If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
In the gun debate, the "criminals will get guns and gun deaths will occur no matter what" argument is one that I hear often. There is extensive social science data demonstrating that policy interventions -- namely, regulation -- make for a healthier, safer society.
Monday will be a big day for Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican Party. He will announce the results of a task force he convened, following last November's election, which he asked to "figure out what we can do to grow our party and win more elections."
Two things were confirmed this past week: that Mitt Romney truly despises the poor and middle class, and that most Republican leaders despise Mitt Romney.
On our 100th show, Arianna and Mary debate the post-election Republican re-set and whether new GOP members should be required to watch not Patton but Lincoln. Then we discuss how Romney's sour gripes exposed himself as Mr. 1 percent + 47 percent which oddly equals exactly his final total of 48 percent.
Does Romney really think that the Wall Street billionaires and multimillionaires, Pentagon contractors, chambers of commerce and other big and small businesspeople who so lavishly supported him and other politicians paid all that money out of love and admiration for him and the rest?
But, for an enterprising national reporter, the next time he/she gets to ask Romney a question, there is a better question, better because it is black-and-white and unspinnable: Did Romney get amnesty from the IRS on taxes owed on his Swiss Bank Account?
If Hillary Clinton is to have the option of running for president in 2016, she needs a strong legacy as secretary of state, by far the most important post she's ever held.
We repeatedly express surprise when this unilateral power is used and are quick to decry the lack of principle behind some uses of the pardon power. Yet we never ask how a candidate would use the pardon power during the election cycle?
The most serious problem facing the Republican Party is that they have backed themselves into the corner of being a party whose base, and to a large extent, entire electorate is white and born before about 1960.
When Haley Barbour gave out 215 pardons a few weeks back, the relatives of victims immediately contacted the media to share their outrage. The media seem to have completely ignored the reality that the real problem is systematic.
There is a great deal of fodder for criticism in Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's recent mass pardons -- but not a lot of discussion on his Christian rehabilitation justification.
The last 30 years of sentencing policy may provide an answer. Getting "tough on crime" became popular among the public and politicians alike. We rejected the notion that a criminal could be rehabilitated.
The lesson in all this is clear: The GOP played with fire, and they are getting their hands burned. They unleashed a monster they hoped to turn against Democrats, but it has turned on them first.
An election-eve poll showed that if the presidential election were held today, the Buckeye State would give President Obama an 11-point victory over his nearest Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.
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