There was an unusually interesting moment on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning. Hardball host Chris Matthews took on Kenosha, Wisconsin's own Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, over Mitt Romney's thinly veiled appeals to racism — including...
$1.81: The price of gas when Obama took office.In the past few days, I have seen this meme spreading on Facebook — and back in September, Michele Bachmann was saying, "The day that President Obama took office, gasoline was $1.79 a gallon." Many Facebook...
[President Obama’s speech: White House video and text transcript.] Remarks by the President on Fiscal Policy George Washington University Washington, D.C. 1:48 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Please have a seat. Please have a seat, everyone....
Barack Obama's health initiative is reportedly a success. The president has managed to stop smoking for "almost a year" now, according to First Lady Michelle Obama. Good for him and his family. Quitting smoking has been a struggle for...
Above is an outrageous Second City Network video from the site of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on Washington D.C.'s National Mall this past weekend. Andy Cobb of The Partisans asks attendees, "Is Obama a Keynesian?" You have to...
Sen. Al Franken is not only one of the best guys ever — he is also one of the funniest comedians and writers of our lifetime because he appreciates absurdity and the hard nugget of truth sometimes concealed inside it. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell is a pretty sharp truth...
NPR's Planet Money has been conducting an ongoing case study of a toxic asset, and there was an interesting observation in Friday morning's installment examining the origin of this toxic asset, the housing bubble circa 2005: DAVID KESTENBAUM: How weird would it be to,...
When news broke last weekend that President Barack Obama would be holding a town hall meeting here in Racine on June 30, the area media struggled to understand its purpose. On a national level, there is currently no sharper political analyst than MSNBC's Rachel...
Racine, Wisconsin — President Barack Obama answers a question during his town hall meeting at Memorial Hall. See also: My blog post and videos.
Racine, Wisconsin — An audience at Memorial Hall listens to President Barack Obama during his town hall meeting. See also: My blog post and videos.
Racine, Wisconsin — Air Force One, as seen from Lake Ave. near 7th St. outside Memorial Hall, about 90 minutes before President Obama's town hall meeting here. [includeme...
Reading an editorial today by Racine's local newspaper, I felt a certain "down the rabbit-hole" sensation that has become increasingly familiar. The Journal Times opinion piece, "State no longer a ‘tax hell’," lauds the news that "Wisconsin's taxation ranking has hit...
To appreciate how boneheaded this mistake is, you first have to actually read Psalm 109 and be able to understand it. Ready? Great. Here are the first eleven verses: God whom I praise, do not be silent! Wicked and deceiving words are being said about me, false...
Last night, Amy and I watched President Obama on The Late Show with David Letterman, where he was given a heart-shaped potato by audience member Mary Apple of Independence, Missouri, who brought the same potato to Letterman's show two years ago. Today, upon opening a...
We're ditching the commentators on the various networks and watching C-SPAN's inauguration coverage today on TV. Meanwhile, over on the computer, I am getting blown away by the astounding seven feeds of HD video streaming from CBS2Chicago.com. Breathtaking.
I was lying in bed here a few minutes ago, and there was darkness on my radio. The latest unemployment report is due out today. It is expected to be very grim, and the news reader said that employers need to see exactly how bad it is before deciding whether to cut...
I just saw this video, one of two posted yesterday by Steve Johnson at ChicagoTribune.com. Apparently, there is no end to the man's coolness. Not only is he appearing on Check, Please!, one of my favorite TV shows (seven years ago, before anyone knew how cool it was),...
Fred Armisen was jeered pretty roundly when he started playing Barack Obama on SNL, but I always thought he had keyed in on several quirky traits, and that the parody just keeps getting better and better. Last night's "Obama Plays It Cool" piece was his best yet....
9:17 a.m. — I've got some leftover sauce reheating in the microwave. I'll mix it with the egg noodles boiling on the stove and call it breakfast. MSNBC is on my TV, and I can see my local polling place from my living room window. It's 61 sunny and clear degrees...
I voted. Amy voted too. We voted early. We have been receiving the notices from the Obama campaign and seeing how they urge people to vote early. They even have a Web site, VoteForChange.com, to help Americans find out how to vote early. Still, I wasn't completely...
ABC's ABC World News with Charles Gibson devoted this past week to a "Great American Battleground Bus Tour" gimmick which purported to give Gibson and his viewers insight into real, live heartland voters in cities like Dayton, Bowling Green, Indianapolis, Davenport —...
There were a number of interesting moments in Saturday night's "Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency," but one that I have not seen mentioned came as part of John McCain's response to a question about taxes. Part 5 of Pastor Rick...
Reading Andrew Sullivan's acclaimed piece pn Election 2008 in last December's Atlantic magazine, I noted the emphasis on Barack Obama's religious conviction and how one Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright introduced Obama to Jesus Christ. Sullivan was wowed: To deploy the...
Saturday was when we really reached our limit. Sitting across the living room from each other, both flabby, both pasty, both exhausted by the worlds inside our laptops and the gloomy, windy, dead, and frozen terrain outside, we exchanged a glance that conceded the...