6/28/2024 - Just to take on 1 point first. The New Democrat is not going to get into what the race would look like, if President Biden literally steps down and releases his delegates at the Democratic National Convention. I don't think that's going to happen. Whether it should or not, that's a different question. I'm just going to look at this as if the President decides to move forward, and what are the consequences of last night's debate and where the election goes from here.
If there was anything good about last night's debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, is that Mr. Trump didn't add any new voters to his base. Even with all the baggage of the Biden presidency, mostly relating to the President's age, and inflation, the Trump-Biden race was essentially in a dead heat. At least in the popular vote. Which tells me, as well as a lot of other people, that whatever problems they have with President Joe Biden, they don't like Donald Trump.
What people don't like about Donald Trump having to do with his self-obsession, his lying, his inability to stick to the same script, they got 100 minutes of that Donald Trump. The problem is that you didn't have a strong, sharp, opponent, for the most part, there to point about all of Donald Trump's lies and hold him accountable for that, with few exceptions.
President Biden did call Mr. Trump a liar and a whiner, multiple times, Trump said that they shouldn't be childish on stage, the President called him a child right after that in response. The President said Trump has the morals of an ally cat. But what too many voters from the Biden Campaign's perspective saw last night, was an 81 year old man, who struggles to get his words and thoughts out of his mouth.
I think what we may see from the debate last night, is two politicians who had bad nights at least as far as being able to communicate to new voters.
In President Biden's case, he has now his own voters worried about whether he can still win at this point. But maybe the popular vote polling stays about the same, because you still have 1-5 Republicans who still don't want to vote for Donald Trump again. And Independents saying they're not ready to vote for the President yet, but they still don't like Donald Trump either.
So maybe Donald Trump remains the favorite to win in November, or the election leans in his direction, but he hasn't added any new voters beyond his base and Republicans holding their noses and deciding to vote for him again anyway. But I think this could be the best case scenario for Joe Biden.
The other scenario is, Independents are now saying that they don't like Donald Trump. But they don't think Joe Biden is up for the job physically or mentally. And therefor they're going to vote for Trump and perhaps hope that our governmental institutions are strong enough to hold him accountable and prevent a Donald Trump dictatorship[. Or as at least one person on this Bulwark show: "Maybe American voters now want a dictator."
I think going forward, the next few days, the weekend and even next week are very important for Joe Biden. He and Vice President Kamala Harris have to be out there and out in public a lot over the next 7-10 days.
A longtime Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus on Threads said today that President Biden needs to be doing a series of network town halls right now out there, taking questions, speaking to the voters to try to convince these voters that he's still up for the job and can still do a good job. That along with getting Vice President Harris out a lot more, doing a lot more TV, more campaign rallies, perhaps even town halls on her own, I think is the best post-debate advice that anyone can give this campaign.
As well as what Michael Steele said on MSNBC last night: "The President needs to own his debate performance and not try to deny it, or act like it was better than what everyone else saw."
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| Source:The Bulwark give their post-debate analysis. |
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6/27/2024 - I'll get into what Jack Hunter said as well. But if you look at the Wikipedia definition of conservatism, that basically looks like the opposite of MAGA. Show me I'm wrong, if you disagree with that.
Think about it, MAGA and the broader, right-wing national movement, is always talking about blowing up the system and taking down the establishment. Not that different in language from what the New Left Socialists and Communists were talking about in the late 1960s and early 70s. The difference being that the New Left was talking about taking down "The Man" and replacing it with some type of socialist state.
Whereas MAGA, would take down the U.S. Government (if their militants had their way) and replace it with some type of nationalistic state, where "The Man" or the men would be back in charge, ruling over everyone else.
If you look at conservatism in it's classical sense, you look at the Calvin Coolidge's, the Robert Taft's, the Barry Goldwater's, conservatism is very similar to what Jack Hunter is talking about. Government, especially the national government, should be very limited in what it does and only do what the states, localities, and the people can't do for themselves, or do well enough for themselves. So that's national security, foreign policy, trade, regulating interstate commerce, and interstate law enforcement. With everything else, including education, social welfare, marriage, gambling, entertainment, reproductive rights, being left up to the states or the people themselves. So in that sense I agree with Jack Hunter.
But conservatism in its original form, is about conserving. I mean that's what it means to be a Conservative, you are someone who believes in conserving. Conserving a certain form of government, like our liberal democratic republic, a certain way of life, like our western liberal democratic values, conserving religious freedom, and all of our individual rights.
And then you look at libertarianism, again in it's classical form, not the Anarcho-Libertarians, or the so-called Libertarian Populists like the Alex Jones's and others, classical Libertarians put the rights of the individual and individual freedom, over everything else, including public safety. Which is why Libertarians believe that all narcotics should be legal, that even drunk driving should be legal. No speed limits, no age requirements when someone should be allowed to smoke and drink alcohol, that sort of thing.
So I agree with Jack Hunter that Conservatives and Libertarians are very similar when it comes to individual rights, limited government, that government closest to home is the best government, that sort of thing. But Conservatives put limits on individuals when it comes to public health and safety.
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| Source:Young Americans For Liberty featuring conservative blogger Jack Hunter. |
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6/26/2024 - I disagree a little bit with Joe Walsh on one point. Just look at Utah where John Curtis a Mitt Romney backed, center-right, Republican, defeated the Donald Trump backed MAGA candidate. And might just be 1 exception to a much larger rule. But I take his broader point.
I think the real difference between the so-called Squad in the Democratic Party and MAGA in the Republican Party, is the Squad really represents the Green Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, perhaps even Communist USA wing of the Democratic Party. But that's at most maybe 10-15% of the entire Democratic Party right now. Out of 213 House Democrats, the Squad only has 9 members.
The mainstream left-wing of the Democratic Party, is mostly represented by the so-called Congressional Progressive Caucus, who are Democratic Socialists ideologically, mostly representing heavily, left-wing, Democratic seats in the House of Representatives. Who ideologically aren't that much different from the Squad, if they had the power to anything that they wanted. But who are more likely to vote with Hakeem Jeffries and the House Democratic Leadership, support the Democratic President, when they need the CPC's votes on major legislation. And the CPC has around 80 seats, maybe more in the House alone, maybe a few in the Senate as well.
But then you go over to the fringe of the far-right, not just in the Republican Party, but in America as well and MAGA is 35-40% of the Republican Party. And we're talking about people who not only oppose free trade and immigration, at least non-Northern European immigration, but multiculturalism as a whole, who thinks the rule of law doesn't apply to them, elections don't matter when they lose, cops are criminals when they arrest their members, etc. I mean MAGA is what you see at Neo-Nazi rallies, perhaps even Ku Klux Klan rallies. At least the militant win of this far-right movement.
The other difference between MAGA and the Squad: you run a far-left, whacked-out, politician or candidate, in a mainstream Democratic district, which is what Representative Jamaal Bowman's district is, half of it, or more, is white-collar Westchester, New York, which also has a large Jewish population, you are not going to lose the general election, because you'll get primaried and lose the primary to a mainstream Democrat instead. Unlike with the MAGA members in the House who routinely win their primaries and get reelected in the fall.
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| Source:Kurt Bardella talking about The Squad's bad Tuesday night. |
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6/25/2024 - Just to go on the record here and to lay out that that I'm pretty biased when it comes to Governor Jared Polis: he's one of my favorite politicians and Democrats in the country right now. His politics is very similar with mind and I think that might be because he's from Colorado and I'm from Maryland. Two states that don't want government interfering with how people live, short of hurting innocent people with what they're doing.
But Maryland and Colorado are also two states that both believe in progress and believe that government has a limited, but a real role in helping to create that progress, so the most people as possible, have the ability to live in freedom in America.
And because Jared Polis is a real, center-right, Liberal Democrat, (meaning someone who believes in liberal democracy. Not that Communists are cool and socialism is for everyone everywhere.) he probably doesn't have much of a future in the Democratic Party, at least as a presidential candidate. Unless he first becomes the Vice President and serves under a popular Democratic President.
Because the Socialist-Left in and outside of the Democratic Party, is now a major faction of that party, it might be too strong and it could bring Governor Polis down, if he were to run for President on his own, because he does believe in both personal and economic freedom, he's pro-business, supports gun rights, along with sensible gun regulations, fiscal responsibility, etc. Not big government can do everything for everyone, if we only just gave it most of our money. Or try to borrow our way to prosperity for all.
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| Source:The Bulwark talking about the State of Colorado. (No pun intended, this time) |
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6/24/2024 - The fact that Representative Larry Hogan lost reelection in 1974 in a year when House Republicans lost over 30 seats, should give you an idea that Representative Hogan actually believed in what he was doing here. Because it didn't help him politically.
And you could argue that Representative Hogan was going to lose anyway, because he represented a very Democratic district, where President Richard Nixon wasn't very popular. You would have to think that voting for the impeachment of President Nixon, who even during the impeachment debate, was still very popular in the Republican Party, couldn't have helped Representative Hogan, because doing that cost him Republican votes in his own district.
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| Source:Larry Hogan showing his father U.S. Representative Larry Hogan SR. (Republican, Maryland) statement to the House Judiciary Committee, arguing in favor of the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) |
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6/21/2024 - I think Adam Kinziner had the perfect point here about Donald Trump. They were talking about Ramin Seodeh's interview of Donald Trump and Mr. Trump telling Ramin Seodeh that he was more happy as an entertainer and not happy doing the job as President of the United States.
And that Adam Kinzinger would've been very happy with Trump just as an entertainer, regardless of what he was doing and even threw in a Top Gun reference. And said his film could've been something like: "The Revenge of Goose", or something like that, with Donald Trump playing Goose. (For you Top Guns fan and I'm 1) And Kinzinger said he could do things like this because at least Trump wouldn't be able to hurt the country anymore. He would just be an entertainer, but not someone with any governmental power.
Adam Kinzinger's point about Donald Trump, is almost my point. If this guy was just some reality TV slimeball, (to put it lightly) like a lot of those characters that so-called reality TV fans see almost every night, he would be no more dangerous than the reality TV characters that you those fans see every night. Or the wannabe reality TV and pop culture celebrities that people see on social media everyday.
Donald Trump has only been a threat to the country, when he was President of the United States and getting close to getting back in The White House today. But only if Democrats don't do their patriotic duty and simply vote for President Biden, simply to save the country.
The the dead people thing: Donald Trump apparently told Ramin Seodeh that Joan Rivers voted for him in 2016. She died in the summer of 2014. So if you think about it, the only dead person whose only voted in America, is Joan Rivers. (RIP) I'm not making fun of her. But she voted for him, according to Donald Trump.
I'm just trying to give you an idea of how out of this world Donald Trump is. That he doesn't live in the real world mentally. He lives in reality TV world, which we know is not even reality TV, let alone the real world.
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| Source:The Bulwark with Tim Miller & Adam Kinzinger talking about Donald J. Trump. |
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6/20/2024 - I can see why Independents might think this is a horrible choice. You have a convicted felon and career conman, running against someone who at times might seem like he needs to be a seniors home and in bed most of the day. And of course Independents don't like inflation and 7% interest rates either. I'm just talking about how Independents perhaps see these two candidates and their options right now. But that's not what's going on here.
What's going on here is a choice between a 34 time convicted felon, a career conman, someone with the personality of a 2nd world dictator, versus someone whose served his country for the last 55 years, who was financially the poorest member of Congress in his 36 years as a U.S. Senator. But only because he didn't spend most of his time writing books and playing the market with insider information, or got a huge inheritance from his father, but because he was in Congress for a long time just doing his job.
This is not a good choice. But not because you have two bad candidates. It's not a good choice because the choice is so clear and obvious about who should win this election. Joe Biden should win by 10-15 points in the popular vote and not just win the rustbelt states that he has to have, as well as Georgia and Arizona, but North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio, as well. If this was simply about who is better suited to be President of the United States: the career public servant, or the career conman/reality TV personality, whose lived off the Manhattan tabloids for most of his career.
As far as Steve Schmidt's point about anger, rage, stupidity, and scumbaggery: This is what happens when reality TV and I would add tabloid culture and tabloid pop culture, not just meet American politics and government, but actually get into government with real positions of power.
Independent voters despite Donald Trump's background as a reality TV star and entertainer, his narcissism, thought he was worth the risk in 2016. But now they've seen the consequences of taking that risk when he was President of the United States and everything we've had to live with as a country since he became President in 2017.
And now I think American voters simply want to go back to a time when leaders led and served the people. That's what Joe Biden has going for him, that's his best political play here. He's not in it for himself. (To paraphrase the Biden Campaign) He just wants to serve his country and protect it from the people who would take over the American government just to serve themselves.
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| Source:The Warning With Steve Schmidt talking about the king of the reality TV scumbags, Donald J. Trump. |
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6/19/2024 - I think when honest people, people with strong character, people who were raised well, people who believe in family values, when these people are worried about losing, or are in trouble, they say that and why, at least when they're questioned about it. And perhaps don't even wait until they're under oath, or being questioned under oath, or by law enforcement officers or agents, or prosecutors. At the very least, they don't publicly lie about it, especially when they have a major audience. Because this is what good, honest, moral people do. At least that's what the Republican Party talked about in the 1990s when they were preaching about character and family values.
But to be frank, we're not talking about good, decent, moral, and honest people, in MAGA world. We're talking about people who believe in winning at all costs. And when they think that's not going to work, you make up excuses and lies about why the other side is winning, or going to win.
I think this it's what's going on with Greg Gutfeld over at the FOX News Channel right now. Which is really just MAGA Net, with a few exceptions and people who are true journalists over there, like the Shannon Bream's, Neal Cavuto's, Britt Hume's, perhaps Margaret McCallum.
The MAGA militants and true activists that don't even pretend to be Republicans (except perhaps when they're running for office) let alone journalists, those folks come off as people who act and look institutionalized mental patients, who went on some field trip outside of their institution and never came back. Perhaps even escaped convicts.
But the people at what's still called the FOX News Channel, are a lot smarter and saner then they seem to want their viewers to believe that they are. And these folks I think believe having a 34 time convicted felon, at the top of their ticket, who he and his movement represent a real threat to American liberal democracy, who struggles to get though a sentence without saying something crazy or lying, is a real problem for what's left of the Republican Party today.
I think FNC right now is freaking out about not just Donald Trump losing in November, but taking Congressional Republicans down with him. And they don't want to see President Biden with another Democratic Congress again, especially when the President could get at least 1 more Supreme Court appointment through in the next Congress.
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| Source:The Bulwark with Tim Miller. |
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6/18/2024 - I agree with Joe Walsh that Joe Biden is the only one who can defeat Donald Trump and that he has to do it himself.
The thing that I would add to that is that people don't like Donald Trump. I'm not talking about job approval or anything like that. Since 2017, Donald Trump's approval rating has been somewhere around up 30s and topping out in the mid 40s.
In a two-way presidential election between himself and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump only got 45% of the popular vote. You would think a popular politician and presidential candidate would be in the 50s or better. And 4 years later again in a two-way presidential election, then President Trump only got 46% of the vote. Sitting President of the United States, who only manages 46% of the vote, who loses two states that Republicans almost never lose, at least since 1992, in Georgia and Arizona.
And with all the economic issues relating to the high interest rates, inflation, rising housing and banking costs, now former President Trump is basically in a dead even tie with President Biden.
So I think American voters of all political backgrounds have concluded that they don't like Donald Trump and probably don't want him to be President of the United States. But picking the next President of the United States is not like shopping around for a car or a house. It's more like picking a meal on an airplane. (Hopefully in 1st class) It's generally a choice between 2 people who can actually win the election in America. And it's generally not about who you like more. But in many cases do you even like 1 of the choices or none of them. Or, maybe you just dislike 1 of the choices more than the other.
I think without the inflation and interest rates and with all the positive economic factors, like the job and economic growth, the rising wages and incomes, and inflation has finally stabilized at least at 3% and hopefully going down now, but if inflation was 1-1.5% even, Joe Biden even at 81 years old, has a 5-10 points right now. Because I think Independents would be saying, along with center-right Republicans who don't want to vote for Donald Trump, they would be saying Joe Biden is old, but the economy is in good shape and the President is better suited than Donald Trump to deal with the foreign policy issues oversees.
So where I agree with Joe Walsh is that it's up to Joe Biden to prove to Independents especially, that he's simply up for the job right now, regardless of his age. He does that, I think he wins the Electoral College comfortably.
And why President Biden is convincing Independents that he's up for the job both physically and mentally, he continues to show Donald Trump for the man that he exactly is as someone whose just in it for himself. (To quote the Biden Campaign) Who is imply running for President of the United States not to serve the people and to serve his country. But to stay out of prison and lock up his political opponents.
President Biden does these two things, he'll have a great election night and we will know that he'll be reelected if not on election night, before the sun comes up on the Wednesday after.
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| Source:White Flag With Joe Walsh talking about what Joe Biden needs to do to defeat Donald Trump. |
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6/17/2024 - Before I get into what Dan Mitchell is saying here and I agree with him on how he describes his own personal politics, but what you are about to read here gives you a pretty good idea of a what a Conservative is in the political sense.
The great conservative political humorist P.J. O'Rourke (RIP) I think when he was being interviewed by Reason Magazine, or some other right-wing publication was talking about conservatism and he gave I believe a pretty good definition of it when talking about his own personal life and this is a paraphrase:
"I'm straight,
I've been married with the same woman for a very long time.
I don't gamble. I don't use marijuana or any other illegal narcotic.
I don't have abortions.
I don't cheat on my wife.
I don't watch porn.
I've never been a romance with a man.
I've never been married to a man.
I'm not a party animal."
He just gave the interviewer a long list of things that today's so-called social Conservatives are supposedly not just against, (even if they actually do these things in private) but what separated him from the "social Conservatives" was that he didn't think these personal choices should be illegal, simply because he disapproves of them. I think abortion is the only exception to that because he did believe abortion should be illegal, at least in most cases.
If you go by the so-called mainstream definitions of what it's supposed to be a Conservative and Liberal in America, the most conservative people are MAGA, or some other right-wing authoritarian. And the most liberal people, at least in a democratic sense, are the so-called Squad in the House of Representatives, or the Green Party, Democratic Socialists of America.
But the one thing that these two fringe factions have in America, is that they're both collectivists and in some cases even authoritarians, especially if you were to look at the Communists on far, far-left and the MAGA militants, the right-wing, anti-U.S. Government radicals on the far-right. So they have a lot more in common then you would think. They're actually not that different at all. A few differences in economic policy and some social issues.
When I think of Conservative, I think P.J. O'Rourke has an excellent definition. But I would add someone who believes in conserving what works in American society and politic:
Things like the U.S. Constitution, separation of powers, checks and balances, devolution of power, the rule of law, individual rights, strong national defense.
Government should move conservatively, meaning cautiously when it comes to reform and that the government closest to home is the best government when it comes to social and welfare policy.
Someone like a Ronald Reagan as President of the United States, other than the high deficits and debt, the expansion of the War On Drugs, the high crimes rates of the 1980s, is an excellent example of what it means to be an American Conservative, at least far as tone and rhetoric and what he got done as President.
But when I look at the Dam Mitchells's of the world, who I've been following online the last 10 years or so, which is most of my blogging career, I have him down as a Libertarian, in the classical sense. Not in the antigovernment, Anarcho sense. Those folks are really just right-wing Anarchists. But he's someone who believes in limited government, which is not no government. He's someone whose even praised the flat tax before. Which means he's not anti-tax all together. And he's someone who believes in a good deal of personal and economic freedom, personal responsibility, the rule of law, etc.
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| Source:CATO Institute fellow Daniel J. Mitchell. |
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6/14/2024 - I was trying to search to see how many members there are in the House Freedom Caucus in the 118th Congress. The only number that I saw was from a January, 2023 Pew Research Center report saying that they had 49 members. That seems very low in a House Republican Conference that has 217 members out of 435 total House seats and 431 U.S. Representatives.
By the way, call the House MAGA Caucus (which is what the House Freedom Caucus actually is) the House Freedom Caucus, would be like calling Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders a Libertarian. I mean, are you trying to become a comedian or something? But they're free to call themselves whatever they want. They can even call themselves Republicans, even though they don't actually believe in the concept of a republic, certainly not the American Federal Republic.
My best guess is that MAGA has 90-110 seats in the House of Representatives right now. And even if House Republicans lose the House in 2024, (which I predict they will) they'll still have around 90-110 in the next Congress as well, because you'll see a lot of center-right, real Republicans (who are actually called RINOS) lose in New York State in California, who currently represent House districts that Joe Biden won in 2020 and is still leading in.
So the next House Republican Conference could be even crazier. Can't wait for CPAC (Crazy People At a Convention) 2025 next year. That will definitely be a show. Maybe Ted Nugent will perform at the MAGA nuthouse next year.
I disagree with Joe Walsh on only one key point here. I don't thing MAGA is the Republican Party right now. More like half of it. I think we were seeing with Donald Trump's share of the Republican primary vote and are still seeing that now Nikki Haley still getting around 15-20% of the Republican vote in primaries where she's no longer getting even running for President.
You have maybe 1/2 Republicans now who are Donald Trump MAGA loyalists and maybe 3/10 Republicans who don't want to vote for him, but might do it anyway, because they don't want Democrats to have complete control of the Congress and The White House next year. But they might vote for Joe Biden because they see Donald Trump as a threat to the American Republic and Constitution.
As far as who is MAGA and who are the Republicans who simply want to save their political careers?
Those hard-core MAGA Caucus members in the House are definitely MAGA. So the Marjorie T. Greene's, the Laure Boebert's, the Jim Jordan's, the James Emmer's, the Paul Goesar's, and a lot of other far-right, whacked-out, high as a skyscraper, U.S. Representatives. But then there are people like House Republican Conference Chairman Elise Stefanik, who was one of the original Never-Trumper's in the House in 2015-2016. But then got on board the MAGA train when Donald Trump lost reelection in 2020, to save her political career.
You go over to the upper chamber of Congress and see people like Senator J.D. Vance who wrote a very anti-Donald Trump book in 2017, but them Trump loses reelection in 2020, Ohio Senator Rob Portman decides not to run for reelection in 2022 and sees his opportunity to win a U.S. Senate seat by walking on his hands and knees and begging Donald Trump so he can could kiss DJT's feet every time he's out in public. And then you have people who want Donald Trump to select him as his Vice President, people like Senator Tim Scott, who at least before the 2024 election cycle, was a pragmatic, center-right Republican in Congress. Not a MAGA firebrand.
I think the modern Republican Party now consists of MAGA, who are far-right, nationalistic, cultural warriors. And then you have lets fake MAGA, people who are basically center-right Republicans, who want to keep their careers, so they sort of pretend to be MAGA. People like Senator Lindsay Graham.
And then you have what's left of the center-right, Conservative Republicans, people like those vulnerable House Republicans who could definitely lose their Congressional carers, because they probably represent too many Joe Biden voters. People like Representative Mike Lawler and a few other Conservative Republicans in New York.
I mean this is where I disagree with Joe Walsh here. MAGA is a big enough threat to ruin the American Republic and our liberal democracy. But only if we let them do that by not voting for Democrats in 2024. But they're not the entire Republican Party.
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| Source:White Flag With Joe Walsh talking about MAGA n da House. Ight!!! | You can see the rest of this post on Blogger and WordPress. |
6/13/2024 - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is talking about some plan that Senator Bernie Sanders (Democratic Socialist, Socialist Republic of Vermont) has to regulate drug prices as a whole in America. What I want to talk about here sort of relates to what the Senate Minority Leader is talking about, but more about how prescription drugs and drug access for women could affect the presidential election.
If you are just waking up or something, (perhaps you live in Alaska) the Supreme Court approved the sale of the abortion pill today. If you are familiar with The New Democrat, you know we're pro-choice on practically everything, including how women control their own bodies, short of forcing others to have to pay for their personal choices. But that's not what this post is about.
This, along with abortion as a whole, and the Supreme Court will be major political issues for American voters, if the Democratic Party simply allows them to be and makes then issues.
If The White House, House Democrats, Senate, Democrats, every Democrat whose running for governor and for state legislature in America, simply pushes these issues, and the national Democrats people with like President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Congressional Democrats, including the campaign committees, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, as well as the Democratic National Committee, all make these issues major issues and keep push ing them to get their voters to the polls.
The Republican Party in the 1990s, 2000s, last decade, were very successful in always making the Supreme Court an issue during their presidential campaigns, as well as their Congressional campaigns, at least in the Senate. That's how they got the constitutional conservatives, as well as people who are called MAGA today, to the polls, even if they didn't really like the individual Republican who was running for office.
Now that Democrats have completely lost the Supreme Court thanks to their weak showings in 2014 and 16, due in large part because their left-wing flank didn't bother to vote in either election cycle, Democrats thanks to Justice Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, have a real opportunity to pull a Republican play from back in the day and use it against them, to get their left-wing flank to the polls this November and not just vote, but vote Democrats up and down the tickets.
Democrats could argue to these (let's call call them part-time voters) people that this not just about women's health care and reproductive health care. The winner of the 2024 presidential election will probably get 1 Supreme Court appointee and you want a Democrat in The White House for that and a Democratic Senate to approve that Democratic nominee.
You also want a Democratic Congress (Senate & House) to go along with the Democratic White House, to reform and expand the Supreme Court. This could be a great political issue for the Democratic Party, if they play it right.
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| Source:Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) talking about Senate Democrats plan to regulate drug prices. |
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6/12/2024 - Just to pick up on Mona Charen's and A.B. Stoddard's point about how MAGA is going to try to spin the Hunter Biden convictions, this what Matt Whitaker told Newsmax about it...
Just to correct a few things that Matt Whitaker said first.
The investigation that led to the convictions of Hunter Biden yesterday, started in early 2018 when Jeff Session was still U.S. Attorney General, under President Donald Trump. But Matt Whitaker already knows this because he became Acting Attorney General in late 2018 right after President Trump fired Attorney General Sessions for doing his job.
If U.S. DOJ wanted to "sweep this investigation under the rug", they could've dismissed the case shortly after Joe Biden became President of the United States.
But we know what the MAGA spin and plays are going to be here:
They were just fake convictions to make it look like the justice system works for both Democrats and MAGA members equally. But then Hunter Biden will get off with a very light sentence.
And the other move will be that they'll simply stop talking about it, at least to the ,mainstream media. Because perhaps even MAGA can get tired of sounding and looking like idiots on national TV, (with Marjorie T. Greene being the exception to that) and it the Hunter convictions just reenforces the fact that we don't have a separate justice system for Democrats and MAGA members.
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| Source:The Bulwark with Mona Charen & A.B. Stoddard talking about the Hunter Biden convictions. |
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6/11/2024 - Just a quick thought here first. Mark Penn who is or was a longtime Democratic political strategist, dunked the ball in the basket when he said that: “I’d say he accepted it. He accepted it in the lion’s den. If I were Donald Trump, I would have done some better negotiating here, but I don’t think he can back out now without really looking cowardly,” Penn replied."
That's the whole point here. You can already see that Sean Hannity, at least, the most popular and perhaps powerful FOX News anchor inside of the MAGA movement, is worried about Donald Trump debating Joe Biden because he thinks that Trump would lose to the President. And you can already see how MAGA would spin that if DJT loses:
Sean Hannity: "I think we'll see the return of "Jacked-Up Joe." Whatever Joe drank, ate, took before the State of the Union -- maybe it was just Red Bull and caffeine pills. I don't know."
Because we already know what the relationship between personal responsibility and the modern Republican Party is. They go together like mustard and chocolate cake. It can't possibly be their fault, or their guy's fault when they screw up. It's always someone or something else that's at fault.
It can't be the fact that the modern Republican Party is about to nominate (and the Republican Party still has time to come to their senses) someone who is a 34 time convicted felon, whose only running for President of the United States to stay out of prison and lock up his political opponents, including Republicans.
MAGA always have to find the political escape hatch and blame someone, or something else for their own failures. That's basically what Sean Hannity is doing here. He's privately, but in public suggesting that DJT shouldn't debate President Biden. And already has an excuse ready in case DJT loses to the President and looks bad doing so.
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| Source:Media Matters For America discussing whether or not 34 time convicted felon Donald J. Trump, should even be debating the President of the United States Joseph R. Biden. |
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6/10/2024 - I agree with Steve Schmidt that Robert F. Kennedy JR. hurts Joe Biden more than Donald Trump. But I guess it would put it differently and have different reasons.
As we've already said on The New Democrat, RFKJR. is just younger, healthier, smarter, stronger, Donald J. Trump. Not that being younger, healthier, smarter, and stronger, then Donald J. Trump, who just reported to his probation hearing in Manhattan today, is any great prize. You don't win prizes for being better than career criminals and crooks, who've just recently gotten caught and have become convicted felons for the first time in their lives.
What Bob Kennedy wants to do here, is help Donald Trump by taking votes away from Joe Biden. If you are familiar with auto racing, they have teams as well. They'll have one driver whose in it to win it (to to speak) and another driver, or other drivers, who are there to make the top driver on their team job easier to win the race. And they do that by blacking the top driver's opponents from taking the lead in the race, or just catching up. That's what Kennedy JR. is doing here, but doing it in a political sense...
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| Source:The Warning With Steve Schmidt talking about Donald J. Trump's political wingman Robert F. Kennedy JR. |
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6/07/2024 - I saw part of the interview where Dr. Phil makes his "thick skin" comment to Mr. Trump. And the "Good Doctor" almost had a smirk on his face as he's making this comment. And then later in this interview he's talking to Trump about why Trump feels the need to seek revenge on his opponents. He contradicts himself during his own so-called interview, within minutes of the show.
There's no need to go back into history when Donald J. Trump not just had a Twitter page, but used it almost every hour (who has the time for national security briefings when you have Twitter) and generally doing that to hit back on negative things and stories that were being reported about him. Or attack people from his Twitter page for saying negative things about him, or agreeing to testify against him, etc. He's now doing that on his Truth Social page, but with like 10% of the followers that he had on Twitter.
As far as preserving Dr. Phil's reputation here: that went out the window when he became the Jerry Springer of psychology TV back in the 2010s and 2000s by having the craziest, most irresponsible, dumbest people, that he could possibly find in America. (Unless some, or most of his guests are just actors)
But it's another to go from the guy who has someone on his show who just not claims to be the "Sexy Vegan", to being at the head of the line to pay Donald Trump to kiss his ass for him on national TV. I guess Mr. Trump would use Dr. Phil's money to help pay his own legal expenses.
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| Source:Donald J. Trump being interviewed by Dr. Phil McGraw. I guess this is Dr. Phil's audition to be Mr. Trump's spiritual advisor. |
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6/06/2024 - So Steve Bannon's defense here is basically: "President Donald Trump claimed executive privilege on the conversations that I had with him about Jan. 6. That's why I din't comply with the House subpoena to speak in front of their Jan. 6 committee."
The big problem that he has here (and I'm not a lawyer) and you can see why he keeps losing his appeals, is that Steve Bannon in January, 2021, didn't work for The White House or any part of the Trump Administration. Donald Trump fired him in the summer of 2017.
Mr. Bannon was just a private citizen during the entire presidential election season of 2020 and the transition period from November, 2020 when Joe Biden was elected President of the United States, defeating President Trump, till the day that President Trump's term expired and Joe Biden becomes President Joe Biden. And the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt happened 2 weeks before Mr. Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, succeeding President Trump.
Any rookie, criminal defense lawyer in Washington, who represents people who've worked in and outside of the U.S. Government, will tell you that executive privilege doesn't apply to private citizens. Whatever you think of Steve Bannon (and I see him as far-right militant trying to overthrow the U.S. Government) he's obviously a very intelligent man, with both a U.S. Naval and business background, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. He has to know that he didn't have executive privilege here.
Besides, even if Steve Bannon is a total idiot, (and the sun never comes out in Arizona) ignorance of the law is never excuse for breaking the law. And even if he got bad legal advise and that's the reason why he didn't comply with his House subpoena, that gives him justification to sue his lawyer. Not ignore a Congressional subpoena.
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| Source:CSPAN showing showing Steve Bannon’s little press statement outside of the U.S. Circuit Court in Washington. |
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6/05/2024 - I guess there are a few points here that Minority Leader McConnell made that I feel the need to push back on.
The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't have the sole responsibility to police itself. It can't even fund itself. Congress has jurisdiction over the Supreme Court when it comes to both the oversight of the Court and its appropriations. Congress by statue can reform the Court and even expand it, if the Senate and the House agree to do just that and the President signs that into law.
But Mitch McConnell already knows this because he's been in the Senate since 1985 and has been the Republican Leader since 2007, was the Assistant Majority Leader from 2003-07, was a member of the Judiciary Committee, and is also a lawyer, was a judge in Kentucky before getting elected to the Senate in 1984
But I also want to give you a hypothetical:
Imagine if then President Trump was narrowly reelected in 2020. (I know, that would've been a nightmare for half of the country) Let's say he pulled out Pennsylvania and Michigan, made an amazing comeback in Georgia and Arizona, and then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decided to accept those results and whip the voters in place to certify the election for President Trump in Congress.
But then ANTIA or Black Lives Matter, the so-called Congressional Progressive Caucus, the so-called Squad in the House, ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, every left-wing, militant group that you can come up with, just went nuts over that. And Joe Biden and company organized an attempted insurrection and coup attempt on Capitol Hill to prevent Congress from certifying the election result in January, 2021.
And 3 and 1/2 years later, you have a law that was used by the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute and convict those militants and get those convictions, being challenged at the Supreme Court. But then a story appears in The Washington Post or Washington Times, about Justice Sonia Sotomayor, having an ANTIA or Black Lives Matter flag at her home. And she blames that on her husband and refuses to recuse herself from that case. Even though some of the militants whose case are at the Court, are ANTIFA or Black Lives Matters members. What would be Mitch McConnell's reaction to that? I think it's obvious that he would either ignore the story, or of course call for Justice Sotomayor to recuse herself from that case.
Hypocrisy in Washington, especially in Congress, is like the hot air, the heat and humidity in Washington in the late spring and summer that we get every year. You can't run away from it. You almost have to accept it and tolerate it. Or find somewhere else to live.
But when one of the biggest hypocrites in all of Washington, one of the biggest cities in America and one of the biggest hypocrites in the entire Congress, (which is why I'm amazed that MAGA doesn't love Mitch McConnell) tries to lecture the other side about what's proper, you have to point it out. Just for no other reason that the American people get another look at who leads them in Washington.
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| Source:Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) arguing that a very friendly U.S. Supreme Court to Republicans, can police itself. |
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6/04/2024 - I just want to talk about Donald J. Trump's official YouTube channel and this video first.
Is the Trump Campaign so broke and cheap, that they can't afford a decent videographer and social media expert? As soon as you click to hear this video, it goes straight into a man whose almost yelling into the camera, whose eyes are almost half closed. Not even a waste of time, useless, boring commercial, that no one is interested in, before the video starts. Which is what you have to endure now to watch a lot of YouTube videos. But I guess with a convicted felon, you get to watch his videos for free.
I guess asking to see some facts and evidence for any of Donald Trump's claims, would be like asking goldfish to go days without water. It's just not in his nature. But the fact is there was a deal in the Senate, the only bipartisan deal and only deal at all in this Congress, to accomplish most of what Mr. Trump is saying needs to be done. But he told the Senate Republicans, perhaps even Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, if they support the bipartisan deal, he'll campaign against them and raise money against them. Mr. Trump doesn't want to solve this problem. He just wants to say that he did it and use the issue against his opponents.
And as far as Donald Trump calling the President of the United States "Crooked Joe": Imagine being called Killer by serial murderer Ted Bundy or mass murderer Osama Bin Laden: "You get em, Killer" I think the word crooked loses a lot of meaning when it comes from a 34 time convicted felon, who owes the State of New York 500 million dollars, money that the self-proclaimed billionaire doesn't have. But up until last week, Donald Trump has gotten way with being Don The Con. Not anymore.
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| Source:Donald J. Trump- I wonder what it's like being called "Crooked Joe" by a man who owes the State of New York 500 billion dollars do to business fraud, as well as a 34 time convicted felon, in Donald J. Trump. Does Joe Biden spend the rest of the day laughing every time this man calls him "Crooked Joe"? |
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5/31/2024 - I was watching MSNBC's late coverage of the Donald Trump conviction last night. Not because I'm in love with their left-wing commentators, not even physically. But because I just wanted their legal analysis from their actual lawyers, not left-wing commentators. People like Katie Phang, Andrew Weissman, Ari Melber, are all excellent lawyers. And I wanted to hear what their Democratic strategists (not left-wing activists) thought about how Joe Biden and his campaign, how the party should play (to to speak) the aftermath of the Trump verdict.
I think Steve Schmidt lays out very correctly how MAGA will play this. They're going to argue that: "The deep state is at it again. They're trying to take down real American patriots, to hold onto power. We can't let this disgrace continue. We must fight back and tear down the deep state!"
That's not a direct quote, but that's what Donald Trump and his MAGA political cult will be talking about and that's what their political attitude is.
I think we know how MAGA, the far-right-right of the modern Republican Party will handle this. And I think we know how at least some who are basically still center-right, establishment Republicans, people like Republican strategist Scott Jennings, who simply wants a future in the Republican Party, regardless of who wins the presidential election, will play this as well.
But the question is how will the Democratic Party Leadership play this? On Jen Psaki's portion of what seemed like a marathon coverage of the Trump verdict, that I didn't catch at all until after 10PM last night, she and her panel got into that, after midnight. Jennifer Palmieri who goes back to John Edwards first presidential campaign back in 2003-04, if not further than that when she handled communications for him, as well as Tim Miller who used to work for Governor Jeb Bush, as well as the House Republicans when John Boehner was the Speaker, made some very good points here.
Jennifer Palmieri and Tim Miller both agreed and I agree with them that the Biden Campaign can't wait until the Trump felony convictions becomes an old story, before they try to take advantage of it.
If the Biden Campaign lets June go by without their campaign saying anything about this and not doing anything to promote American liberal democracy and the rule of law, as well as Donald Trump and his MAGA Party coming back to power next year, if they win, where they could just come back to take down our form of government and seek retribution against any Democrat or Republican who they see as a threat to their movement and regime, June will be a lost month for President Biden and his campaign.
This is the perfect time now to talk about how vital American liberal democracy and the rule of law is. They have the perfect spokesperson when it comes to the rule of law, and I believe the perfect attack person (if you don't like attack dog) in Vice President Kamala Harris. (To pick up on Tim Miller's point) And they should be hammering away at Donald Trump's vulnerability when it comes to liberal democracy and the rule of law, with speech after speech, campaign commercial after campaign commercial. At least until the Republican Party walks that political plank, become political suicide bombers and nominates a 34 time convicted felon for President of the United States, 6 weeks from now.
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| Source:The Warning With Steve Schmidt talking about the aftermath of Donald J. Trump becoming a convicted felon. |
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5/30/2024 - I have a few responses to what Dan Mitchell is advocating for here before I agree with a lot of what he’s saying, minus the flat tax.
A lot of today’s so-called Progressives (who are actually Social Democrats or Democratic Socialists) argue that: “This is the way that they run health care in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia. This is what we should do in America as well.” Meaning that health care, college education, and a lot of other social and economic benefits are run exclusively by the national government in those countries: “So we should do that in America as well.”
Well, as lot of Conservatives, as well as Liberals, including myself and The New Democrat Blog will tell you, just because one thing might work in one country, doesn’t mean it will work in another. China has been a Communist State for almost 80 years now. That country seems to be thriving economically. Do you really want America to be a Communist State? And that’s just one example of why you don’t want to automatically assume that just because one system might work in one country, that another country should just automatically adopt that form of government as well.
But that’s what Dan Mitchell is basically doing here. Switzerland is a country of 9 million people. Roughly the same population as the State of New Jersey. It has the same territory as New Hampshire and Vermont combined. America is a country of 330 million people. We are the 3rd largest country in the world in territory and in population. Just because something might work in New Jersey or Texas on a state level, doesn’t mean that would make for good policy nationally. And that’s really my case for federalism here.
I think when people who aren’t familiar with the term federalism, especially people on the left who are always advocating for more Federal responsibility, power and programs, they think federalism means strong, national, government. That a Federalist wants a strong, national, government. But the fact is the opposite true.
Federalists believe in the Federal Republic. And in federal republics, of course you have a national government. But you also have state/provincial government’s as well. You don’t have the national government handling national defense, foreign policy, monetary policy, interstate law enforcement, along with education, social welfare, marriage, recreation, and everything else.
In federal republics, the states aren’t national agencies. They’re what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called: “Laboratories of democracy” And what that means is the Federal Republic is essentially a “free market of ideas”
And the states, as long as they’re within the U.S. Constitution and aren’t violating anyone’s constitutional rights, or are interfering with federal power, like trying to create their own military, or trying to run their own immigration policy, (that sort of thing) they are free to manage their own law enforcement agencies, they’re own education systems, they’re own social own welfare systems themselves. Without the Federal Government butting in and trying to interfere with their own government and trying to tell them what they can and can’t do. Or trying to take over their programs for them.
So when you have a country as big, as diverse, not just racially and ethnically, or culturally, but politically as well, where you might have some states that look like Scandinavia ideologically, like Vermont, but have some states that look like Switzerland ideologically, like Texas, federalism which is decentralization of governmental power, is really the only form of government that I believe can work in America. And has worked in America for almost 248 years now.
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| Source:Dan Mitchell being interviewed about federalism. |
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5/29/2024 - On a personal note first: this is my first post for The New Democrat in almost 4 years. I've been spending the last 4 years doing outside work, as well as maintenance work related to this blog. But it's great to be back and I'm back full-time now as a blogger for this blog.
Before I get into ripping Donald J. Trump about his comments relating to Mother Teresa, I must say almost no one can really compare themselves to her. I mean she was the definition of a saint. She literally spent her entire life even though she came from very humble beginnings growing up in what later became Yugoslavia, before moving to India, trying to help the very less-fortunate improve their own lives.
And just because someone like a Donald J. Trump has the balls (to be frank) to compare himself with Mother Teresa, doesn't mean that there's a long line of people who are even close to her neighborhood, when it comes to saints on this planet.
But having said that and just for the fun of it I guess. How many saints are you aware of who've not only been married 3 times, get accused of rape by their first wife, who are not just serial adulterers, who've cheated on all 3 wives, who've cheated on their 3rd wife with a porn actress, and then paid her off to prevent her from going public about their affair, right before a presidential election, where they just happened to be one of the major party's presidential nominee?
But then add to the fact that Mr. Trump is still lying about his Stormy affair (pun intended) almost 6 years after the story broke, but has his lead counsel Todd Blanche lie for him during his closing statement yesterday.
You could spend the rest of this year trying to find the answer to this question, because Donald J. Trump literally is in a league of his own, when it comes to American swines. He's the swine to Mother Teresa's sainthood. He's the dark storm cloud to Mother Teresa's bright, shiny, beautiful, warm day.
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| Source:Donald J. Trump (also known as Defendant Don) & his lead defense counsel Todd Blanche. |
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8/06/2020 - I think what I'm getting from Bill Buckley in this interview here with former JFK and LBJ Secretary of State Dean Rusk (1961-69) is that he's interested in what I guess left-wing (Far-Left, really historians) historians takes on important and controversial events in American history. And he was trying to get Secretary Dean Rusk to talk about that and what the Secretary was doing was essentially trying to dodge Buckley's jabs about these left-wing historians.
A good case to talk about when you're talking about so-called left-wing historians and leftists (Socialists and Communists) in America, as well as anti-government Libertarians (if not Anarchists) and their take on a major historical event in America, is of course the JFK assassination. Almost 60 years later you still have a faction of leftist Americans and anti-government Libertarians who'll never accept the official report of the Warren Report about the JFK assassination, no matter how many facts and how much evidence you throw at these people.
You literally have leftists in America who can't accept that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, simply because L.H. Oswald was a Socialist. And they say that Socialists don't murder people. Apparently unaware and perhaps never heard of Soviet Russia or Communist China or Communist Korea, Nazi Germany, etc. Even though it was Oswald's gun that shot President Kennedy. The bullets that killed JFK came from Oswald's gun. The shots came from where Oswald was and where he was working at the time of the assassination. Oswald had motive, opportunity, and the ability to assassinate JFK when he was in Dallas that day in 1963.
As long as there is money to be made and fame to gain off the backs of controversial, historic events in American history, you're going to have people try to make as much money and gain as much fame as they can off of those events regardless of the facts and they'll let the facts be dammed. Roger Stone on the Right and his own bullshit (to be frank) book at the JFK assassination is a perfect example of that, where he argues that Vice President Lyndon Johnson ordered the JFK assassination, is a perfect example of that.
This is just one of the consequences of having a First Amendment and a constitutional right to free speech in America, as well as a private enterprise economic system. And I wouldn't have it any other way as a Liberal. What honest Americans need to do and our educators need to do is separate the facts from the fiction and make sure as many Americans are aware of them as possible.
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| Source:Firing Line With William F. Buckley- with former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk (1961-69) |
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| Source:Rodney Dangerfield- from his 1982 ABC Special. |
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