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
Fox News, completely removed from “news”
Yesterday, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Michael Cohen‘s attorney was forced to reveal that Cohen has three clients: Donald Trump, former Republican National Committee Deputy Finance Chairman and donor Elliott Broidy, and Sean Hannity of Fox News. The reveal of Hannity as Cohen’s heretofore mystery third client raises some serious questions:
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Democratic supporters in McHenry County, IL carry party banner
The Democratic Party is still experiencing a rift that emerged during the 2016 presidential campaign, between so-called progressives (a misnomer since the Democratic Party’s mainstream principles, from civil rights to taxation to gun safety laws and more, are progressive) and more establishment Democrats. Those factions were represented by Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries. Thus far, the party has held a unity tour featuring Sanders with Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez. That tour did not do much to mend the party rift, especially as Sanders, an Independent, spent and still spends much of his time bashing the Democrats and telling them what to do. Now, Democratic Party leaders and Democratic-leaning organizations are sending numerous surveys to Democratic supporters, apparently in an effort to find out what the voters want to focus on, and to try to show that the politicians are in touch with voter needs.
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U.S. Senator Raphael Edward “Ted” Cruz
There’s some big name news this week on the Republican side, involving both Donald Trump (and his alleged side woman, porn star Stormy Daniels), as well as Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz. The news brings to mind some of the nicknames politicians use, and why.
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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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Republican U.S. Senate candidate and alleged child predator Roy Moore, dressed as a cowboy.
The latest revelations regarding Donald Trump‘s affair with and payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels don’t seem to be fazing Republicans. The reaction seems to be no more negative within the GOP than when Trump was caught on tape bragging to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women. Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, even accused Trump of raping her, and some 19 women have also accused Trump of sexually assaulting or harassing them. This yawn from Republicans about Trump’s conduct toward women extends to many other Republican politicians as well. For example, U.S. Senator David Vitter was caught and admitted hiring prostitutes in 2007, and was re-elected in 2010. Likewise, Newt Gingrich has been a top Republican presidential contender and adviser for years, even though he is a serial adulterer who presented his first wife with divorce terms as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from cancer surgery. That these Republican men never seem to be punished by their supposedly “family values” base for sexual misconduct or mistreatment of women may be because the Republican Party thrives on a twisted notion of masculinity.
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Leave a comment! Tags: Al Franken, Anita Hill, Anthony Weiner, Chris Matthews, Clarence Thomas, David Vitter, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Eliot Spitzer, Fred Thompson, George Lakoff, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joni Ernst, Michael Dukakis, Republican Party, Sarah Palin, Stormy Daniels, Tucker Carlson
Thinking about Twitter
This blog was founded on the principles of Dr. George Lakoff, former Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and the sometimes official, sometimes unofficial messaging and framing guru of the Democratic Party. Last November, we covered an intriguing question Lakoff raised in his blog: “Why are you a Democrat?” Therefore, we are especially interested in Lakoff’s recent piece, where he tells Democrats to stop sharing, repeating and talking about Donald Trump‘s tweets.
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Leave a comment! Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Democrats, Donald Trump, framing, George Lakoff, Hillary Clinton, Hillarycare, Law of Attraction, Obamacare, Republicans, social media, The Secret, Twitter
U.S. Senate under Republican control
2018 has begun, and it is an election year. While so-called “off-year” (Congressional, state and local, but not presidential) elections often garner disappointingly low voter turnout on the Democratic side, calls have already emerged for Democrats to focus, and work hard, on winning back one or the other houses of Congress, or both. For example, yesterday, progressive website Crooks and Liars published a piece entitled: Take Back The House In 2018, But Don’t Forget The Senate! At the same time, former Nixon White House counsel John Dean tweeted:
Both of these suggestions, focusing primarily on the House or the Senate, have merit.
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Leave a comment! Tags: 2018 Elections, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, House of Representatives, John Dean, Republicans, Richard Nixon, Russia, Senate, Suprreme Court, taxes
