[ Posted Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 17:03 UTC ]
What does "co-equal" really mean? That is a basic constitutional question that has never adequately been answered. We are supposed to have three co-equal branches of government in the United States, the legislative (Congress), the executive (the president and all executive branches), and the judicial (the Supreme Court and all other federal courts). Theoretically, none are supposed to be held above the other, hence the co-equal designation. But what does that really mean?
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[ Posted Friday, May 10th, 2019 – 17:46 UTC ]
Most Fridays, we tend to focus on President Donald Trump's flailings and failings on domestic issues, but this week his buffoonery on the world stage was really what was front and center. Sure, there's an ongoing constitutional crisis between the White House and the House of Representatives, but this week in particular seemed to be "foreign policy mishap week" for Team Trump.
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[ 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 Friday, April 26th, 2019 – 17:14 UTC ]
Former Vice President Joe Biden entered the 2020 Democratic presidential field as the clear frontrunner, which is a new experience for him. In his previous two runs for president, he never got to where he is now: comfortably leading the entire pack. Biden is polling ahead of the previous frontrunner Bernie Sanders by anywhere from a few points to a healthy margin of 10 or more, and both men are far out in front of all the other contenders, who are all struggling to even manage to break into double digits in the polls.
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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 Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 – 16:34 UTC ]
The tragic fire at the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral could have been a lot worse, especially at level of the ground floor. But to a large extent this further catastrophe was avoided. Images from within the cathedral show a surprising amount of the floor to be relatively unburnt, including standing pews made of wood. The thanks for this miracle, though, belong not to God but to some unnamed Medieval stonemasons -- those who did the design and construction of the building's vaulted ceilings. Because their vaulting held fast, widespread damage at ground-level was averted.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 9th, 2019 – 17:23 UTC ]
It's time once again to take a look at the emerging 2020 Democratic presidential field. Those of you who sneer at horserace columns would be advised to just skip today's offering altogether, we should point out right up front. And as usual, we have some new candidates and some updates on the current horde of hopefuls.
We've refined our ever-changing column format this time around, adding a "campaign news" segment at the start, followed by the three tiers of candidates and then some conclusions. This format may endure, or it may get tweaked further as the race develops, but for now it'll have to do.
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[ Posted Friday, April 5th, 2019 – 18:17 UTC ]
In an extraordinary turn of events, President Donald Trump has had to face reality not once but twice within the same week. Seeing as how this has only happened a handful of times throughout his entire term, this double-shot of reality is rather notable. The last time he was forced by those around him to readjust his worldview to actual facts was after he had hastily announced he was pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria. It took weeks for his advisors to force him to backtrack on this decision, but in the end they successfully convinced him. This time around, though, it took only days -- and it happened not just once but twice.
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[ Posted Tuesday, March 26th, 2019 – 16:43 UTC ]
Even though most of the political media refused to acknowledge it until after the fact, one big political issue emerged during the 2018 midterms that turned out to be a real winner for Democrats: protecting people's healthcare. This was really nothing more than a self-inflicted wound by the Republicans, since the voter backlash had been growing ever since the GOP tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with absolutely nothing. Democrats merely pointed this out in their campaigns, and the voters backed them overwhelmingly on the issue. And now it seems that Donald Trump is doubling down on this losing strategy in preparation for the 2020 campaign. Democrats, meanwhile, are moving forward on healthcare in a positive and constructive way, which paints the starkest of differences between the two parties' political attitudes, right at the start of the campaign season.
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