Just for fun, today I'd like to use my column to skate perilously close to the edge of rampant paranoia. I'm really doing this to make an ironic point, at the end, but I can't deny that this type of thing is certainly fun to write. Especially when I'm stating...

Welcome to yet another weekly wrapup column. Before we begin, a bit of program news -- this column will be on hiatus next week, because we'll be attending the annual Netroots Nation blogger bash in sunny San Jose, California. For anyone who is going, we'll see you there! For those...

The Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Carl Levin, has just voted down an amendment championed by Kirsten Gillibrand which would have stripped from the chain of command the decisions on prosecuting sexual assaults in the military. Although the amendment had 28 co-sponsors (including four Republicans), Levin voted against it...

June is "Supreme Court Decision Month" in the nation's capital, and the two cases that may have more political impact than any others are the ones dealing with gay marriage. In both the Proposition 8 case and the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) case, many are hoping for sweeping rulings...

Every so often as I sit down to write these Friday columns, the spirit of the rant overtakes me. Instead of our usual Talking Points section this week, I offer up such a rant, on the death of the Fourth Amendment. You have all been warned. I did consider calling...

President Obama should really stop fighting against the idea of making the morning-after pill available to anyone who needs to buy it. He really should instruct Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder to admit defeat on the issue, and to just move on. Because...

Pre-storm calm?

Barack Obama had a pretty bad month inside the Beltway, with Republicans on the warpath over multiple scandals. Outside Washington, Obama didn't have too bad a month at all, as his job approval ratings barely budged. While this calm may seem to indicate that the public has a...

If that title drew you in, I have to warn you up front that the ranting contest suggestion is at the very bottom of this article, so feel free to just scroll down to it if that's all you're here for. Full disclosure, and all of that -- I just...

Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly meeting with members of the press, to hear what they had to say about the Justice Department's actions towards the Associated Press and a Fox News reporter. Apparently, my invitation to this meeting got lost in the mail (perhaps it is in my "Spam"...

Some weeks, not much happens in political news, and other weeks it seems like almost too much happens. This was one of the latter types of week.

While last week was a week of scandals on the television news, this week most of them faded into the background a bit....

A comprehensive immigration reform bill has been approved by the Senate committee responsible for immigration laws, and the bill will now move to the Senate floor. This is good news for people who want to see immigration reform, obviously, but the bill's still got quite a ways to go before...

Is Barack Obama our nation's second "Teflon president"? The question has occurred to me before, but it became impossible to ignore after the last week of "Scandalgate." Even after multiple scandals all vying for the top headline throughout the week, over the weekend CNN reported poll numbers showing Obama currently...

Things have gotten so bad in Washington that both pundits and Republicans are beginning to use the "N-word" to describe the president. No, no... not that N-word! Instead, Obama is now actively being compared to Nixon. This comparison is patently...

... WE INTERRUPT THIS COLUMN FOR BREAKING NEWS -- We...

Is it time for Attorney General Eric Holder to (as is frequently said in politics) "spend some more time with his family"?

I must admit, it's hard for me to be impartial and unbiased in suggesting that it might be time for Holder to step down. One of my biggest...

The scandal currently unfolding at the Internal Revenue Service is actually being downplayed by some who feel that tax investigations into groups advocating an anti-tax attitude is more than justified on the face of it. Admittedly, all the facts are not yet in, but the scandal started when the IRS...

Being a student of the political lexicon, I would like to propose a new definition for an old term -- a term we've all used since roughly the second grade. I refer, of course, to the "wedgie." For those who are astoundingly unaware of what this term literally means, I...

No matter the definitions used, the United States of America has not been directly attacked by an enemy's military very often throughout its history. The biggest attack wasn't even on a state, since Hawai'i was only a territory at the time of Pearl Harbor. There's an even shorter list of...

Leveling Out

Welcome back once again to our monthly examination of President Barack Obama's job approval polling numbers. In April, Obama's numbers returned to a normal level, after experiencing a very short post-election "honeymoon period" with the public which bounced his numbers up to a peak, and then bounced them...

Before I get into our main subject, allow me a moment of frivolity. I'd like to be the first (because I'm a day early) to wish everyone a Happy Star Wars Day! Yes, tomorrow is unofficially known as Star Wars Day, because (get ready to groan if you haven't heard...

The news that "Plan B" -- a pill to be taken as soon as possible after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy -- will now be sold to all young women age 15 and older (instead of 17 and older, as it was previously) is nothing short of laughable, in multiple...