Political Junkie

TV sure has changed a lot in the past six decades. During my parents’ childhood, few television programs existed besides westerns and sitcoms.   Keep in mind that both my parents had one television set despite sharing a house with seven other people.   Most of the sitcoms promoted bourgeois culture, a concept that the post-modernist liberals have done everything to deconstruct and disassemble.   The earliest sitcoms, such as “Leave it to Beaver,” portrayed the nuclear family in a positive light, with a loving, supportive, engaged, and married mother and father committed to teaching their children the difference between right and wrong.   The earliest late night shows had little in common with today’s politically charged late night programming.   A producer for “The Ed Sullivan Show,” a variety show that aired on CBS, ordered The Rolling Stones to change the refrain of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together.”   The Stones...

Tomorrow, voters in four more states will head to the polls for Primary Day. After tomorrow, one in five states will have already held their primary races.   Primary voters in Pennsylvania , Nebraska , Oregon , and Idaho will have the opportunity to narrow the field of candidates hoping to represent their states at the Federal and state level.     Unlike last week, where all of the primaries took place on the east coast, many of the results may not become clear until well after Midnight Eastern Time, especially in Oregon, where the polls do not close until 11:00 p.m. Eastern time.   Also in contrast to last week, where only one of the four states had a gubernatorial race, all four states holding primaries tomorrow have gubernatorial races.   Nebraska , Oregon and Pennsylvania all have incumbent governors running for a second term while Idaho ’s Republican governor has declined to run for a fourth term in an office. All three of the incumbent...

Earlier this week, confirmation hearings began for Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to serve as CIA Director.   Confirmation hearings have become increasingly theatrical, leading me to believe that they have become nothing more than audition tapes for 2020 Presidential hopefuls.   The Democrats hope to use Haspel’s involvement in enhanced interrogation against her, particularly focusing on her ordering of the destruction of a series of tapes detailing enhanced interrogation against suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists.   Far-left Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), widely seen as a contender for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 2020, asked Haspel if she thought the enhanced interrogation techniques used in the time period immediately following 9/11 were immoral.   Haspel should have assuaged the Democrats’ fears when she said that she did not agree with President Trump’s assertion that torture works.    Haspel faces an uphill battle as she seeks t...

The #MeToo movement first began late last year after the public first learned about Harvey Weinstein’s disturbing pattern of sexual misbehavior.   Various women, some who have achieved quite a bit of fame in their own right, came forward saying that they too had been sexually assaulted and/or harassed by powerful men, including Weinstein.   The #MeToo movement has unearthed sexual assault allegations against famous men, some dating back decades; ending the careers of TV personalities including Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, entertainers such as Louis C.K. and Kevin Spacey, and politicians on both sides of the aisle.   Rose, who co-hosted CBS This Morning in addition to hosting an eponymous program on PBS, allegedly welcomed female interns into his home wearing nothing but a bathrobe.   Lauer, who spent more than two decades as co-host of NBC’s Today show, experienced his fall from grace just one week after CBS and PBS gave Rose the axe.    In his off...

Tomorrow, voters in states with three of the most important Senate contests that will determine control of the upper chamber will head to the polls for primary day.   Indiana , Ohio , and West Virginia all have Democratic Senators up for re-election in states that President Trump did quite well in.   Voters in North Carolina , which has no Senator up for re-election this year, will also head to the polls tomorrow.     The Senate map this year overwhelmingly favors Republicans.   Including the two special elections, Democrats have to defend 26 Senate seats while Republicans only have to defend nine.   Democrats have ten senators running for re-election in states that President Trump won while Republicans only have one senator running in a state won by Hillary Clinton.     This fall, the 33 members of Senate Class 1 in addition to two Senators appointed to fill vacancies in Senate Class 2 will face the voters.   For three straight el...

     The left and the Democratic Party have made “#TheResistance” their political strategy since President Trump became the 45 th President of the United States .   They would argue that strategy has paid off, as the Democrats have picked up one seat apiece in the House and Senate in addition to a handful of state legislative seats.   Their #Resistance would have achieved absolutely no success if not for the incompetence and/or willful ignorance of Republicans in all three branches of government.           One week after taking office, President Trump signed into law an executive order that would restrict travel from seven terror-prone Muslim-majority countries identified as national security threats by the Obama Administration, which constantly reminded the American people that “we are not at war with Islam,” “ISIL is not Islamic,” and “Islam is a religion of peace.”   Had the Obama Administration issue...