Category Archives: Uncategorized

Republican debate preview: will Chris Christie take down Trump?

Chris Christie campaigning in Iowa in 2016

Next Wednesday, August 23, the Republican National Committee (RNC) of the Republican Party will host its first 2024 presidential primary debate, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To qualify for the debate, candidates need to meet three requirements:

–First, candidates must attract at least 40,000 unique donors, with at least 200 unique donors per state. Less popular GOP candidates have used gift card offers, concert tickets and more to reach the threshold.

–Second, candidates must score at least 1% in three national polls that meet the RNC’s requirements, or at least 1% in two national polls and in two polls from separate early voting states.

–Finally, candidates must sign the RNC’s pledge to back the eventual Republican nominee, no matter who wins the primary.

The January 6 Commission Democratic pivot

The January 6 terrorist attack instigated by you know who

News headlines right now are proclaiming what has been obvious all along: that Congressional Republicans are desperately trying to block the creation of a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the deadly January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. Given that the proposed commission would be created by legislation, and the Republican U.S. Senate minority can therefore filibuster such legislation, the commission is probably not going to happen. But who says there has to be a “bipartisan” commission regarding the January 6 attacks? The Democratic majorities of both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives have a perfectly good alternative:

Biden undoes Trump’s war on language

Trump White House official at work on government website

As a recent New York Times article (reprinted here at Yahoo! news) indicates, one of the many areas where President Joe Biden is trying to undo the extensive damage done by Donald Trump is the language used by our federal government. Obviously, Trump and his minions agreed with what we have written about here for more than 10 years, i.e. that “messaging matters” and, in particular, that Republicans are experts at framing issues in ways that favor their point of view. Part of this framing is the use of certain loaded words and phrases. While Trump was in the White House and not busy playing golf, he liked to use Nazi propaganda tactics such as the repetition of big lies, and he had his federal government employ loaded words, or prohibit the use of other words, to gain political advantage. The two areas where this seems most prevalent were, perhaps not surprisingly, the politically contentious subjects of immigration and the environment/climate change. Take a look after the jump to see what Trump did, and how Biden is trying to repair the damage:

Devin Nunes melts down at Trump impeachment inquiry hearing

Republicans defending Trump: melted butter, toast, or both?

Yesterday morning, the House Intelligence Committee held another Donald Trump impeachment inquiry hearing, this time with Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. To say the hearing did not go well for Trump and the Republicans is an understatement. For example, Sondland admitted that  “everyone was in the loop” regarding Donald Trump’s demand that Ukraine‘s president provide “deliverables,” meaning helping Trump personally by investigating phony conspiracies about Joe Biden, Biden’s son Hunter, and the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential election efforts, in exchange for a meeting with Trump and crucial military aid for Ukraine that Congress had already approved.

The devastation that Republicans on the Committee must have been feeling was perfectly captured in this bit of video that is part of the tweet below, showing Republican Ranking Member Devin Nunes painfully turning to his side’s counsel after one segment of Sondland’s testimony:

Mind you, Sondland is not some Democratic Party hack. On the contrary, he is a real estate businessman who in recent years has been a Republican Party donor and bundler of contributions to Republican candidates such as Willard Mitt Romney. Sondland, through his companies, donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, and then received his ambassadorship in return.

Watching Devin Nunes’ reaction to Sondland’s testimony, we can’t help but be reminded of a similar meltdown by a well-known TV character in similar circumstances:

Photo by Sterling College, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/xvdQhy

Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders: the endgame appears

Bernie Sanders speaking in South Bronx, NY

Bernie Sanders speaking in South Bronx, NY

Last night’s Democratic Party primary results in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island were clarifying for a couple of reasons. First, Hillary Clinton‘s wins over Bernie Sanders in four out of the five states other than tiny Rhode Island, especially her healthy and wide margins of victory, respectively, in delegate-rich Pennsylvania and Maryland, all but assured that Clinton will clinch the Democratic Party nomination for president. The other clarifying element of last night’s results was that the endgame for Clinton, Sanders and the Democratic Party finally started to emerge. Here’s what that endgame looked like:

Reasons 1-5 why Bernie Sanders is losing the Democratic presidential nomination

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders

The term the pundits are using now to describe Bernie Sanders‘ chances of winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination is “nearly impossible.” Looking at the cold hard math of the Democratic Party nomination process, especially the proportional rather than winner-take-all awarding of state “pledged” delegates, we agree. If Hillary Clinton does capture the requisite majority of delegates as expected, the blame game will begin as to why Sanders lost. Here, in no particular order, are the first five reasons for Sanders’ failure:

Bernie Sanders’ political revolution morphs into Fidel Castro’s revolution

Fidel Castro, whom the Republicans could make Bernie Sanders' running mate

Fidel Castro, whom the Republicans could make Bernie Sanders’ running mate

By all reasonable measurements, Bernie Sanders‘ promised “political revolution” has not happened. Probably the two best such measurements — Democratic primary voter turnout, and Sanders’ share of the black and Latino primary vote — vividly demonstrate this. Instead, however, another type of revolution was associated with Bernie Sanders this week: Fidel Castro‘s revolution in Cuba.

President Obama slams Republicans on Affordable Care Act

President Obama held a press conference yesterday (see video above), and it turned into a masterful attack by the President against Republicans on the Affordable Care Act:

Republican Ideology Collides with Tropical Storm Isaac

Republicans hate “the government,” especially “the federal government.” That ideology has run through the Republican Party for decades, including opposition to regulation of financial markets, opposition to Medicare, calling for the elimination of the Departments of Education, Commerce, etc. President Ronald Reagan once famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'” Ask residents of New Orleans how that Republican hands-off approach worked for them during Hurricane Katrina. This Republican ideology is being sorely tested again now by Tropical Storm (soon to be Hurricane) Isaac.

Anthony Weiner’s Messaging Fail


By now, most of us are  familiar with Anthony Weiner‘s personal behavioral lapses in his Twitter sex scandal. However, Weiner’s public messaging failures in this case were also epic. Weiner adopted a strange strategy of denying part of the story, i.e., that he had sent photos of his underwear-clad crotch to a woman via Twitter, but then saying that he could not state “with certitude” whether the picture in question was of him. This vague answer struck many reporters as suspicious, and they continued their media feeding frenzy that, within a few days, led to Weiner’s press conference where he did an about-face and admitted that the picture in question was of him, that he sent the photo, and that he had sent similar photos and/or had similar online exchanges with approximately six other women. Now Weiner’s political career hangs by a thread.

So what could, and should, Weiner have done differently, messaging-wise, once the initial stories about him were publicized?