LATEST BLOG POSTS

• December 20, 4:22 PM EDT

  Civil Rights Advance; the McCain Legacy Retreats By Tim Dickinson

  

  You might have wished that Barack Obama had taken a more aggressive path to overturning the military’s ban on openly gay servicemen and women. I certainly did. The president didn’t issue stop-loss orders to prevent gay soldiers from being kicked out of the military. When a federal judge ruled that the stay-in-the-closet-or-else policy was unconstitutional, Obama’s Justice Department even went to court to defend the status quo. For two years, the president was insistent that... | MORE »

• December 15, 3:09 PM EDT

  Why Shouldn’t Freedom of the Press Apply to WikiLeaks? By Tim Dickinson

  Here's a thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the quarter of a million secret government cables from the State Department had been leaked, not to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, but to Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times. First, let's state the obvious: The Times would never have returned the confidential files to the Obama administration. Most likely, the newspaper would have attempted to engage with State to try to scrub life- and source- threatening det... | MORE »

• November 4, 3:44 AM EDT

  Four More Lessons from the GOP Landslide By James Burnett

  A few more items to add to the list we drew up while the balloons were still falling early Wednesday morning:  Christine O’Donnell was even less electable than Alvin Greene. Despite never actually campaigning and displaying even more bizarre behavior than O'Donnell, the South Carolina Democrat outdrew the Delaware Republican by 358,276 to 123,025 -- a margin of 235,000 votes. (For that matter, Greene also earned more votes than Sharron Angle, who collected 320,996 while los... | MORE »

• November 3, 5:35 PM EDT

  The Vanishing Obama Voters By Tim Dickinson

  

  If you compare the exit polls from last night and the midterm election in 2006 there was clearly a surge in the angry, old fogey vote. Senior citizens carved out a 23 percent share of the electorate, up four points from four years ago. The well-heeled also turned out, with voters from households earning $100,000 or more making up 26 percent of voters (also a four point jump). And ideological voters reigned supreme: Self-identified conservatives represented 41 percent of voters last night, up... | MORE »

• November 3, 11:51 AM EDT

  Californians Beat Back Big Oil, Save Clean Energy Program By Tim Dickinson

  

  While voters in the rest of the country were clamoring to take the country back(ward), Golden State voters showed a steady commitment to the future last night. The state handily defeated Prop 23, the ballot measure, bankrolled by Texas oil money, that would have rolled back the state's ambitious clean-energy targets, which are designed to cut the California's global warming emissions by 30 percent by 2020. It's impressive that voters, even amid double digit unemployment in the... | MORE »

• November 3, 2:35 AM EDT

  California's Prop 19: Just Say...Maybe Next Time By Tim Dickinson

  

  Proposition 19 -- the California ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana possession and cultivation -- has gone up in smoke.  The initiative, which led in the polls through much of the summer, fell flat everywhere in the state but in the Bay Area, and among every demographic group except the under-24 set -- who backed the measure 62-38 but didn't turn out in force to propel its passage. This is a painful blow to cannabis activists who intended the measure to upend the... | MORE »

• November 3, 1:58 AM EDT

  Things We Learned at the Midterms By James Burnett

  

  The big headlines were clear well before midnight: Republicans were retaking the House, while Democrats would hold the Senate. The big questions -- what will President Obama do now, and how far to the right will the Tea Party drag Speaker-to-be John Boehner and the rest of the caucus -- will be picked over endlessly over the next few days. But beyond the broad themes, a number of small truths emerged. Herewith, our running list of what we learned at the midterms: --Loony, Ego-Driven Cand... | MORE »

• November 2, 5:51 AM EDT

  Keeping Hope (Barely) Alive: Two Last-Minute Causes for Democratic Optimism? By James Burnett

  The polls say it’s going to be a bad-to-very-bad night for Democrats. But until the actual polls -- the ones that voters actually vote at -- close, it is still possible for Democrats and likeminded independents to hope all those polls are wrong. They are probably not (early intel on turnout, though a highly imperfect indicator, is said to be freaking out party strategists), but while there’s still time to dream, a pair of rogue, conventional wisdom-bucking prognostications make fo... | MORE »

• November 1, 10:27 AM EDT

  Extreme Need: The Races Where Democratic Votes Will Matter Most By Tim Dickinson

  

  For Democrats, preserving control of the House looks like a lost cause. For Republicans, a Senate majority is still within reach -- but barely. Where Congress is concerned, that means the big question for election day is: How many nut jobs are we going to be stuck with in the Senate for the next six, 12, or 18 years? Some of the damage is already locked in: Tea Party darling Rand Paul? Barring a major upset in Kentucky, that’s going to be Senator Aqua Bhudda to me and you. In Pennsylvan... | MORE »

• November 1, 4:46 AM EDT

  Obama's Interview with Ryan Seacrest: What Took Him So Long? By James Burnett

  It has been noted that American Idol finales can draw more votes than American Presidents, a bit of fuzzy math (American Idol voters can vote more than once, and when ballots for losing candidates are included, presidential elections have tens of millions more participants) that has a way of sounding true, given the general health of our democracy. Now comes word that President Obama is doing an interview with Idol host Ryan Seacrest for his nationally syndicated radio show, which will air at... | MORE »