Politics
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
The official photo by White House photographer Pete Souza of President Obama signing the debt ceiling increase says it all. Alone at his desk, the president looks down at the paper with a maddening stare. Two boxes of ceremonial pens are lined up neatly in front of him. In the background, where so many have stood so many times proudly waiting for their souvenir of a grand achievement, there is no one.
“Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan,” John F. Kennedy said. And now President Obama knows what he meant. MORE...
Talking The New Television Talk
It was not the most auspicious start for Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who threw his helmet in the ring Tuesday for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. The skies were overcast, the camera angle on the Statue of Liberty from the park across the channel was askew, and his announcement––slated to go live on three cable news stations at 10 AM––was delayed while engineers worked out the kinks in the audio system. MORE...
Not With a Bang But a Whimper
What does it take to get a Republican excited? In New Hampshire Monday night, it wasn’t the space age set created by CNN for the first presidential debate of the 2012 season. It wasn’t the jumbotron filled with Twitter questions, the debonair hosting of John King, or the breath-taking intelligence of all those deep thinkers up on stage talking over the issues of the day.
No, if you want to get Republicans excited these days you only have to say one word: Obama, as in “anybody but Obama.” And that’s what the Republicans got in New Hampshire, seven mildly interesting contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination who are anything but the next Barack Obama. MORE...
Decency Takes a Pass
It was one of the last days in the Wisconsin primary, and a cold, wind-whipped blizzard had brought the 2008 campaign to a standstill. A hundred or so Mike Huckabee fans gathered nonetheless at the Olympic Lanes on Milwaukee’s south side unsure whether the candidate would make it. MORE...
The Grass is Always Greener . . . When You Get a Tax Break
In that moment of truth – when you realize people are lying through their teeth – I read in the business pages of the New York Times that Caterpillar Tractor located in Peoria, Illinois, increased its 1st quarter profits five-fold over those of the same period a year ago and is on track to sell a record $57 billion of its products worldwide this year.
Caterpillar employs almost 23,000 workers in Illinois – over 100,000 worldwide – and the profits are spilling in from all over the globe. And yet, this is the same Caterpillar whose CEO Douglas Oberhelman has been making headlines lately with the suggestion he might move the Caterpillar headquarters to another state because the Illinois tax climate is not welcoming to business. MORE...
If He Only Had a Brain
I’m not saying Donald Trump doesn’t have a brain. I’m just saying if he has one, he should show it. And I hope he does have one. It would be very hard to grow all that hair artificially without a brain. So we have to presume he was born with a brain and, maybe . . . maybe he just lost his mind somewhere along the way. MORE...
Let The Battle Be Joined
Whether you are a fan of Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” or President Obama’s “Framework for Shared Prosperity and Shared Fiscal Responsibility” (or the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission report), all three call for running up an additional $7 trillion (Obama), $5.4 trillion (Ryan) or $5.3 trillion (Simpson-Bowles) before the deficit curve turns down. Try that without a credit card. MORE...
The Lawyers Who Reformed Chicago
Any number of legislators, civic leaders, community organizers – even Mayor Richard M. Daley – are in a position to claim some credit for reform in Chicago. But the slow, decades-long process that cleaned up the worst of the abuses was a complicated struggle, played out under the rules of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-60’s by an unlikely combination of a Republican senator and a handful of crusading attorneys. Let’s call them the unsung heroes of Chicago reform. MORE...
The Morning After
There is a touch of irony to the fact that potentially the most divisive candidate, one with apparent issues relating to blacks, Latinos and progressives in general should weld all of them together in a remarkable 55 percent coalition that left the rest of the candidates far in the dust. MORE...
Rahmphoria!
The last days before the February 22 mayoral primary are shaping up to be something of a letdown. Three polls released last week have frontrunner Rahm Emanuel winning 54 percent, 49 percent and 58 percent (if “undecided” is not an option) of Tuesday’s vote, and last night’s ABC debate at the Oriental Theater did little to change the dynamics. Maybe it’s time to invoke the slaughter rule. MORE...
RR: Are you playing Monopoly on the iPad?
CF: Yep and I’m playing the Italian way. Making all my money in jail.
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