Political Junkie

Now that I have already provided my list of the top 10 lowlights of 2018, let’s end the year on a high note.   Take a look at the top 10 highlights of 2018: 1.       The Confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.   After a long, arduous, and slanderous confirmation process, the Senate confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court by a razor-thin margin. Ultimately, Republicans may not have enjoyed the modest success in the 2018 midterm elections had they not decided to unify behind Kavanaugh in spite of the smear campaign orchestrated against him.   Even President George W. Bush, a critic of President Trump on many issues, made phone calls on behalf of Kavanaugh; who once worked for the younger Bush as a Staff Secretary.     2.       The 2018 midterm elections.    While the Republicans lost control of the House and some governorships, they ended up increasing their majority in the...

Last year at this time, I presented a list of the top 10 lowlights of 2017.   2018 has presented another year of ups and downs.   Let’s start with the downs.   Take a look at the list of the top 10 lowlights of 2018:   1.       The Kavanaugh Confirmation Fiasco.   I promised to include this at the very top of my list during an appearance on the “Conservative Underground” podcast earlier this year. Even before the decades-old sexual assault allegations surfaced against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, Democratic Senators had already promised to do everything in their power to derail the Kavanaugh nomination.   Democratic Senators postured for the camera, with Cory Booker having his infamous “Spartacus” moment .   After the confirmation hearings concluded, the press got wind of a letter detailing decades-old, vague sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. In an effort to appear sympathetic, S...

With 2018 almost completely in the rearview mirror, the first full year of the Trump Presidency has provided Republicans with many lessons that they ultimately learned the hard way.  1. The Moderate Democrat has gone extinct.  When it comes to building a wall on the southern border with Mexico , nearly  100 percent of Democrats in both Houses of Congress find themselves siding with big business; something that yesterday’s Democrats, who thought the party represented the interests of the working class, would find unimaginable.  While several Senate Democrats pitched themselves as moderates as they fought uphill battles attempting to win re-election in ruby red states, their voting record tells a different story.  Only one Senate Democrat , Doug Jones of Alabama , voted to end debate on a House-passed stopgap spending bill that included money for the wall. Joe Manchin of West Virginia , who ran an ad highlighting his support for the wall...

Well, Congress has absolutely failed when it comes to securing funding for President Trump’s much-promised border wall. To its credit, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday night that includes funding for the wall.  However, the bill did not manage to get out of the Senate, thanks to failures on the part of both Democrats and Republicans.  We all know why the Democrats don’t want to fund the wall.  They want to do everything they can to ensure that President Trump does not fund the wall because they know that his failure to make progress on the wall by Election Day 2020 could put his re-election bid in jeopardy.  But they also have a long game: while the Democrats remain vehemently opposed to the construction of a border wall in the Southwestern United States, they remain committed to the construction of a different kind of wall in the Southwestern United States: a blue wall.  The Democrats have already turned most of t...

Two weeks ago, I published a blog highlighting the voting patterns in the 100 wealthiest and the 100 least wealthy Congressional districts. After appearing on “The Conservative Underground” podcast, I realized the lists of the 100 th Wealthiest and Least Wealthy Congressional Districts could benefit from the presence of Presidential margins, geographic details, and the names of their incoming representatives accompanying them.   Presidential margins accompanied by a “+” sign indicate President Trump won the district while Presidential margins accompanied by a minus sign indicate that Hillary Clinton won the district.   Remember that red districts have Republican representatives, blue districts will have Democratic representatives, bolded districts indicated Democratic pickups in 2018, and underlined districts indicate Democratic-held districts carried by President Trump in 2016.   Table 1: Midterm Election Results in the 100 Wealthiest Congressional Districts ...