(Political Ramblings from a Little Left of Center)
We finally have a Speaker of the House. Woo. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) will be an unmitigated disaster and a likely topic of future blog posts. For the moment, though, I’m simply exhausted with all of the House drama and needed to switch my focus towards some state-level elections. Even in this off year, there…
What’s your function? Hooking up two parties and making ’em run right. … In the evenings, when I’m usually feeling wonky, I love to take a walk through the Mall and to a honky tonky, Where I often see an elephant and a donkey, And I wonder, as I walk by, just what they could…
I opined just yesterday that a bipartisan approach to electing a Speaker of the House could have been a path forward. Given the continuing implosion of House Republicans, the idea might not be as far-fetched as I thought. First, a quick landscape summary: Republicans do hold a majority of seats in the U.S. House. Republicans…
Now that the writers strike is over, I can finally start posting again! No, I’m not a WGA member. But, hey, I’m not above abusing their strike as a flimsy excuse for my own absence from this blog. In all seriousness, I’m relieved that all parties agreed upon an equitable deal, and I hope that…
The Orange Guy was indicted today by a federal grand jury on four felony counts of conspiracy and obstruction related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. I’m getting on a plane in a few hours and don’t have the time to read the full indictment beforehand. Thus, I’ll take the 45-page indictment…
Unfortunately, I started this post quite a while back. Since February, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has been single-handedly blocking all senior military promotions. The details of the “senatorial hold” that Tuberville is using aren’t all that important. Suffice it to say that the rules of the Senate give enormous power to every individual Senator –…
“And remember, Florida’s easier than other places. You have the ocean and you have the sun. There’s something about that that works. But — you have the sun, too, but you don’t have the ocean. I can tell. You definitely don’t have the ocean. Maybe someday you’ll have the ocean, you never know.” – The…
I finally finished reading the rules that were recently adopted by the Texas Senate for its impeachment trial of (suspended) Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. It’s a largely boring mixed bag. I will give some credit to the Texas Senate rules committee for defining something that at least has the potential to be a real…
Since I already took an early – and rather depressing – look at the 2024 Senate races, I thought I’d next take a swing at the House. The analysis is much tougher on this side of the Hill, but the potential outcome seems a tad brighter for Democrats. There are 435 voting representatives in the…
I keep getting asked why I’ve been silent about the Orange Guy’s federal indictment. If I had anything new or clever to add to the conversation, I’d certainly speak up. However, I can’t do much more than repeat what everyone already knows: Yes, the indictment is more than damning. But we already knew that he…