[ Posted Friday, February 9th, 2024 – 19:29 UTC ]
This was a very bad week for Republicans in Congress, pretty much all around. The Speaker of the House proved incapable of counting votes and thus saw two big defeats on the floor, and over in the Senate the Republicans cut off their noses (elephant trunks?) to spite their faces in a spectacular turnaround from their own basic bargaining position. GOP incompetence was on display on both sides of the Capitol, to put it bluntly.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 7th, 2024 – 16:02 UTC ]
Last night, Nikki Haley suffered an embarrassing loss in Nevada's Republican primary. But it wasn't the same embarrassing loss as she suffered in New Hampshire -- or will soon be suffering in her home state of South Carolina, for that matter -- since she didn't actually lose to Donald Trump. Instead, in what can only be called a truly meaningless primary, she lost (by a 2-to-1 margin!) not to a competing candidate but rather to: "None Of These Candidates." This is an option on Nevada ballots for voters to register their vote as a protest against the choices provided. Last night, Haley got 31 percent of the vote while "None Of These Candidates" got a whopping 63 percent. That is truly embarrassing, you've got to admit.
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[ Posted Monday, January 29th, 2024 – 16:28 UTC ]
There is an interesting idea making the rounds in the political punditry world of late, and I have to say it is an intriguing one. Nikki Haley has a very slim chance of chalking up any wins in Republican primaries, either before or on Super Tuesday, so sooner or later she's going to have to bow to the inevitable and drop out of the GOP race. This will leave Trump as the Republican nominee, but what if this isn't the end of the campaign trail for Haley? Instead of disappearing, what would happen if Haley then ran as the No Labels candidate?
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[ Posted Friday, January 26th, 2024 – 19:00 UTC ]
A staggering amount of Republican hypocrisy is now on full display in Washington. Pretty much ever since Joe Biden took office, Republicans have been screaming: "Border crisis! It's a crisis! This crisis needs immediate action!" This has been reinforced in an enormous way by the rightwing media echo chamber, who features the "Border Crisis!" storyline on a nightly basis for its audience. Scary images of border-crossers are shown, the word "invasion" is tossed about willy-nilly, and the fearmongering of immigrants is paramount.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 25th, 2024 – 16:22 UTC ]
The mainstream media has had eight years to figure out how to cover Donald Trump. But quite obviously they still haven't really figured out the best way to do so. They ping-pong back and forth between largely ignoring him or giving him a huge (and free and unchecked) megaphone to use. This conundrum is upon us once again in a big way, since at this point Trump has to be seen as the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024 – 18:45 UTC ]
As I sit here watching the New Hampshire primary election results roll in, there don't seem to be any huge surprises developing yet -- most of the votes aren't in yet, so I suppose there's still time... but the chances are the headlines are soon going to be reading something along the lines of: "It's Over Almost Before It Began," as both Donald Trump and Joe Biden wrap up their respective nominations.
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[ Posted Monday, January 22nd, 2024 – 17:02 UTC ]
As usual, the first presidential primary in the country will take place in New Hampshire tomorrow night. But this won't be your garden-variety Granite State primary, on either side of the aisle. For Republicans, their choices have already dwindled to only two, while on the Democratic side the frontrunner isn't even on the ballot. Neither one of those things is normal.
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[ Posted Friday, January 19th, 2024 – 17:54 UTC ]
President Joe Biden got some excellent news today: the "vibecession" seems to be over. For those unfamiliar with this neologism, the term was coined by an educator a while back to explain the disconnect between the economic reality (measured by all the economic indicators) and how people actually felt about the economy. The economy has been doing amazingly well in recovering from the COVID pandemic slump, while at the same time public perception has remained a lot gloomier.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 – 16:06 UTC ]
Nikki Haley, upon finishing third in the Iowa caucuses last night, had a rather bizarrely optimistic pronouncement. It ranks right up there with Bill Clinton proclaiming himself "The Comeback Kid" after finishing only second in New Hampshire, in fact (although, to be fair, Clinton's spin-job worked wonders for him). Here's what Haley had to say last night: "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race." The audience reportedly applauded and cheered.
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[ Posted Monday, January 15th, 2024 – 19:19 UTC ]
With fewer than 750 votes in -- less than one percent of the total -- the news organizations have already called the Republican Iowa caucuses for Donald Trump. As I write this, Ron DeSantis is up over Nikki Haley by a count of 161 to 159, so obviously there is still going to be a close race for second place. Neither one of them is topping 16 percent as of now, while Trump sits above 60 percent. All of these numbers could swing as the evening continues, but the fact that Trump is going to walk away the winner is already set.
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