Hampshire. The "one person on the stage at a time" format was an odd one, meant to get around the Republican National Committee's strict rules on how many debates they're going to tolerate this time around (it seems the more the public hears Republicans debate, the more it harms the Republican candidates).
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, June 19th, 2015 – 17:30 UTC ]
It's been a rollercoaster week in the political world, beginning with Hillary Clinton shifting the gears of her campaign by holding her first big rally, which was immediately followed by the man we're going to call "Jeb! Bush!" finally officially announcing his own candidacy.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, June 18th, 2015 – 17:13 UTC ]
The Supreme Court handed down two decisions today on free speech cases, both of which did some hair-splitting on the role government has in regulating certain types of speech. What's interesting is that they seemed a bit contradictory at first glance, since one was decided in favor of government regulation of free speech and one was not, but these are awfully fine hairs to be split and in reality the cases are only superficially similar.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, June 10th, 2015 – 16:06 UTC ]
Perry is the tenth Republican to throw his hat in the 2016 ring, joining Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Rick Santorum. There are at least five other Republicans who will also likely make a run for their party's nomination, but they have yet to formally announced their candidacies.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, June 8th, 2015 – 16:01 UTC ]
For political wonks, June is not the month to celebrate grads, dads, and brides, but instead the biggest SCOTUS month of the year. SCOTUS (for the un-wonky) stands for "Supreme Court Of The United States." June marks the end of the Supreme Court's yearly session, and it is when all the biggest decisions get handed down.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, June 5th, 2015 – 21:05 UTC ]
We really wanted to use a different subtitle for today's column, one we are actually astonished that more news organizations didn't go with, given Rick Perry's announcement of his second run for the White House. That headline, of course, would have been: "Oops, He Did It Again!" Now, we do realize that the Britney Spears album is actually 15 years old (how time flies, eh?), but even so, with "Oops" being so central to defining Perry on the national stage, it certainly seemed like an obvious choice.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015 – 17:00 UTC ]
So the USA FREEDOM Act is now on its way to President Obama's desk to be signed into law. I have a few disjointed thoughts on the process this bill went through, so bear with me because this means I'm about to write a rather disjointed column about it.
Read Complete Article »
