debates

The Democratic establishment insisted on pushing doddering and conservative relic Ted Strickland as the Ohio Senate nominee. Strickland was too scared to debate his young and intellectually vigorous opponent, PG Sittenfeld-- he never did-- and now he's facing a situation where he is unprepared to debate his Republican opponent, Rob Portman. In the end, Strickland beat Sittenfeld by a landslide, 720,336 to 248,776, and taking part in the series of debates-- or even one debate-- Sittenfeld challenged him to do, wouldn't have changed the outcome.

There may be some Bernie voters who persuade themselves that the way to teach the corrupt and repulsive Democratic Party a lesson is to vote for Trump. There aren't many Bernie supporters that out of their minds though. My guess is that most will vote for Hillary and that some will stay home or skip the presidential race and that others will write in Bernie. I suspect, however that the number of votes Green Party candidate Jill Stein gets in November will be significantly higher than the 469,501 show got in 2012 against Obama and Romney.

Who would have ever thought David Brooks would be making more sense in the NYTimes than Paul Krugman? And we still have almost 5 months to go before we vote! Friday Brooks took on the GOP's Unity Illusion-- which is different from the Democrats' unity illusion, but just as threatening to the status quo, if not more so.

“Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding, and she came to my wedding," [Donald Trump] said at the first GOP presidential debate in Cleveland. "She had no choice because I gave to a foundation.” One of many charges Trump will lay at Clinton's feet (source; click to enlarge).

Chicken Trump has perfected a snarl as a defense mechanismSure, all 3 squirrely Florida self-promoters own homes on the east coast of the Sunshine State, but that's not the answer today; it leaves off McCarthy. Today is about the fear of being exposed in a public debate. Did Trump actually debate when he was up on stage at the 17 ring circus during primary season?

The video just above is one of the best congressional campaign clips I've seen from anyone anywhere. Please watch it. June 7 is going to be another SuperTuesday, a congressional one. California, Iowa and New Jersey have red hot primaries pitting grassroots progressives like Lou Vince, Pat Murphy and Alex Law against establishment hacks like, respectively, Brian Caforio, Monica Vernon and Donald Norcross. South Dakota, New Mexico and Montana have primaries the same day but without the fiery contests.And Law's isn't the only congressional contest that needs to be watched in New Jersey.

Listen to the first minute and a half of this NPR report? How easy will it be for Hillary Clinton to counter this argument (source)?by Gaius PubliusWe've been looking at the electability argument lately, and it doesn't look good for Clinton if she's the nominee.

A friend of mine-- a wise friend of mine-- told me she thinks Bernie's going to win the primary in a  walk... but will lose to Trumpf, Cruz or Rubio because the Clintons will utterly destroy the Democratic Party, just as their dear friend Trumpf is destroying the Republican Party. Interesting proposition. The constitution purposely left out any mention of parties and the Founding Fathers were disdainful of their influence. Today we can see why; neither party deserves to exist.

Illinois Republican Aaron Schock hasn't announced if he's reached a final agreement with TitanMen for his new gay porn career. I bet the million dollars they're negotiating is a lot more than sweaty little Marco Rubio was ever offered by the down-market Miami Cuban gay porn operators he got involved with when he was a teenager.

I missed Thursday's Trumpless debate. I was at my favorite restaurant, Michael Voltaggio's Ink, instead. For the last year I'm been battling cancer and one of the side effects of chemo is that you lose the ability to taste things. Sometimes everything tastes really bad and sometimes they don't taste bad, just not "right." My doctor warned me not to eat things I really loved while I was going through the treatment because I might never like them again. During the last 14 months, I did try Ink a few times and the food never tasted as good as I knew it was. Nothing did.