Category: Partisan politics

Trump allies to target journalists

They can’t succeed on discussing issues and facts so they have to go to character assassination. This is disgusting.

Fox News poll on Trump’s racist tweets

Here’s an except from the Reliable Sources newsletter by CNN’s Brian Stelter last night and the email I sent him:

From the newsletter:

New polling about Trump’s racist tweets

Some newsworthy results from this new Fox News poll:

 — 63% of Americans say Trump’s racist tweets “crossed the line.”
 — 56% say saying “go back” is a racist thing to say to people of color.
— Only 34% say Trump respects racial minorities.

What I wrote to him:

  • To:brian.stelter@turner.comJul 26 at 12:50 PM
  • I appreciate your excellent newsletter and know it is difficult to work in an environment where the president of the country lies all the time.
    In your coverage of the Fox News poll on Trump’s racist tweets, I think you should have noted that the numbers you cited represent the majority but the views of Republicans were very different.
    The poll showed (per the article you linked to):
  • 53% of Republicans think the tweets were an acceptable political attack
  • 33% of Republicans think the tweets crossed the line
  • 21% of Republicans think the language is racist while 45% do not and 30% say it depends.
  • 68% (which is lower since apparently more Republicans see that Trump is bigoted) think Trump respects minorities
    To me, most Republicans fall in to one of two categories. 
  • They are
  • 1) racists or
  • 2) willing to tolerate racism
    Other polls have shown that Trump’s support among Republicans is around 90% and very few Republican elected officials pushed back against Trump’s racist remarks.


Republicans try recalls to invalidate election results

Republicans were unwilling to accept election results in Wisconsin and elsewhere so they limited the power of the governor. Now, they are trying recalls to invalidate legitimate election results. Disgraceful.

Democrats must do more to fight Republicans

I completely agree with this column. Democrats have to do more to fight Trump and Republicans in Congress. Trump is getting bolder because he is not being held accountable. Republicans will not stop him.

From the article linked to below:

“In an era of Republican lawlessness, under a president who views political conflict in zero-sum terms, the accommodationist approach has magnified the perverse incentives that appeasing enemies always creates.

In seeking to avoid conflict with Trump, Democrats have freed him to trample the rule of law and fair play without any political downside, and set themselves up to be victims of Republican abuses for years to come.”

Kansas Republicans are moving to reduce the power of the Democratic governor

This is what Republicans do. They tried (and sometimes succeeded) in reducing the power of new Democratic governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina. In other states, Republican legislators went against the wishes of voters who wanted to expand Medicaid enrollment through Obamacare.

Forget bipartisanship unless Republicans change

I read several articles bemoaning the demise of bipartisanship. In my view, this is not a “both sides are at fault” problem. The poisoned political atmosphere has been caused almost entirely by Republicans.

  1. Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat

Do they expect Democrats to just forget about this and move on? It will affect the Supreme Court for decades. Since Trump has appointed extreme conservatives, what do you expect the Democrats to do the next time a Democrat picks a justice? The base will clamor for an extreme liberal to balance out the Republican picks. The only way we will get this done is if Democrats control the Senate, too.Remember that several Republicans said in 2016 that they were willing to hold the seat open for four years in Clinton won. Thanks to the the Republicans, there will be no more moderate ustices. Merrick Garland would have been the last one. In 20 or 30 years, the justices might as well wear red robes or blue ones instead of black ones.

Let’s also not forget about the court’s 2000 block of the recount in Florida which handed the presidency to Bush. This was an obviously political decision. Then there were all of the nominations for lower courts blocked by McConnell and his current disregard for the long standing blue-slip tradition.

2. Republicans use gerrymandering and voter suppression as election strategies

Yes, there is Democratic gerrymandering in Maryland which has cost Republicans one congressional seat. However, Republicans have used gerrymandering much more often and fight efforts to get non-partisan maps. Then there’s Republican voter suppressions in numerous states as they try to prevent qualified people from voting. Republicans opposed the Democratic House bill that would make elections fairer because it would hurt their chances.

3. Republicans ignore the public will on universal background checks

They don’t care that polls show public support for universal background checks is as high as 97%. They won’t even bring it up for a vote in the Senate. It’s all that NRA money they got. The NRA spent about $30 million to get Trump elected so he owes them.

4. Republicans ignore facts and public opinion on climate change

Trump doesn’t even believe in it. This is pathetic and will cause permanent damage to our country.

5. Republicans led by Trump are into name-calling and lying about Democrats

They won’t even call it the Democratic Party. They show a lack of respect when they call it the Democrat Party. They know better but don’t care.

Trump said that members of Congress hate our country. I’m sure he meant Democrats. Democrats don’t talk like that about Republicans even though Trump’s the one who is cozy with our enemy Russia.

Trump says Democrats want crime and open borders. Trump says the Democrats are anti-Jews but he’s the one that said Neo-Nazis “included very fine people”. I don’t see any Republicans correcting these lies. How are we supposed to work with people who think like this about us. I don’t think Democrats have said similar things about Republicans. Sure, they have called Trump a liar and a bigot but those are facts, not opinions.

Forget it. I don’t see how Democrats can work with Republicans based on the current Republican behavior.