January 2010 Archives

Today, Houston stalwart, oil man, and all-around good guy, Bob Mosbacher, died at MD Anderson after a years-long battle with pancreatic cancer.  He had sworn to fight the disease to the last and he certainly did that with grace, dignity, and the style for which he had always been known.  I knew Bob socially and through our businesses, and I respected him  greatly.  He was a real renaissance man, loving sailing, politics, and, of course,...

One would think there would be some limit to the Republican strategy of "no."  If Obama decided to endorse a bipartisan proposed plan that does the one thing every single American could agree we should do, it would be reducing the deficit, right? Wrong. Republicans are opposing a plan to put together a commission of 18 Democrats and Republicans to evaluate different ways to reduce the deficit.  The panel would have until December 1 - after the midterm elections - to produce a...

My wife was talking with a co-worker the other day about the Haitian situation and their conversation steered to Katrina. She and the co-worker spent a good portion of their lives living in or around New Orleans. My wife is a graduate from Tulane and lived a good portion of her childhood in Baton Rouge. I love visiting every so often because the food is spectacular and the people are always very nice. However, those...

Pundits all over the political spectrum continue to turn the election of Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy's senate seat into this weird notion that Democrats should somehow start working with Republicans in a bipartisan manner. This rationale is irritating at best, because it implies that a) the Democrats weren't trying to be bipartisan in the first place and b) the Republicans would acquiesce to bipartisan efforts if the Democrats tried harder. Both are untrue....

There are 2 words I never again want to see associated with any Supreme Court decision. Those 2 words are "judicial activism." The reason being that yesterday the Roberts Court reached the apex of "judicial activism" in a travesty of justice known as Citizens United v. FEC. January 21, 2010 became, to borrow a phrase from FDR, a date which will live in infamy, aka The Day Democracy Died. A date marked by the sound...

Bear with me here, everyone knows I am a huge baseball fan. I follow basketball and football as well and thought I would throw out an extended sports analogy that might help explain the current political climate. As a coach, I have rarely ever been in the position of having a vastly superior team, but it has happened before. I can honestly say it is the second most challenging coaching juggle you can have. Naturally,...

Yesterday was the National Day of Strike we talked about here on January 14th.  Well, the best I could find about it was a blog that talked about it being an epic fail.  I think the tea party forgot? Seriously, I can't find any evidence that it even happened?   I'd ask our readers if they felt the economic impact, but I don't expect they did. I really have nothing else to say, I'm just trying to be...

Up 'til now I haven't been a proponent of the "pass something" idea on health care reform legislation, but I think the time has come. It has become such a convoluted mess and such a distraction that it's time to get it off the table and move on to economic issues. Like taking on Wall Street for instance:"President Barack Obama on Thursday is expected to propose new limits on the size and risk taken by...

As I sat down to watch the election returns from Massachusetts last night the first thing that stood out was that the Democratic circular firing squad had already formed before one vote had been counted. The White House was blaming Martha Coakley for running a poor campaign, and the Coakley campaign was blaming the White House and the DNC for being too little and too late with their support. Which one is right? Both. Both...

After I pitched my fit, mixed another martini, and calmed down, I've thought of one bright spot to Scott Brown winning tonight, and that is that Joe Liebermann has suddenly become invisible.  He's no longer the 60th vote, and Reid can stop handing him the keys to the Senate chamber and following him around like a stray dog.  Maybe it's a good time to strip him of all his committee seats?  Eh?  How about censuring...