May 17th, 2012
Confronted with record-low approval ratings, Congress seems determined to drive them down even further by planning another game of chicken with the debt ceiling this fall.
The last time they tried this game, the United States lost its Triple-A credit rating as Standard & Poor’s opined that “the political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policy making becoming less stable, less effective and less predictable.”
Talk about a zero percent learning curve. As you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, this asylum is being run by the inmates. Read More…
May 16th, 2012
Is this the Golden Age of New Jersey politics?
After the chronic embarrassments of Governors James McGreevey and Jon Corzine, beyond the scores of mayors indicted for corruption, the Garden State is suddenly fielding a bipartisan team with national appeal.
They’re the ultimate political odd couple, a stereotypical comedy duo in a thin guy/fat guy, black guy/white guy sort of way. And now they’ve co-starred in their first online comedy feature, filmed for the benefit of the New Jersey Press Association Legislative Correspondents Club dinner, which quickly went viral. Read More…
May 13th, 2012
It was a “profile in courage” moment from the American president, but one loaded with political risk.
Consider the fact that just the previous day the citizens of North Carolina voted to ban same-sex marriage and all forms of civil unions by a 20-point margin, enshrining unequal treatment in their state constitution.
This has not been an unusual result when it has been put to the voters — more than 30 states have taken the same step, while in the half a dozen states where marriage equality is legal it has been achieved via state legislatures or judicial decision. Read More…
May 11th, 2012
There is a small but telling irony beneath the gay-marriage debate: the Republican candidate favors changing the constitution; the Democrat is backing states’ rights.
It’s a role reversal that reflects the outcome-based, situational ethics beneath many supposedly principled ideological and partisan divides. The more transcendent truths are found in the traditionalism of conservatives and the progressivism of liberals, for better or worse.
Romney’s reversal from backing “full equality” for gays and lesbians back in 2002-era Massachusetts to his embrace of a Federal Marriage Amendment today is striking even by his standards—because few Republicans not running for president have advocated resuscitating that bad idea from Bush-Cheney 2004. Instead, some of the architects of that original plan have been busy apologizing for it in the intervening years. Dick Cheney supports the freedom to marry. And federalism was the argument hotly advanced by the Tea Party against health-care reform. Read More…
May 8th, 2012
It’s Bill Clinton versus Billy Graham in North Carolina’s vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Advocates have dispatched powerful surrogates to this newest front of the culture wars, with the former president voicing robocalls urging voters to shoot down the measure and the evangelist featured in newspaper ads backing it. It’s a big battle in a high-stakes swing state where the research triangle meets the Bible Belt, and where Barack Obama eked out a win four years ago. Read More…
