Podcast Directory

Episodes

Back in 2010 it was a Senate filibuster that prevented passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Act would have helped end discriminatory pay practices against women. Needing 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster, Democrats could only garner 58.

So, while the House passed the bill and a majority of senators favored passing the bill, because Senate rules require a supermajority to invoke cloture, the bill died.

Read the full post here.

Historian Scott Ellsworth commented in a recent interview that White Tulsans and Black Tulsans will have differing views of the targeted racially-motivated killing spree perpetrated by Jaocb England and Alvin Watts last weekend.

Ellsworth is right. But, to understand why, you have to know Tulsa’s history.

Read the rest here.

I am sure the GOP presidential candidates are not the only ones thankful to have completed the last pre-Iowa caucus debate. The voters must be especially thankful. What has become abundantly clear is how bereft the GOP is of new and compelling ideas.

The reason no candidate has taken a clear lead is that no candidate espouses any genuine ideas that the electorate can rally behind.
Every few weeks there is a new front-runner or new person second in the polls behind long-time presumptive frontrunner Mitt Romney.

But, why hasn’t Romney run away with the nomination? After all, he has been campaigning for four years.

Read the rest here.

In the one high-profile case of a Black member of Congress, Artur Davis (D-AL), running for Governor, the Congressman lost – and he lost big time. One major reason: he voted against the healthcare reform bill, now the Affordable Care Act and otherwise derided (depending on how you think about it) by conservatives as “Obamacare.” And when he lost, it was in a Democratic primary, no less.

Artur Davis wanted to be governor of Alabama and correctly realized that he needed a more moderate voting record. So he publicly cast a “nay” vote against health care reform. In response, Alabama’s Black voters made a decision that they’d rather have better, more affordable health care than their own first Black governor. As a result, they turned away from him in the primary in droves and Davis’s political career was over faster than disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner’s.

Read the rest here.

I last wrote about how one aspect of the 2012 elections, the battle for the Senate, is not getting the attention it deserved.

Likewise, too few people are paying attention to the role redistricting will play in the battle for partisan control of the U.S. House. Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg suspects that the net result of redistricting will be a wash with Democrats netting just one seat. As Rothenberg acknowledges, however, many states have not even drawn their new maps yet (Mississippi, for instance).

Read the rest here.

Most domestic political attention focuses on the race for the White House and whether or not the $45 million Obama raised in February is enough (he raised $56 million in February 2008). In other news quite relevant to what types of policies President Obama or his eventual GOP challenger will be able to enact is which party wins control of the Senate.

Many Republicans, I believe, expect their presidential candidate to lose to the personally popular Obama. Instead, they have set their sights on capturing the Senate and retaining control of the House.

Read the rest here.

The President’s heart is in the right place, but his college policy sucks.

In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama shocked many Americans with his statement that funding from taxpayers to America’s colleges and universities would decrease if those schools could not figure out a way to rein in increasing tuition rates.

Read the rest here.