The Daily Hurricane

My mother in law proved a point that I had learned back in my political science days. Back in 2004, she said the Democratic party was dead. I'm not quite sure what led her to that conclusion. John Kerry wasn't exactly an exciting candidate and he still narrowly lost the election to George W. Bush. Congress was in the hands of the Republicans, but things had been worse. I suppose it was wishful thinking.My in...

Updated for WP link:Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from their book "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism," which will be available Tuesday....

Sometimes, the politics are just too much.I know who to hang with from the 13-y-o crowd!:Just for fun:And then there was another one:Peace out, and have a great weekend!...

President Obama's re-election campaign released this ad highlighting Obama's decision to get Osama bin Laden:John McCain blew a gasket:"Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad...This is the same President who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn't 'spike the ball' after the touchdown. And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score...

There's an old expression that talks about finding out how the sausage is made. The general idea is that people are usually fine with the outcome, but when they take a look at the process that goes into creating the outcome, they suddenly lose their appetite. Sausage seems to be number one on that lists of products that people don't want to watch being made. Government might soon replace sausage on that lists.A political history...

It would be funny if it weren't true. Via Newshoggers:...

Tonight, I went to a nice bar/restaurant to get out for a decent meal, a glass of wine, and some great people watching.  Little did I know that the whole evening would be cut short by an over-bearing neanderthal who watches waaaay to much Fox News.  It's happened to me before.  The weird thing is, it always comes out of the blue, and I'm always shocked.  I'm not sure why I'm shocked; I guess I...

MUST WATCH:  Last night, President Obama was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and slow jammed the news about student loan interest rates:...

Here's a video of the interview I did with Rachel on the second anniversary of the blowout of BP's Macondo Well:...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/04/24/151284311/first-criminals-charges-in-bp-oil-spill-filed-against-a-bp-engineer...

Pope Benedict the whatever has just reprimanded American nuns for helping the poor too much and not gay bashing enough.  Posted without further comment, because we are speechless....

Tonight at 9:50 pm central time marks the exact time that BP's deepwater well named Macondo blew out, killing eleven workers, destroying Transocean's Deepwater Horizon, and putting 5 million barrels of oil into the water 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.  Most of the world has moved on since then, thinking that everything in the Gulf is okey-dokey, and anxious to hear the latest news on Janet Jackson and Dancing with...

I'm cross-posting, but this deserves your attention as the BS in this political world is astounding.Got a phone call this week from my soldier. This time it was a request for his dress uniforms to be sent in time for an inspection coming up now that he has his 'permanent' post. By the way, he's in climate shock since he's used to Southern winters and is on a base in the North. When you're accustomed...

One of the beauties of not running for office is I don't have to mince words. So, I'll say it again, David Dewhurst is a jackass. The current Lt. Governor is running for Kay Bailey Hutchinson's senate seat and I'm tempted to vote for him. Why would I do such a stupid thing? Well, it would get him the hell out of Texas now wouldn't it.Now, how did we get to this point? Well, Dewhurst...

This morning, MS-NBC reported that Mitt Romney paid the same of amount of money in taxes on his 113 million dollars of income last year as Barack Obama did on his three million dollars in income. That's not percentage people. That's actual dollars. Of course, I'm sure your president isn't getting hosed by the IRS, so we are left to wonder exactly who is getting hosed on this deal.Mitt Romney is Republican candidate that has...

As Desperado has pointed out so eloquently in his own way, the economy, foreign policy, and national security are not the most important issues in 2012. Yes, they are always important in any election, but if the past week has taught us anything it is that the structure of the Supreme Court and the entire judicial branch is at stake. Right now it is a 5-4 court in favor of the conservatives.The 2012 election is...

Same song, different verse:"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court's conservative wing, wrote that..."This time it's about driving another nail into the coffin of the Fourth Amendment and the protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Strip searches for everybody! "Every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed," Justice Kennedy wrote, adding that about 13 million people are admitted each year to...

Let's take a look at the Florida "Stand Your Ground" law and put the shoe on the other foot, or in the Trayvon Martin case, the gun in the other hand. The law reads: "A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her...

Now that the Supremes have finished hearing arguments and begin to deliberate the fate of the Affordable Care Act it seems to be the time for predictions on how they'll rule, so I'll throw in my $0.02 worth.I see a 5-4 decision to not only throw out the individual mandate but the entire law. The reason being that without the individual mandate the entire law collapses. Justice Scalia said as much when he remarked about...

Houston Mayor Annise Parker has been pushing an anti-food sharing ordinance in Houston that would criminalize  many acts of kindness towards those most in need in our city. (Above--The type of sharing with others that may soon be illegal in Houston.)  Beyond that, Mayor Parker, in explaining her support for the anti-giving ordinance, has some strange views about the public's right to use public space.From the Houston Press---"Mayor Parker argued that City property is, indeed, private --...