Sonny noted earlier that he literally cannot fathom objections to a Supreme Court ruling that strikes down restraints on freedom of speech. I’m no constitutional scholar, but let me try to do some fathoming. The following points are all borrowed directly from Kevin Drum. who comes at this from a liberal Democratic perspective. First, There’s no question that political speech is at the core of...

It’s been a wild ride on the political escalator this past week in which feathers of all stripes were ruffled. People were going crazy trying to understand its totality. That’s where I come in as a columnist to make sense of the world around us. My prayers for an answer came with three minor news items on today’s menu. I think they bring us back to reality. The real world as we know it. Remember...

Say what you will about the wisdom of his decision, it’s certainly admirable. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Oakland-As-prospect-leaving-baseball-for-priesthood-012210

With the GOP win in Massachusetts there has been a lot of talk about what to do with health care reform. Some on the left pushing for immediate action while others call for stopping all reform now. What I can’t understand is why we can’t at least do stage one of the process. There are a number of aspects to health care reform that are, as far as I know, quite non controversial. Preventing companies...

To: Chief Justice John Roberts Re: Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission Dear John, I am a voter who takes his citizenship seriously. I am not a rich man. I have volunteered my time as an unpaid volunteer to work for various political causes and candidates. In your majority ruling Thursday, you reaffirm that corporations have the same rights as individuals. You go on to rule that corporations are...

The Supreme Court has struck a mighty blow for corporate freedom. By courageously setting aside past legal precedents that have kept corporations (which after all are just folks like everyone else) from enjoying their full free speech rights, corporations can now express themselves the same way every other decent individual does — with huge infusions of money into the political system. This is a very important...

It is strange how disasters, the desire to help out the victims, and political, diplomatic and military issues and sensitivities can sometimes merge into a potential international crisis. That’s what is apparently happening as Taiwan is dispatching a military aircraft carrying aid for earthquake-hit Haiti. According to Reuters, the aircraft has to refuel in the U.S. on its way to Haiti, and the U.S. will...

Full disclosure: This cartoon is a confessional.

Will Rogers, America’s beloved humorist of the 1930s, claimed he was not a member of any organized political party. “I’m a Democrat,” he quipped to the guffaws of his Great Depression audiences. Today’s Democrats find themselves still disorganized but also the victims of Murphy’s Law: When things go bad, they’re only going to get worse. The pinnacle of what’s gone...

A few days ago, in “Haiti: The U.S, Military Steps Up to the Plate” and in subsequent updates, I highlighted and commended the initial relief efforts by our military in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. In this one, I commented on, and hopefully debunked, preposterous allegations by French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and a few others that...

The disaster in Haiti has brought out both the best and the worst in people. A man of God, Pat Robertson, suggested that Haiti’s catastrophic misfortunes flowed from the “fact” that ancestors of the present victims made a pact with the devil. Fortunately, a flood of prayers and goodwill for the victims drowned out such drivel. A famous entertainer, Rush Limbaugh, derided, politicized and tried to create...

For much of 2009 the political world in Washington was mesmerized by a Democratic “Super-Majority” in the Senate, with 60 votes there supposedly being a magic number that along with a big Democratic majority in the House would ensure the Obama agenda would become law. Now that 60-vote, veto-proof majority is gone. And good riddance! In reality terms rather than Beltway bubble terms, such a belief...

There have been many efforts throughout time to make major changes in the laws of this country and the culture of its people in a short amount of time. I have found none that succeeded. Laws relating to civil rights, labor and workplace safety, environmental, and income taxes all took decades to come to fruition. They were all step by step processes. Even the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression...

There is much rejoicing or rending of garments in the political world at the moment, depending on one’s partisan persuasion (anyone with an active Twitter/Facebook feed can no doubt attest to this fact, not that it isn’t obvious from a variety of other sources). As per a discussion in the comment section of one of my posts comes the question of whether we have enough evidence from the first year of the Obama...

CSI POST MORTEM So the long-serving popular Liberal Lion of the Senate from one of the most Democratic states has a successor: An unknown conservative Republican who will be the 41st Member of the Minority dedicated to stopping the Democratic Juggernaut (or more aptly Train Wreck) before it even starts. No matter how you try to malign your candidate’s performance, you silly Democrats chose her and created...

This is no criticism of U.S. military and humanitarian relief aid in the first week after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that flatten half of Haiti last Tuesday. God knows their intentions were sound. No one seems in charge. Not the Haitian government which was feeble before the quake and totally crippled beginning with the first after shocks. Not the United Nations blue-helmeted security forces shaken to the...

The second new Governor of 2010 has taken office. Ceremony video is available on CSPAN

I do not live in Massachusetts, but like every other would be political observer, I have been paying attention. Mike Allen over at Politico wrote that President Obama plans on being combative if Martha Coakley loses the special election for the Mass. Senate seat today. The consensus is that Obama’s mid-term swoon has begun and the health care bill is going to be the first casualty. I think it’s...

While he may be pretty liberal, Chris Matthews is no dummy and his analysis of the nuts and bolts of electoral politics (especially in the Northeast) is often dead on accurate. Looking at the numbers he has for key bellweathers he pretty much calls it as hopeless for Coakley. Three areas had been identified as bellweathers, Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody. They were chosen because 1) the party registration figures...

In jolly old England, a radio disc jockey is being criticized for playing the Van Halen classic “Jump” as police stopped traffic and tried to prevent a woman from jumping off a bridge. Here’s the account as reported by a London newspaper. I’m not the most politically correct person on the planet but this behavior by a smart-ass disc jockey is irresponsible. Fortunately, the woman survived...

Update: Nate Silver now calls Brown a 3-1 favorite to win. I respect his analytical skills but will remain cautious about any GOP prospects in Massachusetts. Like many armchair analysts I’ve been following every new poll in the Coakley/Brown race and I’ve found the results hard to believe.  The idea that in the hard blue state of Massachusetts a virtually unknown Republican could defeat a long...

I was watching football on TV yesterday. The Vikings trouncing the Cowboys. I really enjoyed the game because I’m a Philadelphia Eagles fan and the Eagles got trounced by the Cowboys the previous week. A petty revenge, sure, but you take what you can get. There was an unusual number of commercials during this event, It’s like that on television these days. When they don’t have enough advertisers...

After four straight days of hearing what comes out of the cold hearts of pundits like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and the demented mind of Pat Robertson, this moved me to my core.

As a former military, I have naturally been impressed by and have publicized the lead role taken by the U.S. military in bringing humanitarian assistance and relief to devastated Haiti. Of course, the U.S. military are not alone in performing such efforts. Many other countries, and their military, and many other governmental and non-governmental civilian and private organizations are also providing invaluable...

Some years back a buddy of mine boasted he never watched television. Yet, he could tell you every joke and expression and the actors on the then popular television show “Laugh In.” Folks, here comes da judge. You lie. Television is the best and worst form of entertainment and information ever invented by mankind. Ever since communications commentator Marshall McCuen called it “the vast wasteland,”...