Political Junkie

I apologize for my absence over the past two weeks. To paraphrase Professor Hinkle from the children’s Christmas cartoon classic “Frosty the Snowman,” I have been “busy, busy, busy.” While my plate largely remains full, I wanted to take a second to weigh in on the United Kingdom general election that took place last week and its implications for the 2020 presidential election.   Three years ago, the United Kingdom voted to leave the sovereignty-crushing supranational nanny state organization known as the European Union.   The final vote tally found 51.9 percent voting in favor of exiting the EU while the remaining 48.1 percent voted in favor of remaining.   Many predicted that a victory for the so-called “Brexit” movement would preview success for then-candidate Donald Trump, whose campaign focused on many of the same issues at the heart of the debate about membership in the European Union. Sure enough, just four and a half months after the “Brexit” vote...

Following the 2016 election, Republicans held 241 seats in the House of Representatives.   That number did nothing but go down throughout the 115 th Congress. Republicans held their own in the special elections that took place throughout 2017; which primarily took place to replace members who took jobs in the Trump administration.   However, the Republican majority began to shrink in 2018, when Democrats flipped a solidly Republican seat in western Pennsylvania formerly held by Republican hypocrite Tim Murphy; who told his mistress to have an abortion in violation of his professed pro-life values.   The number of Republicans in the 115 th Congress continued to dwindle as two Pennsylvania Republicans resigned prior to the end of their terms. Pat Meehan resigned because of fallout from the #MeToo movement while Never-Trumper Charlie Dent resigned for no discernible reason.   The seats remained vacant until Election Day 2018, when special elections to finish th...