Trump’s child separation policy
2018 is turning into the Year of the Children. Unfortunately, however, Republicans keep ending up on the wrong side of heartrending, visceral issues regarding child safety. First and foremost this week is the barbaric Trump administration policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, and then detaining the children in “cages.” This follows the school shooting tragedy in Parkland, Florida last Valentine’s Day, and the subsequent protest movement in favor of greater safety from gun violence in our schools and elsewhere.
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Leave a comment! Tags: border, child separation, children, Democrats, Donald Trump, family, family separation, GOP, immigration, Jeb Bush, Laura Bush, Republicans, Twitter, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Knotted Gun sculpture, New York City
Last month, the Democratic Party announced that it would run an anti-corruption campaign against Donald Trump and his administration in the 2018 midterm elections. We suggested that the Democrats also campaign on what they stand for, and, a few days later, the Democrats did something ingenious along those lines when they proposed that the Trump/Republican tax cuts be rolled back and the proceeds be used to fund teacher raises and school improvements such as new textbooks. Since we’ve gone through numerous special elections and primaries already, it’s time for the Democratic Party to roll out a specific, national campaign for the midterms that ties these ideas and actions together. We have the following suggestions:
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Leave a comment! Tags: 2018 midterm elections, Affordable Care Act, Bill Clinton, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, EPA, George H.W. Bush, guns, health, James Carville, Michael Dukakis, NRA, Republicans, Robert Mueller, Russia, schools, Scott Pruitt, taxes, teachers, Willie Horton
Philadelphia Eagles training camp, 2015 Military Appreciation Day
God, Guns and Gays. Illegal immigration. These are Culture War issues that Donald Trump and Republicans are pushing to stir up Republican voter interest as the 2018 midterm elections approach. The latest Culture War topic is Trump’s revocation of his White House invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles football team, after Trump heard that some Eagles team members were planning to skip the event over political disagreements with Trump. Moreover, Fox News falsely ran photos of Eagles players kneeling to pray (approved behavior by the GOP) with captions about kneeling in protest (such as in support of Black Lives Matter, a protest against police violence which is disapproved behavior by Republicans). Fox had to apologize hours later for its misleading photos and captions.
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Leave a comment! Tags: 2018 Elections, Black Lives Matter, Colin Kaepernick, crime, culture war, Donald Trump, healthcare, NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, police violence, racism, Roseanne Barr, Russia, Samantha Bee, Super Bowl, White House
Science event at Fallston Middle School, Harford County, Maryland
A debate has been raging in the Democratic Party, over the best posture to take for the coming 2018 midterm elections. Some supporters advocate a sustained campaign of attacking Donald Trump and the Republicans, while others suggest focusing on positive Democratic proposals. Recently, the Democrats unveiled a midterm strategy of highlighting Trump and Republican “corruption.” We noted that such a focus may only be half the battle. Several days ago, however, Congressional Democrats came up with a rather novel approach that tied together both the positive and negative strategies and two separate issues: they seek to raise teacher salaries by rolling back the Trump tax cuts.
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Leave a comment! Tags: 2018 midterm elections, Chuck Schumer, Democratic Party, Democrats, Donald Trump, education, Nancy Pelosi, Republican Party, Republicans, tax cuts, taxes, teachers
Democratic U.S. Senators, here led by Sen. Cory Booker, protest 2016 Republican healthcare bill.
According to recent news reports, the Democratic Party has agreed upon a theme for the 2018 midterm elections: the corruption of Donald Trump‘s administration. The Democrats reportedly will call this election theme, and their own proposals, “A Better Deal for our Democracy.” This builds on the Democrats’ announced theme from last year, “A Better Deal.” Both slogans hark back to Democratic proposals from decades past, including the “New Deal” and the “Fair Deal,” as well as recall Trump’s best-selling book, “The Art of the Deal.”
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Millau Viaduct, France
The word “infrastructure” puts people to sleep. It’s up there with “tax tables” in the attention-getting zone. However, few things are more important to America than having modern, well-maintained roads, bridges, airports, rail systems, electrical grids and Internet backbones. As Donald Trump and the Republicans have dropped the ball in this area, Democrats have a great issue to run on in the 2018 and 2020 elections. First, however, the Democrats could inject a little sex into the dry terminology on this issue.
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Leave a comment! Tags: 2018 Elections, 2020 Elections, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, electric, highways, infrastructure, Internet, Net Neutrality, rail, Republicans, roads
Republicans’ dream? Lady Liberty holding a gun instead of a torch.
After another deadly school shooting involving an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, this time in Parkland, Florida, Republicans responded with their usual calls for “thoughts and prayers.” Perhaps the worst offender was Florida’s own U.S. Senator, Republican Marco Rubio, who proved that his previous prayers didn’t work:
However, when Rubio and other Republicans want something on any other issue, from tax cuts to taking away a woman’s freedom over her own body to military spending to taking away our affordable healthcare, they don’t pray, they vote. That’s just what Americans should do here.
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Leave a comment! Tags: AR-15, Assault Weapons Ban, Congress, Democrats, Florida, gun conrol, Marco Rubio, Nancy Pelosi, National Rifle Association, NRA, Parkland, Republicans, school shooting
Reality TV star and ex-Trump White House official Omarosa
Let’s first stipulate that things are strange when the discussion of the White House involves one reality TV show contestant talking about a reality TV show host. Nevertheless, that is the world we now live, where Donald Trump hired Omarosa Manigault-Newman to work in the White House Communications department, and then fired her one year later. Post-firing, Omarosa (now famous enough for first name only), known as a reality TV “villain” from Trump’s “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice” shows as well as other TV programs, quickly landed on the new season of CBS reality TV show “Celebrity Big Brother.” There, she has already made waves for her ominous comments about Donald Trump. While many people dismiss Omarosa as just a media attention “whore,” she has twice been in a unique position to judge Trump, thus her comments about the danger of Trump’s presidency are relevant.
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London Heathrow Airport immigration poll.
Republicans are well-known for their loaded words and phrases. Being against abortion becomes “pro-life.” Discrimination against gay people becomes “religious freedom,” and so forth. Word pairs crafted by Republicans, such as “death tax” or “death panels,” can contain a tremendous amount of framing, that is, staking out an argumentative position merely in the way one refers to something. Republicans are also adept at the next step: repetition in lockstep to make such phrases stick, which artificially swings the discussion of the issue in the Republicans’ favor. It is no surprise therefore, that the Republicans, including Donald Trump in last night’s State of the Union address, are using another such loaded phrase, and that it appears in discussions about immigration, a Republican favorite hot-button issue.
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National Park closures during 2013 government shutdown
Today, Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to end the federal government shutdown (known as the “Trump Shutdown”) and keep government running until February 8, by which time Congress hopes to vote on a new long-term spending bill. In return for their agreement, Democrats got a six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that Congressional Republicans had let expire last September. Furthermore, the agreement includes a promise by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to hold a vote on codifying the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which Donald Trump ended last September. The agreement can be seen as a net win for Democrats, and they should portray it as such.
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