National Democrats
Perfectly Clear on Twitter
There’s a full throated debate going on in Washington – Republicans are saying ‘the Sequester’ wasn’t their idea, it was Obama’s idea, and the White House is saying, ‘Obama’s idea! John Boehner not only voted for the Sequester, after it passed he bragged he’d gotten 98% of what he wanted.’ Meanwhile the Republicans, after…
Read MoreBilling and Cooing
After three days on a retreat at a spa near Washington, and after meeting with President Obama, House Democrats headed home ‘billing and cooing’ like reconciled brides because they’d built a ‘closer relationship’ with the President. But in this case the path to reconciliation wasn’t romantic: It was money. To sooth the Congressmen…
Read MoreObama and LBJ
Didn’t we see this movie in the Sixties? The President and his aides huddle over maps and pick targets. Jets drop bombs or drones launch missiles. Our enemies die. So do innocent civilians. The natives hate us and we make more enemies. As Congressman Walter Jones asks: Why are we still in Afghanistan? …
Read MoreComing to America
Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest blogger is Tapster Joe Stewart. I grew up in Raleigh, graduating from Athens Drive High School in 1982. The athletic conference (note singular) at the time was the Cap 8 and included (what seemed like) the remote outposts of Fuquay-Varina and Smithfield Selma. I…
Read MoreThe Sooner the Better
Speaker John Boehner probably never meant to end up being the face and voice of the Republican Party – but he’s the man in the room facing Obama so that’s how it is. Last month, just before the House passed the Speaker’s bill to raise the debt ceiling until May, I asked an old…
Read MoreSisters: Defend Yourselves
Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest blogger is Joyce Fitzpatrick. The war on women continues. Cokie Roberts spoke Tuesday evening at the Kenan- Flagler School at UNC Chapel Hill about how inhospitable the Romney/Ryan ticket had been to women and immigrants. They responded in huge numbers to give President Obama…
Read MoreTalking About (Their) Generation
Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest today is Joe Stewart. Currently reaching their 18th birthday at a rate of 13,000 a day, the 80 million-strong Generation Y (those born 1982 – 1995) will be the majority of the US workforce and a full third of the voting population by 2015. This…
Read MoreBig Thinking
When it comes to climbing up on a soap box and waving his arms and hollerin’ like a banshee there’s hardly anyone who can hold a candle to Newt Gingrich. But there’s a peculiar trait about people who talk a lot about their ‘bold ideas’— when you boil away their highfalutin rhetoric a lot of…
Read MoreA Serious Man
It was a very serious man who stepped up to the podium in front of the Capitol to give his Inaugural Speech but what he said wasn’t nearly as earthshaking in the reeling world of Republican Congressmen as what he’d already done. Barack Obama raised $1 billion in his reelection campaign and built the…
Read MoreThe New Normal?
Last month up in the hallowed halls of Congress, Speaker John Boehner slipped on a banana peel – deciding it was time to flex his muscles he stripped four Republican Congressmen of their blue-chip committee assignments – which, in Washington, is the same as the army stripping off a general’s epaulets in public. Back then, watching,…
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