Republicans have proved to be masters at soundbite manipulation. The GOP has gotten, mainly, poor white people in the Red States to oppose Medicare expansion, happily believing that rich people trickling on them will eventually improve their lot. Truth in schools is being portrayed as a threat to whiteness, and...
Barrett
Rube Goldberg was an inventor and cartoonist who satirically depicted complicated machines to perform simple tasks used to show the absurdity of over-thinking. In March of 2016, with eight months to go in former President Obama’s first term, the then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider the current Attorney...
It depresses me to acknowledge this, but the Republicans’ commitment to blatant and serial lying, and Orwellian “make believe” governing, pose a real threat by overwhelming the public debate and individual’s efforts to stay grounded. While a bit well-worn (and of uncertain provenance), this quote is fundamentally true: “A lie can travel halfway around...
Trump's DOJ secretly obtained Washington Post reporters’ phone records “The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists' phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia's role in the 2016 election, according to government letters...
Two stories posted on Political Wire near each other (probably deliberately) caught my attention. First: Republicans pray for truce after Trump attacks on McConnell (Politico) Though the Senate GOP is tantalizingly close to retaking the majority next year and largely united in opposition to President Joe Biden’s agenda, the ongoing...
Senator Ron Johnson said the blatant part out loud, that he fears black people and not white people. When confronted about his remarks, surprise, surprise, he accused his detractors of playing the “race card.” Mr. Johnson uttered one of the most overt racist statements in recent political history. Johnson recognized...
Plenty of dimwittedness to share as Trump demands via a cease and desist order that the GOP not use his likeness or name unless they pay for it. Also, Trump threatens to negative campaign against Lisa Murkowski in yet another empty threat. And finally Trump returns to NYC, the reasons for...
Now everybody knows there’s exceptions to this rule, Now don’t be getting’ mad, when we playin’; it’s cool Rapper and actor Queen Latifah, wrote those words in 1993. Her words seem most appropriate for Republicans who ruled the Senate with an iron fist in a barbed wire glove. The denial...
From The Huffington Post: For weeks, the couple had done almost nothing but sell. Loeffler was one of several senators who faced public outrage for unloading millions of dollars in stock before most Americans understood the towering threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Then shortly before the CARES Act, a...
The latest bit of gross stupidity and waste of state taxpayer funds is one state suing others because fraud, something, something…. abstracting from actual votes is more representative of the will of the people….maybe…and go Constitutionally big or go home. This Texas parlor trick requires the same thing all the...
“America is advanced citizenship” –The American President The Age of Citizens United continues. x Even Barrett asksQ: So could you sue on torture?A: YesQ: But not if it was a corporation?A: Yes — Oren Nimni (@orennimni) December 1, 2020 x Neal Katyal is currently defending multinational corporations' right to own...
Total Landscape losing with “strained legal arguments”, free of factual proof. x Judge in the Pennsylvania case really took the Trump team to the woodshed. https://t.co/IXyeyjuiM0 pic.twitter.com/JIbS9OwRbU— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) November 21, 2020 “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let...
Lemmings, with the Secret Service locked and loaded. Was this also a protest of DC gyms’ occupancy limits? x This loser parade must’ve left their self respect at home. https://t.co/ztC8SLOMUC— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) November 14, 2020 x MOMENTS AGO: Trump supporters rush to see the president's motorcade driving by. pic.twitter.com/h0brs4gfC0...
The lawfare against the ACA now being heard in SCOTUS now resembles the attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Scorched earth and total lawfare, total landscaping. Schrödinger's ballots. Sources close to Trump described his unsupported accusations as a desperate way to save face x Memo to my...
Here’s some encouraging news out of South Carolina courtesy of today Morning Consult’s poll: #ALsen:Tuberville (R) 51% (+12)Jones (D-inc) 39%.#KYsen:McConnell (R-inc) 51% (+11)McGrath (D) 40%.#TXsen:Cornyn (R-inc) 47% (+4)Hegar (D) 43%.#SCsen:Graham (R-inc) 46% (+2)Harrison (D) 44%@MorningConsult, LV, 10/22-31https://t.co/7AsGqSmIR8 — Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) November 2, 2020 From the results: That’s a pretty...
Some very good news today out of Maine courtesy of Emerson College’s latest poll: The final Emerson College poll before the November 3rd election in Maine finds the former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump 54% to 43%. Three percent (3%) of voters plan to vote for someone...
Some very good news today out of Georgia courtesy of PPP’s latest poll: PPP’s newest Georgia poll finds Jon Ossoff right on the cusp of avoiding a runoff in his race against David Perdue. Ossoff is at 47% to 44% for Perdue with Libertarian Shane Hazel at 3%. Ossoff’s 3...
because I am seeing more and more evidence that political professionals who have access to internal polls are seeing it. There is chatter that Trump is worried about suffering a loss worse than Carter. You look at where key people are being deployed — compare Mike Pence going to SC...
Erica Grieder at The Houston Chronicle has good piece out about U.S. Senator John Cornyn’s (R. TX) re-election bid against MJ Hegar (D. TX) is tied to Trump’s fate in Texas: And in states where Trump is struggling, including Texas, a new question has come to the fore: Can Republican...
Reminding myself that during nearly two decades of my life, racial segregation dominated some states, and that in 2020 we are still battling some of the same issues preventing people from voting. As if we didn’t need more reminders of systemic racism. People are going to need to be “carefully taught”,...
Wisconsin is a critical state for both Democrats and Republicans. Biden can win without it, but it is a bellweather, and as Wisconsin goes, much of the Upper Midwest may also go. Trump almost certainly cannot get to 270 without Wisconsin, a state he won by fewer than 23,000 votes...
The hope for a post-Trump era will bring with it already growing challenges to democracy. Along with $3 for a glass of water. x Pres. Obama campaigning for @JoeBiden: “If he had been focused on COVID from the beginning, cases wouldn’t be reaching new record highs across the country this...
As if in honor of Clarence Thomas swearing-in Amy Coney Barrett tonight, Peggy Noonan does her usual MoDo impression, attacking Kamala Harris in a particularly stupid column. Beltway Pundit-fight Club. Work THAT, Peggy. Formation: “Sweep the leg.” x All Democrats opposed the nominee, while Susan Collins was the lone Republican to vote ‘no’...
Some very encouraging news today out of Texas: x 🚨New Poll – TEXAS🚨Biden 49 / Trump 48Hegar 46 / Cornyn 48https://t.co/OCRMOhwGdJ— Data for Progress (@DataProgress) October 26, 2020 Click here for the full results. Yesterday’s UT Tyler poll showed a tightening race: In his bid for a fourth term in...
Mother Jones has a great piece about the Alaska U.S. Senate race between incumbent U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R. AK) and Dr. Al Gross (I. AK). But there’s a really good part of this piece that explains why Gross is making this race competitive and how his campaign strategy might...
From The Huffington Post: Though Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has lost several key endorsements to Democratic challenger Sara Gideon this election cycle, she received the full support last week of at least one group in her state: the anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion Christian Civic League of Maine. During an Oct. 13 interview...
Some very good news today out of South Carolina: Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison has taken a two-point lead over Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, according to a new poll. Conducted by Morning Consult, the latest survey found 47 percent of South Carolina respondents saying they'd vote for Harrison,...
Sure, there is something to be afraid of when a group of gun-toting terrorists brandishes weaponry to cover their intellectual deficiencies. Whether they or their ilk, make plans to kidnap governors, or declare the “Proud Boys are here” in a profanity-laced group tirade directed at the Speaker of the House...
We are fifteen days from electing the next President of the United States. Honestly, if you are still one of the undecideds, I would love to hear your reasons. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was widely criticized for saying if you do not vote for him “you ain’t black.” Other...
dougjones.com/… An Internal Poll has Democratic Senator Doug Jones at 48% in the Alabama Senate Race against 47% for Republican Tommy Tuberville. The poll was taken October 11-14 of 801 likely Alabama voters. Website 538 rates the pollster, FM3 research as B/C. The margin of error is 3.5%. Jones is...
I look forward to this MAGA experiment ending in November and being stuffed away in a coffee can, wrapped in a sock, and buried in the backyard at noon on January 20th, 2021. This embarrassing blight on modern American politics and democracy thankfully has an early expiration date, or so...
Thinking recently about questions for nominee Amy Coney Barrett, and her Originalism theory, I thought of an interesting argument — “Originalism is not a valid judicial theory because there is no evidence that the constitutional framers believed in it.” See that? How can you have a valid “Originalist” theory that the...
Kamala Harris will appear on The Rachel Maddow Show tonight. The likely topic will be a review of Harris’s questioning of Amy Coney Barrett, featuring more dodging and some hint of hostility from Barrett. Live Blog below. x People are scared. They’re scared what will happen if the Supreme Court...
Some good news today out for South Carolina courtesy of Data For Progress: x #SCsen:Harrison (D) 47% (+1)Graham (R-inc) 46%@DataProgress/@IndivisibleTeam (D) LV, 10/8-11https://t.co/TEi0L5YL4G— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) October 14, 2020 In South Carolina, Democrat Jaime Harrison, the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, is going up against incumbent Republican...
Some of you may disagree, but the idea that the United States Constitution is not a living, breathing document is absurd. Were it not imbued with the capacity for expanding its judicial lungs, America would have suffocated on the choking fluids of its’ past injustices. If the Constitution were not breathing,...
Yesterday I put up a quick post addressing Judge Barrett and “originalists” that got a lot of traffic. Unlike my normal pattern, I have neither read nor responded to the multitude of comments (I promise as time allows I will at least read them all). Because that is so much...
I have written two posts about suggested questions for Nominee Barrett — here and here. But watching a good deal of today’s confirmation hearing, and listening to her dodge way too many questions, I realize I should also have set out some suggested questions to highlight how thin are her qualifications...
Some big news today out of South Carolina: x New #SCSen Dem internal poll for @LindseyMustGo PAC finds the race tied: – @LindseyGrahamSC 46%– @harrisonjaime 46%– Bill Bledsoe** 3%– Undecided 5% **Constitution Party candidate, dropped out but will be on ballot (ALG, n=1,011 LVs, 9/29-10/5) https://t.co/WL7U7jpCAn— Jamie Lovegrove (@jslovegrove) October...
We all pretty much know who Amy Coney Barrett is. I see such super-Catholics on my social media feeds pretty regularly because, well, I went to Catholic grade school and high school, and a lot of my old classmates either haven’t figured out that I’m a filthy secular humanist or,...
Sen. Lindsey Graham (T-SC) (T for Trump) spilled the beans in his opening statement at the Barrett confirmation hearing. Judges and justices are supposed to be vetted for their qualifications to serve, and for their positions on Constitutional theory, and things like that. They don’t get asked how they would...