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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High school students march against gun violence in Minneapolis, MN.
The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida has led to a renewed movement against the “guns everywhere” policy pushed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Republican Party members who receive so much NRA funding. Led initially by surviving students from Douglas High School, but now joined by many other individuals and groups, there are marches, protests, school walkouts, phone calls, emails, campaigns on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and other efforts taking place to safeguard America’s children and adults. The momentum appears to be building and the tide may be turning in favor of steps such as Universal Background Checks for all firearm purchases, a renewed Assault Weapons Ban, and more. But as with all movements, the goals of this movement need to be articulated in a simple and powerful way in order to win over hearts and minds. So the question becomes, what is the best way to describe what this movement is fighting for?
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Leave a comment! Tags: Affordable Care Act, Broward County, Democrats, Facebook, firearms, Florida, gun control, gun reform, gun safety, gun violence, guns, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, mass shooting, National Rifle Association, NRA, Obamacare, Parkland, Republicans, Twitter
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida
After the Parkland, Florida school shootings last Wednesday that left 17 dead, most of them schoolchildren, one of the people who comes off looking the worst is Florida’s Republican U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio. Let’s look at Rubio’s responses to the Parkland shooting:
First, Rubio offered prayers, as Republicans typically do. However, Rubio’s version was to admit that his previous prayers did not work:
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Leave a comment! Tags: Al Hoffman, AR-15, Assault Weapons Ban, Elliot Rodger, Florida, gun control, gun restraining order, gun violence, guns, Marco Rubio, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, mass shooting, National Rifle Association, NRA, Parkland, red flag law, Republicans, Santa Barbara, school shooting, Twitter, universal background checks
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
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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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
Roy Moore rides off into the sunset
Last Tuesday, Democratic candidate Doug Jones won a stunning upset over Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama U.S. Senate special election. Jones’ win was remarkable given that this Senate seat went over 97 percent for Republican incumbent Jeff Sessions (who early this year left to become U.S. Attorney General in the Donald Trump administration) the last time it was contested in 2014. The Democrats did not even field a challenger to Sessions that time. There were several keys to Jones’ victory, each of which shows that the Democrats can beat the Republicans at the voting booth, if they work extra hard on several fronts:
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Leave a comment! Tags: Alabama, child molestor, child predator, Democrats, Donald Trump, Doug Jones, framing, Republicans, Roy Moore, Senate, sexual assault, sexual harassmenet, social media, Twitter
