How do you know which states will really swing?
With the general election now essentially under way, pundits, scholars and voters will spend a lot of time trying to figure out which states are really in play.
Based on my experience as a North Carolina reporter in 2008, I propose a simple method: the Embed [...]
Continue Reading →What if the Supreme Court had term limits?
Both liberals such as former Jimmy Carter speechwriter James Fallows and conservatives such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry have called for the United States to reconsider lifetime tenure for the justices on the nation’s highest court.
The idea is based on the increased longevity of many modern [...]
Continue Reading →Will the Supreme Court justices’ personal health history affect their rulings?
Sometime today, the nine justices of the nation’s highest court met for the first time behind closed doors to discuss how they might vote on the constitutionality of the 2010 health care law.
Unlike a lot of other cases before the court, all nine justices [...]
Continue Reading →Rep. Rob Wittman wants you to know that he’s cheap.
The Virginia Republican tweeted this evening that he drives a really old car, and he’s proud of it.
“Folks, my 2005 Toyota Corolla passed 300,000 miles last week and it’s still running strong. Hope to see you around America’s First District!”
(Wittman’s district includes [...]
Continue Reading →Sen. John McCain will soon be the Alec Baldwin of “Meet the Press.”
On Sunday, the Arizona Republican made his 63rd appearance on the show, defending his new besty, Mitt Romney, in a mano-a-mano with former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who represented former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), reverse mortgages and older men with goatees. That’s a lot [...]
Continue Reading →Roll Call, July 26, 2011
Politicians on Facebook are often little more than caricatures.
On official pages run by legislative staffers, they come off as wooden and dry Dudley Do-Rights touring the state fairgrounds.
On campaign pages managed by paid political strategists, they are hard-charging partisans, forever storming the barricades.
But on his Facebook page, [...]
Continue Reading →Roll Call, June 16, 2011
Shortly before he took the U.S. citizenship exam in 1947, eccentric Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel sat down to read the Constitution.
A pioneer in the use of logic in higher math, Gödel grew agitated when he saw what he considered a flaw in the document, which would allow the U.S. [...]
Continue Reading →Roll Call, April 3, 2010
A recent caller to a C-SPAN morning show said the network was allowing so many black viewers to call in that it should change its name to “Black-SPAN.”
Commentators from Mediaite to Jon Stewart noted host Bill Scanlan’s composure as he listened to the caller, with some arguing he should [...]
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