This editorial cartoon, titled “Human Shields” by Michael Ramirez, was removed by the Washington Post. The Las Vegas Journal-Review also ran the same cartoon but did not delete it. 84% of Michael Smerconish’s CNN viewers voted that the Washington Post should not have deleted the cartoon.
What is your opinion?
Half a century ago, a politician from Minnesota challenged a sitting president for the Democratic presidential nomination. His name was Eugene McCarthy, and the U.S. senator’s candidacy helped drive then-President Lyndon B. Johnson to decide not to run for re-election 1968. Following McCarthy’s 42% showing in New Hampshire, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.) entered the race. Kennedy’s entrance was the final straw and President Johnson decided to withdraw.
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who on Friday announced his candidacy challenging President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, must believe that history can be repeated.
The Minnesota Democrat, who has been teasing a run for months, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night. He registered his campaign committee as “Dean 24 Inc.”
If history can be repeated then California Governor Gavin Newsom is another likely Democratic candidate. He has been burnishing his qualifications with trips to Israel and China. He is a known left leaning moderate.
The truth is that President Joe Biden looks old and appears tired. Back in 2019 it was Pete Buttigieg who positioned himself as a moderate and called for generational change in political leadership.
Has that time finally come?
I believe the answer is YES!
Republican Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (representing Arizona’s 8th Congressional district) announced that she will not seek reelection in 2024.
Lesko cited a broken government that is not accomplishing much and the time she spends away from her family as the reasons for her decision.
In four simple words, Lesko warned that “Washington, D.C. is broken.”
There is still no end in sight for the high-stakes speakership battle after House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy more than two weeks ago. Without a speaker no laws can be passed.
Even worse Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia said in a statement that after voting against Jim Jordan, his family started receiving death threats: “That is simply unacceptable, unforgivable, and will never be tolerated.”
Axios reported that Ferguson told other House Republicans in a Thursday meeting “that he’s had to have a sheriff stationed at his daughter’s school over death threats from the far right. Also one at his house.”
The New York Times reported that the wife of Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska “has begun sleeping with a loaded gun after receiving increasingly menacing anonymous calls and texts.”
Citizens of our country and people around the world are wondering what has happened to the United States.
Republicans have had a lot of bad elections since Donald Trump took over the party. They lost the popular vote for president in 2016, they lost the House in 2018, they lost the presidency in 2020, and they lost the Senate in 2021.
Now to add to their incompetence they ousted their House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Most of the top Republican candidates running for president in 2024 reacted grimly to the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy by a faction of hard-liners in their own party. One contender Vivek Ramaswamy, the loudmouth of the candidates, embraced the chaos and the front-runner, Ron DeSantis, notably did not denounce the move.
This is a Republican Party that has lost its mind.
They are so far away from Ronald Reagan that it is like the GOP today is not the real Republican Party.
The Democrats do not have to say or do a single thing. The Republicans have proven that they cannot govern.
And there is a lot on the table today. This past weekend, Congress passed, and President Biden signed, a short-term continuing resolution (CR) that continues to fund the federal government through November 17.
The CR does not provide funds for Ukraine and without that funding Russia will have won that war and likely be deciding which country to invade next. Those are all NATO nations and an attack on any of them draws the United States into war because we are part of NATO.
One thing we do know is that Republican Party behavior assures we will have a government totally controlled by the Democratic Party and that is a good thing.
Dianne Feinstein October 14, 2020 questions Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barret
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a centrist Democrat and champion of liberal causes who was elected to the Senate in 1992 and broke gender barriers throughout her long career in local and national politics, has died. She was 90.
Feinstein died on Thursday night at her home in Washington, D.C., her office said on Friday. Opening the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that “earlier this morning, we lost a giant in the Senate.”
“Dianne Feinstein was one of the most amazing people who ever graced the Senate, who ever graced the country,” Schumer said, his voice cracking. “As the nation mourns this tremendous loss, we know how many lives she impacted and how many glass ceilings she shattered along the way.”
Senator Feinstein has long advocated for commonsense laws to reduce gun violence. Most notably, she achieved passage of the landmark, federal Assault Weapons Ban in 1994 and has advocated for its reinstatement since it expired in 2004.
Here’s a reality check…
Inflation and the cost of everything is up.
Real wages are down. Is it any wonder that labor unions are on the rise?
Child poverty rate is up
Credit card debt and defaults are at record levels. Many people use their credit card when they run out of cash.
Inflation is clearly not under control. Gasoline in Los Angeles rose 20 cents a gallon since the beginning of September. My oatmeal now at the same price but a smaller amount in the package.
Medicare trustees say the Part A program will begin running deficits again in 2025, drawing down the trust fund until it depleted in 2031. Part A covers inpatient hospital stays, care in a skilled nursing facility, hospice care, and some home health care.
The combined Social Security trust funds – which help support payouts for the elderly, survivors and disabled – are projected to be unable to pay out full benefits in 2034.
There has been no legislation to save Social Security and Medicare.
Neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party have proposed any legislation to address these issues. Instead the Democrats focus on climate change and abortion rights while the Republicans focus on protection against LGBTQ people, illegal immigration, and enabling everyone to own a gun. None of those issues, while important, effect many Americans.
The fact is that the rich get richer and the rest of us are still confronted with a minimum wage that has not changed since July 24, 2009. That is $7.25 per hour. There is no national health insurance plan. Going to jail ensures that you will have a roof over your head, food to eat and health care.
What a great country!
A few pictures from the internet. They are not to be taken as a smirk. A smirk is a smile evoking insolence, scorn, or offensive smugness. Perhaps these are pictures of disgust or determination. I originally thought Trump’s mug shot showed fear.
For Trump it was a glowering mug shot ready-made for fundraising.
America has a serious problem. It’s called HATE. Every minority in the United States lives in constant fear of being attacked.
The New York Post reported Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dished out wild COVID-19 conspiracy theories this week during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant, claiming the bug was a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
Kennedy floated the idea during a question-and-answer portion of raucous booze and fart-filled dinner at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street in NYC.
“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy hedged.
I guess the disease mistook me as a Caucasian because I do not have a Jewish surname. Both my wife and I (both Ashkenazi Jews) contracted COVID-19 after we were inoculated. My wife is suffering from Long Covid. I wonder who is a Caucasian?
A CNN poll last month showed that about one-fifth of Democratic voters supported Kennedy’s run for president. Some 60% planned to support Biden, and 8% favored Williamson.
Because it’s associated with optimism and energy, many brands use orange to convey a message of positivity. If you’re looking to get your audience excited about something, go for orange. It’s an attention-grabbing, warm color that really pops when combined with cool blue or green tones.
The Orange Man believes in his heart that he is above the law and can do whatever he wants. It is not just holding and sharing secret documents. While Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence like any other American, the indictment appears to underscore his personal belief that the law does not apply to him and that he has the power to do exactly as he likes. That behavior defined his administration and post-White House life.
Late last year, Trump called for the “termination” of the Constitution, including all “rules, regulations and articles.” And he’s pledged on day one of a new administration to direct the DOJ to “investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America” for what he claims is the illegal and racist enforcement of the law. Trump has already pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records – charges that arose from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation of a hush money scheme. And he’s waiting to hear whether he will be charged in another special counsel investigation into the run-up to January 6, 2021, and a separate investigation into his attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Georgia led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
After blue my favorite color is orange. Can the bright Florida sunshine bring an end to madness? A unanimous twelve man jury in each indictment will be required and that is very difficult to achieve. In conservative Florida the evidence will have to be overwhelming.
I am not betting on any guilty verdicts. I hope I am wrong.
Trump and Biden participate in the final presidential debate at Belmont University, in Nashville, Tennessee, in October 2020. (Jim Bourg / Pool /AFP via Getty)
Polls for the past six months or so have consistently shown that a majority of Americans do not want to see a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And yet, unless health issues sideline one or the other (or unless a newly unemployed Tucker Carlson decides to take his angry-racist-preppie shtick into politics), the Trump-Biden showdown feels inevitable.
Trump and Biden are likely to be renominated for very different reasons. Obviously, Biden is the incumbent—and has been a remarkably successful president under difficult circumstances. Whatever the grousing from Democratic faithful, parties do not torpedo their own president: The only sitting chief executive who was elected in his own right and then denied renomination for another term was Franklin Pierce, in 1856. (Four others were denied nomination after becoming president upon the death of the incumbent.).
Is this the best we can do?
Coast Contact 