While many people spent the July 4th weekend cooling off at the beach, the summer heat is still being felt in a number of marquee House matchups. As a result a few ratings changes are in order, as we explain below. As always you can visit the Crystal Ball website anytime for a complete chart of all competitive House races.
With just four months to go before the voting in November, many races have settled in—falling into the D or R column as Solid, Likely, or Lean. But then, there are those stubborn toss-ups. Some are unmovable since the primaries haven’t yet been held and the nominees in one or both parties are unknown. Still others haven’t gelled because candidates aren’t spending money or voters stubbornly refusing to focus on politics in the middle of a hot summer. (How dare they?)
In 1978, Justice Lewis Powell wrote an opinion in the Bakke case asserting that the need for diversity could justify racial preferences in university admissions. No other justice joined this opinion, but because the other justices were split 4-4, Powell's opinion decided the case, and in time his argument has been embraced by a majority of the court. A regrettable result, in my view, but a consequential one.
The Obama administration is challenging Arizona's tough new immigration law, and that's too bad. It's not that the Arizona law is good policy, because it isn't. And it's not that President Obama doesn't have a better idea on immigration reform, because he does. Democrats should know that they play with fire by going after a law that reflects the public's utter frustration with illegal immigration.
So often are the certitudes and pronouncements of the chattering class simply mistaken that they must always be treated with deep skepticism. That is especially true when anything important is at stake -- from the arguments for invading Iraq several years ago to today's economic stagnation. Whatever the conventional wisdom tells you must be true is almost certainly false.
The Afghan War may be the first one we lose primarily because our civilian leadership did not understand the effect of its public words on our government, our allies and our enemy. Throughout the summer and fall of 2009, as experts were getting more pessimistic about success in Afghanistan, President Obama began having second thoughts. He was conflicted between his campaign statement that Afghanistan was the good and necessary war and his supporters' concerns that America not get bogged down in another unwinnable Vietnam.
Trying to make news over the holiday weekend and trying to avoid the attention being paid to the latest gaffe from Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele (who is "the gift that keeps on giving," according to former Democratic National Committee Chair and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell), Republican leaders put out the story that the president needs to take a trip to the border to see just how dangerous it is.
A boy has apparently sent filthy text messages to your daughter over the weekend. Both are sixth-graders at the same school. You, the girl's father, coach sports with the boy's father. What would you do?
Elena Kagan famously wrote that Senate judicial confirmation hearings were "a vapid and hollow charade" in 1995. Of course, as a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, she gains nothing by being blunt, so who can blame her for taking the cagey route?
This whole debate about government stimulus versus austerity, and the impact of these policies on economic growth, misses a key point: It is business, not government, that creates jobs.
About 10,000 men and women have served in the United States Congress. Robert C. Byrd, who died Monday at age 92, served longer than all the rest - -more than 57 years, with six in the House and 51 in the Senate.
Thirty-six American cities and towns are named after the Marquis de Lafayette -- the best-known being Fayetteville, N.C., and Lafayette, La. Countless streets, parks and counties also honor the French aristocrat who left his country at age 19 to enlist with George Washington in the American Revolution. (There's also Lafayette College in Easton, Penn.) Many other American locales bear the name of La Grange, Lafayette's chateau in France. LaGrange, Ga., comes to mind.
I wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News during the Rodney King riots in 1992. I remember the first time I saw the shocking videotape of a group of officers beating and kicking a lone black motorist. Then I followed the trial of four police officers, the not-guilty verdicts, the rage and the ugliness. Six days of rioting left parts of Los Angeles charred and 54 people dead.
There seems to be one thing on which everyone can agree. From archconservative pundits to archliberal White House staffers responsible for Solicitor General Elena Kagan's confirmation to the Supreme Court, all agree that the test is whether she is in the "mainstream of current legal thought."
Supreme Court confirmation hearings are nothing but a charade. "Balls and strikes" is what John Roberts said he'd call. Sonia Sotomayor, no fool she, said the same. Elena Kagan, ditto, is going to be a neutral arbiter. She isn't a "progressive." She will be fair and open.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR5175, also
known as the Disclose Act, by a 219-206 vote. "Disclose," you see, is an
acronym for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in
Elections."
In the conservative paradise, a nation of strong, hard-working individuals borrow responsibly and save for future needs. They don't need government telling them how to manage their money. If they do foolish things, they pay the price.
Did GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman shove an employee when
she was CEO of eBay -- resulting in a $200,000 settlement for the employee?
Not long ago, a close friend called me with an unusual request. She
and her husband were looking for a new doctor to take care of them. What
made it unusual was that they'd had the same doctor for years -- decades,
actually.
While this week's House primaries and runoffs could not match the June 8th contests in sheer number, they made up for it in drama, intrigue, and good old fashioned controversy. Here are five quick takes from the most interesting of those races that were on the ballot Tuesday.
