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Climate Change Domestic Policies Donald Trump Healthcare Immigration Reform News Politics pope francis

Forget Iran: The GOP Goes Nuclear


Francis comes in, John Boehner bows out. There is a certain symmetry to some world events and this is one of those moments.

Here we have a Pope who is speaking forcefully and eloquently about how the issues of the day and all the right wing can do is reject his message as an ill-conceived interference into the political realm. Stay away from climate change and gay rights, they say, and for heaven’s sake, stop talking about immigration. Yet Francis has stayed on message in a way that would make House Speaker John Boehner proud.

Um.

Well, former House Speaker John Boehner, that is. Or at least he will be at the end of October. Poor John tried his best to reign in a fractious caucus of elected government officials who detest government and want it flushed down the sink, or at least shut down so it can’t do more damage to the country, damage like pay out Social Security benefits. Or Medicare. Medicaid. Or keep the national parks open. Get people passports. Inspect our food. Defend the country. Provide funds for the less fortunate. Health care. Investigate crimes. It’s terrible, this United States government we have today.

It’s funny how conservatives have been saying for years that we need to base our actions on religious values and that we have lost our way morally under the weight of godless liberal social policies over the past 70 years. Yet here comes an infallible Pope who can be ignored at will because he has the temerity to say that the United States needs to do more, not less. Take in more Syrian refugees. Care more for the poor. Stop demonizing Muslims. Care for the environment and the globe.

When you put the right wing’s agenda together with the rejection of Francis’s message and stir in the fact that the next Speaker of the House is likely to be an even more conservative than John Boehner, then you will get a party that simply doesn’t like anything. And how do you run and win on that?

Mark this week down as the one that will eventually define the presidential election for the GOP. They have been saying no for far too long and the no backbenchers are about to get a more sympathetic ear for them to yell into. The elites are fighting to rid the field of Donald Trump, and he’ll go eventually, but he won’t go quietly or without tearing down enough of the other contenders to make their jobs more difficult. And the new House leadership is likely to allow some of the less savory bills that Boehner was able to squash to get out of the caucus room and onto the floor.

Pope Francis is actually leading the way for conservatives to re-engage in a balanced conversation. He’s no liberal by any stretch of the imagination. But he is a humanist and he understands that if we don’t take care of everyone, than we really don’t take care of anyone.

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Carly Fiorina Domestic Policies Donald Trump Foreign Policies News Politics

52-42

That’s really all you need to know about Carly Fiorina’s chances of becoming either the Republican nominee or president of this great country. She’s an accomplished woman with plenty of money and a great speaking style, but when it came to getting votes, she couldn’t win, even in the great Republican year of 2010.

Fiorina lost to Barbara Boxer in the 2010 California Senate race by 52%-42%. We will have a woman as United States President, but it won’t be Carly Fiorina. When your best line has nothing to do with policy, but is instead a necessary rebuttal to Trump calling you ugly, then you will get press, but not solid voter support. And when your other policy proposal concerns building up the Sixth Fleet and spending huge amounts of money on defense rather than actually speaking to Vladimir Putin, then you have nothing more to say about responsible foreign policy. And those comments about the Planned Parenthood videos? All anybody has to do is watch them to know how utterly wrong Firoina was.

I don’t think we have a long way to go before we get a sense as to which one of the Republican candidates will be the nominee. Each of them will get their day in the media spotlight and each one will be found wanting in some way. Donald Trump will not win. Ben Carson will not win. Carly Fiorina will not win.

Next.

Chris Christie is getting some nice press about his performance in the debate, especially his opening statement, which was the longest he got to speak. He still has plenty of money, so perhaps the next step would be for him to get some media, although the press is still not done with Jeb! and Marco Rubio.

If the debate was any guide, then the Democrats will still have the upper hand entering the general election campaign late next spring. The Republicans are still talking nonsense about how hard they’ll come down on immigration, how they’ll shut off money to the main source of women’s health care in many states (Planned Parenthood), how they’ll carve up the Constitution to preserve a religious right that’s found nowhere in the document, and how they won’t meet with world leaders until they do what we want them to do.

And they have other problems. The Republican Party elites reduced the number of debates and made many states winner-take-all when it comes to primaries in the hope that a nominee would emerge early enough to run against the Democrat and to raise gobs of money. Now, they’re looking at a scenario where the nominee will be pulled farther to the right than Mitt Romney was, and the prospect that Donald Trump will win some of those states where the winner takes the whole delegate bundle and becomes a power broker at the convention. The Citizens United case opened up the money spigot and one of the nastier effects, at least for the GOP, is that now even some of the fringe candidates will have enough cash to cause a great deal of mischief.

Now comes word that Vice President Biden will be entering the Democratic race ahead of the October 13 debate. This will give him the opportunity to gauge his support and will also give him an out if he feels that his emotions and his family will not support a long run. Hillary Clinton’s campaign should be worried about Biden because they are at a vulnerable stage with all of the talk about lost momentum due to the e-mail problems she’s had. Bernie Sanders will also get the loud applause at the debate because he’ll give the base what Hillary probably can’t if she wants to move to the center in the general campaign. Biden can pick and choose which Obama policies he wants to continue supporting and Hillary will be in the position where she’ll need to distance herself from some of his programs. It’s shaping up to be a fun night.

The presidential campaign seems like it’s dragged on forever, but we are still in its early stages as primary voters try each candidate on for size before they settle on the one they believe can win.

As presidents Giuliani, Dean and Cain used to say… oh wait a second…

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Foreign Policies Israel News Nuclear Security Politics

The Iran Deal Will Survive

Foreign affairs used to be the one area where the country supported the president to show the world that, although we might have messy domestic issues, the United States was indeed united when confronting the world.

Oh how things have changed.

I support the Iran deal for three basic reasons:

1. I assume that Iran already has a nuclear weapon or are very close to developing one. If there’s one thing that we should have learned by now, it’s that scientific knowledge cannot be stopped. If Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon or two at this point, they will in a few years. The key is what they are willing to do with them and what the rest of the world is willing to do about them. My firm belief is…nothing on both accounts. The Iranian government likes to talk tough about how they’re going to destroy the Great Satan and Israel, but that’s just jawboning from a regime whose clock is ticking. Because the other truth of the matter is that Israel has between 80 and 100 nuclear weapons and Iran knows that they will be turned to dust if they throw one or two weapons towards Jerusalem. That’s not likely to happen. Nuclear weapons have still only been used once in the world and rational governments know that they simply will not get away with their wanton use. Despite media reports and overblown hype from the left and the right, Iran’s government, and most importantly its people, want to live in the world. So even if they get more weapons within fifteen years, it’s important to remember that…

2. Capitalism destroys religion and always has. Think about it. The Catholic Church reached the zenith of its power on the eve of the First Crusade in 1095. It’s been downhill from there. And the reasons for its continued decline, and the decline of most western religions, is capitalism and trade and money and banking and the secular pursuit of tangible, materialistic objects that make our economic system hum. So let’s throw open the Iranian economy to the rapacious pursuit of stuff and let that do our dirty work for us. The religious leaders in Iran will try to invoke laws that attempt to limit western influence in the country as it tries to hold on to the revolutionary ideals under which it was founded, but that won’t work. Iran has a long history of capitalism and western ideals and it has a middle class that is modern and enthusiastic to join the capitalist system. Yes, economic sanctions are taking their toll on the country, but they are also inhibiting the fertile, educated minds of the very people we want to engage in trade and business.

You want a model? Look at what’s happening in China. The Communist government said that it would give its citizens the power to get rich if the citizens accepted the power of the intrusive, repressive state. That’s all well and good, but what happens when the money stops flowing? We’re seeing that now. The Communists can’t control a capitalist economy for very long and neither can a religious one. The Saudis are finding that out now as the price of oil is devastating their balance sheets. The money they earn goes into the same type of repressive religious state that the mullahs in Iran want to keep. Both states will find it extremely difficult to maintain this. There was a reason that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi; there was intense governmental repression against any opposition and Al Qaeda exploited that. In Iran, the radicalism will not come from the religious as it did in the 1979 revolution. It will come from the capitalists and they will win.

This then brings us to reason number…

3. Fifteen years is a very long time. Time does seem to be flying, but think back to the world of 15 years ago. It was 2000. A Clinton was president. The Internet bubble was underway. Boris Yeltsin was drinking his way out of the Kremlin. There was a presidential election between two very boring white guys. You get the point. The world was very different. Fifteen years from now…well, who knows? But fifteen years of Iran being watched by the US, Russia, China and western European countries will have some effect on their development. Putin will likely be gone and so might the hardliners in Beijing, both of whom support Tehran. The nuclear deal puts eyes on the Iranians and allows for inspections and testing that will likely turn something up that the regime, if it lasts that long, will not be able to finesse.

The deal will now go through, either as an Obama veto or, if 3 more Democrats support the deal, as a filibustered footnote to the summer of 2015. So let’s get this out of the way and focus on North Korea and Pakistan, which are the real, irrational threats to the world today.

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics Wisconsin Union Bashing

Great Teachers Make Great Schools

happy teacher and students standing in classroom holding books

Another school year. It’s my 32nd as a teacher and I can still say that I love what I’m doing and believe that I am contributing to the betterment of society. I just wish that at some point before I go to the Great Faculty Room in the Sky, you know, the one where the microwave works, the carpet doesn’t smell and the walls aren’t made of cinder block, I could feel that society’s attitudes about my work would improve and that the United States would value education as much as it does entertainment, sports and the stock market.

The public’s attitudes on education are on display in this year’s new PDK/Gallup Poll on the Public’s Attitude Toward the Public Schools, and the results are encouraging. Most Americans do not think that standardized tests should be used to evaluate teachers and indeed say that there are too many of these high-stakes tests being administered to children. Most people surveyed also don’t like the Common Core Education Standards, both because they are tied to the tests and because most people don’t think that comparing American students’ scores with other countries is a worthy endeavor.  But more important is the finding that most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say that it’s important that the public schools are adequately funded. 

Which brings us to how important teachers are to the success of the system. You would think that this would be a given and, for the most part, parents in local communities support efforts to bring in excellent teachers and to keep them in their schools. When schools are not fully funded, though, the system begins to break down. In most parts of the American economy, consumers understand that you get what you pay for and that sometimes you need to economize and think short term because of family limitations, emergencies, or good old American low wages.

In education, though, the argument get mangled a bit. Much of the (incorrect) literature suggests that more money doesn’t necessarily translate into better schools. Politicians and a segment of the public like to lean on the idea that teachers don’t go into teaching for the money, using that argument for keeping pay low relative to teachers’ experience and education. They also say that they want the best and brightest to go into teaching,

The insulting thing about this argument is the assumption that the best and brightest are not in teaching to begin with and that we need to attract them to the field. That’s wrong. Most of America’s teachers are smart, engaging, sharp, inquisitive, analytical and effective at what they do. Teaching is an incredibly difficult job to do well and the expectation is that you will do well with each and every one of that year’s students. You want the best and brightest? You’re getting them. It’s now time to make sure that they get the resources and financial recognition they’ve earned. Other countries do it; it’s time we did it too.

What would help is untying education money from property taxes and finding a more secure, and less intrusive, funding source. My idea is for the Congress to impose a 1% tax on all corporate earnings and a 1% income tax increase on the top earners and earmark it specifically for education. After all, who benefits the most economically from America’s great schools? American businesses, that’s who, so it makes sense for the corporate sector to pay more for their lifeblood. This would take the pressure off of middle and working class Americans who struggle with high property taxes and a system of funding that tilts towards the wealthy communities that can support higher valuations.

As we know, poverty is the main cause of educational inequality in this country. If we don’t address it, then we will never solve the problems associated with fewer educational opportunities, fewer students going on to higher education and the wage gap that accompanies it.

What we also really need is for the best and brightest to go into politics and to be part of the solution, not the problem. Most of the Republican candidates favor vouchers, which the Gallup poll shows is not enthusiastically shared by the general public. Governors Christie and Walker are proudly running on their efforts to minimize teacher input regarding educational reforms and are blaming teachers for the economic problems in their states. Neither of them have said anything remotely positive about teaching and, at least in New Jersey, morale among the teachers is abysmally low.

Not that the Obama administration is shying away from standardized tests and No Child Left Behind. Although a major Democratic constituency favors lessening the impact of tests, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, with the president’s support, is still doggedly applying the law to the public schools. And supporting Charter Schools.

So what to do? Involve the teachers. Use their expertise. Include them in decision making at the local, state and national levels. Leverage their knowledge. It seems so simple, but for the better part of 20 years, teachers have been methodically excluded from the major educational decisions of the day. This simply doesn’t happen in other industries. Exclude doctors from health care decisions? Attorneys from legal reviews? Never. But somehow the not best and less bright politicians have decided that they know best when it comes to the schools and that teachers are shills for the National Education Association and are not to be trusted. It’s a terrible situation and is threatening to get worse.

Meanwhile, the nation’s teachers will continue to do their level best to educate all children across the country.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Foreign Policies Immigration Reform ISIS News Politics Wisconsin Union Bashing

The August Election

OK, I’ll play along.

According to the polls, the guesses, the conventional wisdom, the money and the low-down, scandal-mongering, hyper-partisan, yellow-dog press, we now know who’s going to win that all-important August 2015 presidential election. I’m sure you know that this election is a rather unusual one in American politics because it doesn’t take place in every state and candidates can say the most outrageous things and still be considered Oval Office material.

We all know that Donald Trump is going to be our next president because he’ll defeat Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton and Jeb! Bush all at one time because he can speak the loudest and say the meanest things out of all of them. Then again, Hillary is beating Donald in the latest national polls and the money race, so she’ll likely be our next Chief Executive. Except that she’s got an e-mail scandal hanging over her and Benghazi! nipping at her heels like a small yippee dog. No worries, though: when you have a FOX contributor on your side, especially one that advised your husband, you’re going to be fine.

Jeb! is having trouble keeping up his fundraising pace and three money people have just left his campaign so he might as well fold up the tent and go live with his brother down in Texas.  Chris Christie is teetering on the edge of being excluded from the varsity debate in September, but he’s 7th in money-raising which means that there are a few very wealthy people who really have nothing to do with their millions than put it on a guy who has nothing to run on. Perhaps his immigration policy, now known as “When Your Fruit Picker Absolutely, Positively Has to Leave Overnight” might gain him some valuable Tea Party votes.

Scott Walker is going to win this election because apparently he can say that he’s going to defeat ISIS and can harangue Democrats all in the same speech. Not bad for a guy who dropped out of college when he could see the light of graduation in front of him or who said that his foreign policy chops were on display when he faced down some protesters on the statehouse steps in Madison.  Makes you think he’ll get nominated, then withdraw from the race in October because, well, Wisconsin needs him more.

This, of course, is all silly conjecture because the real winner of the August election is John Kasich, the moderate Governor of Ohio who manages to say pretty much what every other Republican candidate says but he says it with a nice Ohio accent so he doesn’t sound too threatening.

But wait! Who’s that gaining major ground on the other wealthier candidates? Why, it’s Carly Fiorina! The wonder executive who managed to almost destroy one of Silicon Valley’s most venerable companies. She’s, well, she’s polling in some high single digits and clearly has momentum as we enter the all-important August 31 period of the race. In fact, she’s hoping to make the adult table debate next month but CNN is playing funny with the numbers so we might have to listen to Chris Christie pick a fight with someone again. Maybe he could yell at Ben Carson just to remind people that Ben’s still in the race. Carson is currently in second place in the Iowa polls, so clearly he’s running away with the election and will be the nation’s second African-American president. I do so like consistency.

Sun glasses on campers because who’s just entered the room and will be moving his stuff the shortest distance out of everyone? It’s Vice-President Joe Biden–the savior of the Democrats. The anti-Hillary. The politician-superhero whose special power is to actually work with members of both parties to get something done. Too old? Balderdash; only Republicans can be too old to be president. Joe will win and take his oath of office at Rehoboth Beach on Monday afternoon when there’s no traffic.

Of course, I’m only kidding about those people winning the presidency. The real victor will be Marco Rubio. The young guy. The guy who supports an actual immigration bill. The one who wants to re-isolate Cuba because recognizing the Castros really upsets his dad. The one who would be really tough on China. Until the Chinese market exploded. They’re not so tough after all, right Marco?

Is anybody else running for president? Of course, and they’re all going to win, except for Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Martin O’Neill and George Pataki, who still insists that he is a candidate.

I’m so glad I was able to clear everything up for you because this has been a close election and gee I’m pleased that it’s all going to be over by the middle of the week.

Isn’t it?

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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BLM Domestic Policies Foreign Policies News Politics

And On Your Left…

With so much of the interesting political maneuvering happening on the right, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that there will be Democratic debates in the fall, and they could be just as interesting as the Republican candidate-a-thons.

While Hillary Clinton still leads in every match-up with one or the other GOP candidate, she’s being pressed by Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. Bernie’s doing his best to electrify the base with his talk about tighter government control of banks and higher wages and corporate child care centers and things that the US should already have but doesn’t because the right believes that Americans feel better by earning these things individually and that if you can’t afford them then it’s your fault. Sucker. And now Joe Biden is thinking about a run. He would most likely be a very good president if he could get beyond the verbal improvisations that have haunted him in campaigns past. Yes, there are other candidates running–Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee–but they are having a difficult time breaking through a national media that can only handle a few at a time.

In a twist, this election could see the Democrats painted as the older party, with Hillary, Bernie and Joe all much older than their Republican counterparts. In addition, there’s a bit of a rift going through the left as the Warren-Sanders far left-wing battles with the establishment, more centrist views of the Hillary, and perhaps Biden, wing. There’s been so much attention over the past few years about the yawning divide on the right, that a leftish split is certainly news and could be a potential problem unless the party unites in time for the convention, and that’s pretty much what I would expect to happen.

Hillary’s e-mails are making people nervous and the right will shout Benghazi whenever they get the chance, but on the main issues she seems to have most of the country on her side. Her recent confrontation with Black Lives Matter activists shows her empathetic and realistic, and her contrasting views with Republicans on marriage equality, gender equality, wages, education, climate change and foreign policy experience show her more forward-looking than any of the Republicans who only seem to be able to run negative campaigns.

Democrats need to be careful about being overconfident based on the Obama electoral map, with Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Colorado possibly presenting some serious challenges. Overall, though, demographics do provide the party with an advantage the Republicans will find difficult to overcome.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump News Politics Republican Party

Bold Predictions: How This Nomination Thing Will End

Yes, I have better things to do, but I think it’s important that I let you all know how this Republican presidential nomination thing ends so we can move on from Donald Trump and into more consequential matters.

According to the latest CNN/ORC poll (scroll down to page 7), Trump is leading the pack ‘o candidates with 24% support of the poll’s respondents. The usual suspects follow, although we do have a new rising star in Carly Fiorina who went from 1% support in the July poll to 5% in August’s.

OK.

What this simply means is that one quarter of respondents support Trump. Add up the others’ scores and you have most respondents supporting someone other than Trump. Plus, Trump’s negative ratings outpace his positives by about 30 percentage points. What this also means is that the Republican Party is still in the grips of an extremist bunch who say things like “I support Trump because he tells the truth.”

No, he does not.

He says things that are provocative and media-friendly, and he says them loudly. He has no plan for the country and says that his strength is that he goes into negotiations with flexibility and tries to get the best deal possible. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but the Republican Party has not operated that way for the past 6 years, so I’ll need some clarification as to whether the Tea Party is willing to back Donald knowing that he’ll actually try to bargain with the Democrats. Or the so-called moderates in the GOP.

What Donald Trump has done is to alienate the one group that the GOP absolutely needs to win a national election, Hispanics, and has disrespected the other group that the GOP needs more support from, and that’s women. And the longer Trump stays in the race and has a megaphone, the more he will do damage to the party. Which is good for Democrats. And the latest issue, that of changing the Fourteenth Amendment to disallow the children of undocumented immigrants to have birthright citizenship, is a losing one for the right. So naturally, half the field supports the change.

What’s happening now in the Republican process will have a major effect on the race, and if you want to know what will happen, then please pay attention. The vast majority of the GOP field will make it to the Iowa Caucuses, and each one will get their moment in the media spotlight. Then they’ll say or do something Republicany and fall by the wayside. Trump will not win Iowa. After that, the lowest performing five candidates will drop out. After New Hampshire, another five will go, including NJ Governor Chris Christie, because he won’t win them and he won’t have enough money to conduct a campaign across enough of the remaining states.

By this point, only the most well-funded candidates will still be in the race: Jeb, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, and perhaps, Trump. They will then duke it out over the next month or so, and by the end of April at the latest, the GOP will have its candidate, and my guess is that it will be Kasich. He will then choose Marco Rubio to be his running mate at the convention.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton will win the nomination and choose a Hispanic-American as her running mate.

After that, we’ll see, but you read it here first.

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics

Education Roars Back

It’s August and the Back to School sales are ramping up in earnest, at least here in the nor’east. The sales started in July for the more southerly US climes, but that’s because they’re already back in the classrooms. In any event, it’s time once again to be thinking about education, and the issue is now near the top in this presidential election.

One of the more popular articles making its way around electronica is this one  that essentially summarizes the findings of John Hattie, an educational researcher who’s written a slew of books on best practices. He suggests that achievement standards, focusing on smaller class sizes, and pouring more money into the educational system are not the answers and have little effect on student performance. He also questions school choice as a viable public policy.  Of course, politicians on the right and left will pick and choose what they want from his message, with Democrats wanting more money and Republicans wanting more accountability, as if the two were completely opposite.

Educational access, attainment and benefits have been tied to the relative wealth of families and communities for the better part of United States’ history, so it should be no surprise to anyone that we are presently confronted with a system that’s as fractured as our income gap. Schools in wealthy communities tend to perform better than those in less wealthy and poor communities and the willingness of politicians to spend money where it should be spent (key concept) lends itself to schools where teachers can teach and students have every opportunity to learn.

Most of the Republican candidates for president support the free-market, pro-corporate model for schools, and the results have been disappointing at best to demoralizing at worst. Governors Scott Walker (falling in the polls) and Chris Christie (can you fall below zero in you polls?), have done more to demonize public school teachers than the other candidates and promise to do the same to the rest of the country if they are elected. Jeb Bush supports the Common Core standards, which really isn’t going to endear him to any particularly large constituency, but he’s also against public unions. The other candidates want local and state standards, which have not worked in the past and will not help student performance in the future.

The Democrats want more money for universal pre-school and aid to schools in poor and depressed areas of the country. Hillary Clinton has also recently unveiled a higher education policy that focuses on student debt.  She would probably never get $350 billion over ten years from a Republican Congress, but her plan would put pressure on the right to relieve millions of students from crushing loans that are sapping their economic prospects. The Republican candidates have joined her in trying to address the debt issue, but right now the best we can say about them is that they’re market-oriented, including Marco Rubio’s plan to have wealthy investors essentially buy an interest in your future earnings in return for their investment in your education. I wonder if he’s also going to provide students with a free saddle so that your investor can sit on your back.

Given the years of blame and economic hardship that teachers have had to endure, it’s no wonder that there’s a shortage. And given the attitude that many national and state leaders have about teachers, it’s no wonder that qualified students are looking at other fields of endeavor.  The truth is that we pay a great deal of lip service to wanting a highly qualified, well-trained teaching staff at every school, but the best and brightest are not stupid; they see what’s going on in education and are increasingly turned off to it. And since we don’t have the best and brightest going into government, the solutions will be doubly difficult to come by.

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Domestic Policies Express Yourself Mike Brown Shooting News Politics Racial profiling Racism

Acting Stupidly Would be an Improvement

Remember the halcyon days of 2009, when the country was embroiled in the first racial controversy of the brand new Obama presidency? You know, when the Cambridge, Massachusetts police thought that the world-renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested for essentially breaking into his own house because the front door was stuck? 

Those were the good old days when it was possible to accuse the president of playing the race card (as if racism was ever a gentlemanly card game), when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 still had some teeth, and when accusing the policeman of “acting stupidly” made Obama the butt of jokes and the target of righteous anger because he didn’t support law enforcement. The best thing we can say about that epsiode?

At least nobody was shot dead.

Little did the country know that the innocuous “Beer Summit” would be the last time that civility entered the conversation. Conservatives, and even a few liberals, thought that Obama had breached the wall of silence too quickly in his term. That he had to tread lightly and be careful because as the nation’s first African-American president, he had to stay above the fray and not remind polite society that we have a bit of a complicated history when it comes to race. And guns. And law enforcement behavior. Seems quaint, yes?

I believe that police officers, perhaps more than any other public service job, have the most difficult environment in which to work. The police have to be correct almost 100% of the time. I support effective, proactive, respectful, sometimes forceful police work. Recent events have shown, however, that many police officers, and the criminal justice systems in towns and cities across this country, have not been held accountable for their actions or have lied about what’s actually happened at traffic stops and crime scenes. This must stop.

I’m hoping that the Republican candidates in this week’s debates will address the issue and that we’ll hear more from the Democrats as well. But this needs to be done rather quickly because the real issue is trust. Right now, that level is dangerously low.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Express Yourself News Politics

Chris Christie – Hey, Wait: I’m the Big Mouth.

ASHLAND, NH - JULY 1: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) waits to speak at a town hall meeting at the American Legion Dupuis Cross Post 15 July 1, 2015 in Ashland, New Hampshire. Christie announced his presidential candidacy yesterday. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) – (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

Poor Chris Christie.

After five years of berating people on YouTube, telling teachers, members of the armed services and other assorted citizens of New Jersey who just want their voices to be heard to essentially shut up, and after creating this persona of a man who tells the facts as they are (not just as he sees them, but as the ARE), and furiously trying to cash in every available political, economic and questionable chip at his disposal, this guy can’t even poll 5% of registered Republican voters ahead of next month’s National Night Out Against Crime GOP Presidential Debate.

And he’s not even the loudest guy in the room. Donald Trump has taken care of that. And he’s still polling near or at the top of the Republican field despite having little, if any, chance at winning any of the primaries. Of course, many have said the same thing about Christie. The main difference is that Governor Christie also has a record he’s trying to run on, while Trump will make his headlines, fulminate on FOX come 8/6, then go back to making piles of money in real estate.

Meanwhile, the good governor will run on…what? The stagnant New Jersey economy? Remember that Christie thought he could buff his conservative bona-fides by cutting income taxes only to be met head-on by an economy that was still shedding jobs and a citizenry that still needed social services he had cut during his first years in office. He’s also trying to run on the idea that he hasn’t raised taxes, but if you live in the Garden State and try to access government services, you know that fees have gone through the roof from everything from new license plates to getting state certification for public jobs.

Now he’s being called to task for not approving the railroad tunnels that would have eased the congestion between New Jersey and New York, and in a week where train service was severely affected by the weather (the heat made the power lines sag, so the trains couldn’t run), the state’s media is again reminding voters what a terrible decision that was. Yes, the governor did say that the project might have cost taxpayers a lot of money, but he then took that same money and used it to fix the state’s roads so he wouldn’t have to raise the gas tax. Because Republicans cannot ever raise taxes. Even when it’s a pretty good idea. Like when gas prices are low. Like now.

Christie’s response? Absolutely laughable. He said that if he got elected president, he would push to have the tunnels built as long as all stakeholders paid an even share. Can you see the right wing GOP House approving such a measure? Neither can I. The hypocrisy is thick around here.

And if you thought Bridgegate was the only scandal in Trenton, here comes another one. It seems that a whistleblower has won his case that will force the government to unseal secret grand jury testimony alleging that Christie quashed an investigation into some of his political buddies. It’s really a small town issue, but the governor has made it into a potentially problematic case for his campaign. I’m sure the other 86 people running for the GOP nomination will remind voters of Christie’s clouds.

If he’s in the debates in August, and I’m assuming he will qualify, Christie thinks that policy will win the day. The reality is likely that he’ll get a few questions, but most of the attention will go to Bush, Rubio, Walker, Paul and Trump. Christie will be able to tell us all about how we need to slash Social Security and Medicaid, but that won’t separate him from the field.

He won’t even be the biggest big mouth in the room.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump Express Yourself Healthcare News Politics

The Pendulum Swings Back to the Right

Donald Trump gestures while speaking surrounded by people whose families were victims of illegal immigrants on July 10, 2015 while meeting with the press at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where some shared their stories of the loss of a loved one. The US business magnate Trump, who is running for president in the 2016 presidential elections, angered members of the Latino community with recent comments but says he will win the Latino vote. AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
 (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

Remember the last couple of weeks of June, when the country seemed a bit more liberal after the Supreme Court had wondrously ruled in favor of marriage equality, the Affordable Care Act and housing? And then the Confederate flags came down?

Slap.

It didn’t happen overnight, but the country seems to have rebounded from that initial leftward-leaning stance and is now back in the throes of the Republican Party’s Krazy Nominatin’ Pizzazzle led by Donald Trump (still) and another thousand or so people who are hoping to be elected president in 2016.

Trump is not backing off his incendiary comments about John McCain’s service during the Vietnam War, doubling down on the idea that there were many uncaptured American soldiers who fought bravely for years but nobody remembers them, and chastising McCain for not only getting captured but having the temerity to be held prisoner for a long time. Trump probably thinks that if McCain was such a he-man that he should have escaped or something, rather than been tortured for real and not just because he didn’t get the skyscraper approval from the Brooklyn Borough Council. Presidential material for sure.  The real test will be in the next poll of Republican voters. If Trump holds his place near the top, then the party is in worse shape than it was four years ago. Slippage will mean that, Ted Cruz notwithstanding (he refuses to criticize Trump no matter what he says), the party faithful know a fool when they see him. Or hear him. Or spot the hair coming their way.

If that wasn’t enough, it seems that support for marriage equality has slipped a bit since the end of June.  On top of that, Republicans in the House have offered new laws that would exempt those people with religious or moral opposition to marriage equality from having to follow the law. I’m sure that President Obama would veto the bill, but this goes to show you that the Supreme Court can say what they want, but evidently that’s not the last word. In the end, those people who oppose and act on their opposition to marriage equality will likely be marginalized or will lose business or might even continue to succeed financially. The bias in the United States is towards more equality, not less.

The political pendulum swung left last month and is coming back to the right. That’s to be expected. How far to the right will determine how entertaining the political discussion will be between now and the first Republican debate on August 6.

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Domestic Policies Donald Trump Donald Trump Express Yourself News Politics

The JV Get Their Minutes

In this photo taken May 20, 2015, Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., poses for a portrait before an interview with The Associated Press in Washington. For Democrats who had hoped to lure Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into a presidential campaign, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders might be the next best thing. Sanders, who is opening his official presidential campaign Tuesday in Burlington, Vermont, aims to ignite a grassroots fire among left-leaning Democrats wary of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is laying out an agenda in step with the party's progressive wing and compatible with Warren's platform _ reining in Wall Street banks, tackling college debt and creating a government-financed infrastructure jobs program. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Photo  (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Those of us who grew up in the era of summer reruns have had the most difficult time with both the new media and political environments. There just is no downtime anymore, what with 24-hour news cycles and the panicked reaction of the main television networks to phones, Netflix, YouTube and on-demand programming.

So it makes perfect sense that we will have a summer jammed to the gills with Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. Not that these candidates don’t have things to say, because they do. It’s just that come the fall, they’ll be off the headlines and back to being annoyances and debate fodder for the wealthier, more established name-brand candidates. It’s not fair and it certainly isn’t democratic, nor does it help the country when money determines your political life, but that’s the way it is, and has always been.

The stark reality is that candidates need to run actual campaigns with strategies and staff, and that takes professionals who know what they’re doing, donor lifelines, media access, and political experience under the heat and glare of the media spotlight. Right now, we’re getting the free media show that only the second tier candidates can provide. Hillary Clinton is sharpening her economic message, ahead of Monday’s speech, Jeb’s reconnecting with the bluebloodlines inherent in the Bush family, dining with Mitt at the Walker Point compound, and Scott Walker is wowing them with his approachable personality, but not with his smarts. 

I know it’s rather gauche to put Chris Christie in with the varsity because most major publications and even dyed-in-the-wool Morris County, New Jersey Republicans are writing him off (no link; just a conversation I had with said woolen GOPer), but I’m not going to get on that train just yet. It’s true that he’s got the trifecta when it comes to negatives–a scandal, no record and a lousy personality–but the man does fight and with a frontrunner named Bush, this year is going to be a bit unpredictable on the right side of the spectrum.

Which brings me back to Donald and Bernie. Trump is blowing hot air and getting media traction for it, but it’s attention for all the wrong reasons. He’s got nothing to run on and no policy except outrage. As a matter of fact, he even makes Christie’s YouTube rants look like Bill Buckley on Firing Line (I’m trying to win the Most Obscure Reference award today. DraftKings has a daily game, you know). He’ll be off the radar by the time the first GOP debate comes around and I would be surprised if he’s even in it. Of course, if he is, then his campaign will really end there because people will see him for what he is.

Bernie Sanders is the anti-Trump; he has an actual message for the country and the far left is drinking it up because Hillary won’t dare say the same things on the campaign trail. Sanders is playing to large crowds, but again, he needs to raise money and run ads. He also needs to appeal to a larger portion of the Democratic electorate. Hillary will eventually need to fold in some of Sanders’ ideas if she hopes to keep the faithful in her corner, but I just don’t see him being a force after Iowa or New Hampshire. If anything, Clinton will be expected to win those races handily, so if Sanders is close then that will be the narrative. But a loss is a loss and money doesn’t follow losses.

Still, we should enjoy the summer fun because once the campaign turns serious, there’s no turning back.

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