Republicans Win Big in Local Races

The loss of a Republican seat in NY-23 under highly unusual circumstances notwithstanding, yesterday was a good day for Republicans. After crushing defeats in successive elections, they won back the Virginia governor's office in a blowout and knocked off a billionaire incumbent governor in New Jersey despite having their vote split between two candidates. I would, however, resist the temptation ...

Health Care: Better, Faster, Cheaper!

In a much discussed post, Ezra Klein produced a series of graphs showing that Americans pay more for office visits, scans and imaging, drugs, and other aspects of health care -- often, far more -- than is the case in Canada or Western Europe. There is a simple explanation for why American health care costs so much more than health care ...

Scozzafava Endorses Democrat Owens

The special election to fill New York's 23rd Congressional District seat vacated by the appointment of Republican John McHugh as Secretary of the Army has taken yet another bizarre twist.  Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend, causing great celebration on the part of Republicans like Michelle Malkin, who termed her "radical leftist GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava" and ...

Obama’s Nobel Unconstitutional?

Ron Rotunda and Peter Pham argue in today's WaPo that it would violate the Constitution for President Obama to accept the Nobel Peace Prize while in office. Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: "And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any ...

Obama 56, Republicans 30

A NYT/CBS poll finds that President Obama's approval remains strong but support for his handling of key policy issues is dipping. The Republicans are not, however, gaining much ground. At 56 percent, his approval rating is down from earlier in the year but still reasonably strong at this point compared with recent presidents. More Americans are starting to credit his stimulus package ...

Health Insurance Mandates

Sam Stein reports that "Democrats are bracing themselves for a new line of conservative attack against a provision in the health care legislation once considered so non-controversial that it was endorsed by several major Republican officials."  What is it, you might ask, that these dastardly Republicans are opposing out of their racist hatred of Barack Obama? On Tuesday, Sen. Jon Kyl ...

Split Health Care Bill

Taking a page out of Soloman's playbook, Congressional Democrats have a brand new plan for passing health care reform. The White House and Senate Democratic leaders, seeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions solely with Democratic votes. The idea is ...

Barney Frank Townhall Confrontation (Videos)

Apparently, even people in Barney Frank's ultra-liberal Massachussets district are afraid and/or angry about ObamaCare. Frank, who has survived revelations of a gay escort service run out of his apartment, is

Town Halls and T-Shirts

WaPo fashion critic Robin Givhan has irked some conservative bloggers by going after the town hall protesters for being a mite casual in their choice of couture. By and large, the shouters are dressed in a way that underscores their Average Guy -- or Gal -- bona fides. They are wearing T-shirts, baseball caps, promotional polo shirts and sundresses with bra ...

Democracy in Action

Yesterday's Gallup poll finding that the town hall protests are having the desired effects of gaining sympathy for the protestors and increasing doubts about health care reform efforts is getting a lot of attention.  Those results don't surprise me, however.  (They do surprise Mickey Kaus.) What is interesting is this: Frank Newport: There is a fair degree of consensus among Democrats, independents, and ...

Are Americans Stupid?

Bill Maher has a piece at HuffPo arguing that Americans are a bunch of idiots who should just shut up and let people who know what they're talking about make decisions on tough issues like health care reform. [T]ake the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their ...

Is the Filibuster Unconstitutional?

Matt Yglesias cites a 15-year-old essay by Hendrick Hertzberg arguing that the filibuster is unconstitutional: It’s true that the framers did not specify that the Senate would do its normal business by simple majority vote, but that’s because it didn’t occur to them that they had to specify it, any more than it occurred to them to specify that senators should ...

Blue America!

This map resulting from a Gallup poll on party identification is making the rounds: The lede from Jeffrey Jone's write-up: An analysis of Gallup Poll Daily tracking data from the first six months of 2009 finds Massachusetts to be the most Democratic state in the nation, along with the District of Columbia. Utah and Wyoming are the most Republican states, as they ...

Congressional Revolution Needed?

Ezra Klein and Steve Benen are recirculating this somewhat interesting chart on political polarization in America by political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. Ezra argues that "this level of polarization makes it virtually impossible to govern in a system that is designed to foil majorities and require a constant three-fifths consensus. It's not good if the country ...

Ideological Wind Tunnels

Glenn Greenwald rebuts those who think his strident attacks on Presidents Bush and Obama for abusing their power make his blog "an ideological wind tunnel" and that he is "oblivious to the practical considerations policymakers must contend with." By the design of the Founders, most American political issues are driven by the vicissitudes of political realities, shaped by practicalities and resolved by ...