Politics

There’s no such thing as too much bacon   My favorite saying Well, I guess we all should have seen it coming. The only thing better than having a Democratic primary ballot that looks like the Cleveland white pages is having one that looks like the Los Angeles white pages. The Democratic field wouldn’t be complete without a managing partner of Mitt Romney’s vulture capitalist mob, and who better to replace an arrogant, know-it-all New York pseudo billionaire, than an arrogant, know-it-all New York actual billionaire? The only thing that’s missing is the guy who walks behind the circus elephants with a broom and a shovel. I know that it seems strange that considering the fact that we started with a field of 25 candidates running around like kindergartners in a sandbox, that we’re still getting hats thrown into the ring at this point. I mean, fashionably late is one thing, but this is just ridiculous! But believe it or not, there actually is a reason, at least partially grounded in reality for these late arrivals to the concert, and I think I know what it is. In the weeks immediately following the 2018 midterm elections, Democratic  Presidential exploratory committees started popping up all over like dandelions in April. Formal announcements started dribbling in shortly afterwards, and just after New Years, candidates started pestering the denizens of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, before they even had their Christmas trees at the bottom of the driveways. Some of the candidates have damn near set up transient residency in some of those places. As we have edged within the 90 day mark to the first of the early caucus and primary states, state specific polling has begun to come in more frequently, and it’s largely what you would expect. The field has broken down into tiers, and the polling is all over the map, with a new leader every week, and often several candidates within the margin of error. All of this is normal, and to be expected, but when I look at the polling, there is one thing that sticks out to me as being highly unusual. In both Iowa, as well as New Hampshire, while most primary voters have latched on to a preferred candidate, well over 60% of primary voters in both states have indicated that they could likely change their minds before they actually cast a ballot. To me, this is highly unusual, simply because these poor people have been inundated by unwarranted intrusions from these candidates for something like 10 months now. Many prospective voters likely have candidate staff members on speed dial for any questions they may have. They have campaign rhetoric dribbling out of their ear holes. You’re all voters, you tell me. How do you pick a candidate? For most people, there’s a natural culling out process. There are some that you just don’t like personally, or policy wise, and they fall by the wayside quickly. The you start listening to the others. Maybe you go to their website, and check out their positions and policies, maybe you go to a rally or two, quite possibly for more than one candidate, and through the process of elimination you make your decision. Pretty straightforward. But ask yourself my dear friends, exactly what finalizes your decision in picking a candidate? After all, when you pay attention, as I’m sure […]

This is not a good look for Republican senators as the bombshells from the House impeachment hearings continue to drop. Do they approach the process with all the gravity doing their constitutional duty demands,...

Framing the climate crisis as both an existential threat and a "tremendous opportunity" to fundamentally transform American society, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday unveiled a Green New Deal for Public...

Yesterday’s opinion piece, Forget the polls. The Democratic field needs Julián Castro, by Renée Graham showcases why Sec. Castro’s campaign is important to the party as a whole.  It does so by reminding us that...

As the curtain rises Wednesday on the historic impeachment hearings exploring Donald Trump's extortion of Ukraine, the key questions facing the country are whether facts still matter to a solid majority of Americans and...

What is the impeachment inquiry about? House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff put it in a nutshell in his opening statement to the first public impeachment hearings. “The questions presented by this impeachment inquiry are...

There are at least four Republican senators running for reelection in 2020 who would probably much rather not have to defend Donald Trump on the campaign trail: Susan Collins in Maine, Joni Ernst in...

The Trump administration’s racism and cowardice knows no bounds as it continues forward in its intentions to end the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program (FWVP). The program, begun during the Obama administration attempted to help...

I’m getting too old for this shit   Detective Roger Murtaugh   Lethal Weapon Pop Quiz! What’s my favorite saying? Once is an accident, twice is a habit, and three times is a fetish. Very good class. And in 2020, GOP retirements from the House are now officially becoming a habit, and it’s a habit that I hope turns out to be as addictive for them as cigarette smoking. Back in 2018, the Republican party came close to setting a modern record when close to 3 dozen GOP incumbent House members all filed for retirement rather than run for reelection. There were two main reasons for this. First was the blowout off year 2017 elections in Virginia, where the Democrats rode a wave of anger and protest of Trump, mostly in the suburbs, to come within one seat of flipping the House blue. The second was a spate of special elections for mostly GOP House seats nationwide in 2017, almost all of which showed the Democrats over performing by anywhere from 11-30+ points based on 2016 results. The majority of GOP House desertions were in GOP held “swing” suburban districts, and the Democrats in fact flipped many of these seats in taking over the House in 2018. And here in 2019, we aren’t even up to Thanksgiving yet, and the announcement by long time GOP representative Peter King of New York that he is retiring, the number of announced GOP House retirements in 2020 is already at 16, on par to at least match, if not break the 2018 total. This should be surprising, since the tsunami of 2018 flipped many of the risky swing” suburban districts, leaving the GOP incumbents still in the House in what should presumably be “safe” districts after 2018. And in fact, several of the departing congress critters are from districts that even in today’s environment are considered “safe” GOP districts. SO, what gives? Actually, again there are two basic reasons for the spate of departures from mostly long serving GOP members of the House. First, many reporters, both on air as well as print, are reporting that in private, off the record conversations, many GOP lawmakers are telling them that the last three years of life under the thumb of El Pendejo Presidente have been both frustrating as well as exhausting. Frustrating because many of these members are true conservatives, and it kills them that the party was unable to get anything substantive done with complete control of government, due to the manifest incompetence of, and the complete lack of self control of Trump. And exhausting because it wears on a body to have to go out every day and publicly appear to support His Lowness, while still dancing between enough raindrops to maintain a soupcon of integrity by not directly endorsing the insanity of Traitor Tot. Awww, the poor babies. Still, there has to be something more than shattered dreams and a little emotional fatigue to cause these long time ballot leeches to walk away from what basically amounts to high paying part time gigs with world class bennies, especially the ones concerning turning campaign donations into walking around money. And that’s where the second reason comes into play, and I think is actually the deciding factor. Unlike being a member of the Senate, where even being a […]

Every time someone tells you that Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plan for a wealth tax is never going to happen, consider this: The ultra-wealthy people who would be hit by the tax are taking it...