I was about to go to bed last night when news started to filter through about shots being fired at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. The initial pictures showing a bleeding Donald Trump being taken from the stage by the Secret Service agents who had courageously got between him and the bullets that were being sent his way were incredibly disturbing.
Thankfully, he was ok, though he is bound to be shocked but two people died and two people are, at the time of writing, critically ill.
I was incredibly impressed by how calmly and articulately BBC reporter Gary O’Donaghue described what was going on while lying on the ground taking cover behind a car outside the rally.
It should go without saying that candidates and people should be able to conduct and participate in democracy in safety. Too often, we are seeing the opposite. In this country we have seen two MPs killed while carrying out their surgeries in the past 8 years.
In the recent election, Jess Phillips described in her victory speech the intimidation and harassment she and her campaigners had experienced. It’s a tough listen. Nobody should have to go through this.
She should have been accompanied by Jo Cox’s family on polling day, but she asked them not to come out of worry that it would be too traumatic for them to see what she was going through.
Editor’s Note: Eight years, at the beginning of the 2016 year of Brexit and Trump Hell, Kevin Lang, now our Group Leader on the City of Edinburgh Council, found himself in Iowa during the caucuses. Across three articles, he gives us a great insight of what happened at the Democrat caucus.
Much of what he says about the Hillary campaign is worth our own opposition politicians thinking about as we approach our own election later this year. I thought you might like to re-read Kevin’s posts.
Of course this year it’s the Republicans going mad in Iowa with the front runner, Donald Trump, not bothering himself to take part in the debates.
I always find the Pod Save America podcast, presented by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor a great source of information on US politics. Vietor has returned to Iowa to see what’s happening on the ground there with two special episodes of the On the Ground in Iowa podcast. Have a listen here.
Over to Kevin:
Monday 1 February
It’s a polling day of a different kind. Rather than 15 hours of voting, everything is crammed into just 2 hours.
Across the state, individual caucuses will be held in an astonishing 1,681 locations. There is one caucus for every precinct (polling district) with each one requiring a chair to oversee proceedings and a speaker for each of the candidates. It requires a phenomenal level of planning and organisation by both the Democrat and Republican state parties.
I get out during the day and visit the Iowa Historical Museum with its brilliant ‘first in the nation’ exhibition, including memorabilia dating back to the first caucuses in the early 1970s. Geoff, my guide, easily wins the prize for the most overexcited Iowan of my visit so far. He can of course be excused on this, his day of days. He reels off facts and joyously regales the tale of when his neighbour offered his house as a caucus site in 2008, only for it to be overrun with voters in that record breaking turnout year. “He put the Clintons in his front room, the Edwards in his kitchen and Obamas upstairs”, he said, “he was able to fit all the Dodds and Bidens in his bathroom!”
And so caucus hour arrives at 7pm. I’m covering Polk County’s 80th precinct caucus, held in the Wright Elementary School on the south side of Des Moines. It’s a precinct in which Obama beat Romney by over 30% in 2012 so there are lots of Democratic voters for the three campaigns to haggle over.
Editor’s Note: Eight years, at the beginning of the 2016 year of Brexit and Trump Hell, Kevin Lang, now our Group Leader on the City of Edinburgh Council, found himself in Iowa during the caucuses. Across three articles, he gives us a great insight of what happened at the Democrat caucus.
Much of what he says about the Hillary campaign is worth our own opposition politicians thinking about as we approach our own election later this year. I thought you might like to re-read Kevin’s posts.
Of course this year it’s the Republicans going mad in Iowa with the front runner, Donald Trump, not bothering himself to take part in the debates.
I always find the Pod Save America podcast, presented by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor a great source of information on US politics. Vietor has returned to Iowa to see what’s happening on the ground there with two special episodes of the On the Ground in Iowa podcast. Have a listen here.
Over to Kevin:
As if Scottish and UK politics aren’t enough, I’ve long had a curiosity, a voyeuristic fascination with politics and elections in America.
It’s not just that elections there really matter and have an impact well beyond the US domestic border. It’s also the energy and enthusiasm (no matter how superficial or manufactured) that I’ve found infectious. It’s why I, along with my best mate (and 2016 Holyrood candidate) Alex Cole-Hamilton, went to help Obama’s first campaign in 2008. We did our little bit to help the Democrats win Virginia for the first time in a presidential election since 1964.
I also learned a lot about campaigning, especially the impact of reaching out and meeting voters face to face along with the importance of continually making your volunteers feel valued and appreciated. That said, as a Liberal Democrat, it was somewhat unnerving to campaign in a place where door to door leaflet delivery was against the law and subject to pretty stiff fines.
If you thought that 2023 might be a less wild political year, you would have been proved wrong just 3 days in – at least on the other side of the Atlantic.
The first act of any new session of Congress is for the House of Representatives to elect a new Speaker. Usually this is straightforward, with the leader of the party which holds the majority getting the job. Not this time. For the first time in a century, Republican Kevin McCarthy failed to achieve the required 218 votes. Which is a bit of a worry for him, seeing as he …
After a long lie-down in a darkened room, it’s very good to be back with the LDV team.
Such a crazy time in UK politics might tempt us to look to the USA mid-term elections for some light relief. Sadly, disappointment awaits us at the other side of the pond.
I doubt whether the US mid-term election results will provide any light. Indeed, a great deal of heat and frustration is likely to accompany the outcome.
I won’t, for a second, make any predictions, aside from advising all to adopt the brace position. Prepare for whatever you perceive as the worst outcome.
Ukraine and Russia are engaged in a weapons war. The West in Russia are engaged in an economic war of attrition. The West’s main weapon is sanctions. Putin’s main weapons are European dependence on Russian oil and gas, food supplies to millions and the perceived decadence of Western populations. Europe had hoped to build up a reserve of stored gas supplies for the winter by importing as much Russian gas as possible until December. But Putin this week scuppered that plan by cutting piped exports by 80 percent. Germany has stopped lighting public buildings at night and has turned off the hot water in public sports centres. The price of energy is rocketing around the world, fuelling inflation and costing jobs. There is a real prospect of energy rationing in Europe and possibly further afield. But what about Russia? Putin has admitted that Western sanctions are “a huge challenge.” The Mayor of Moscow has said the city has lost 200,000 jobs. Businesses have been forced to close and inflation in Russia is 16 percent. Analysts at Yale University this week reported that “imports have collapsed” and domestic production has come to a “complete standstill.” But here is the rub, Putin believes that Russians are tougher than their European and American counterparts. Western support for sanctions will collapse, Putin believes, when European and American consumers can no longer afford their long car journeys, overheated homes, exotic foods and multiple holidays. It’s a gamble. For both sides.
Pelosi visit threatens Xi’s position
US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had a two-hour face to face in cyberspace this week. They discussed Ukraine, climate change and lifting some of the Trump era tariffs. But top of the list was Taiwan and the proposed trip to the disputed island by Speaker of the House of Representatives, 82-year-old Nancy Pelosi. The Chinese have vowed “resolute and forceful measures” if the visit goes ahead. The Ministry of Defense has threatened that the “Chinese military will never sit idly by.” In Taiwan, the authorities have been conducting air raid drills. At the heart of the problem is China’s claim of sovereignty over Taiwan and its stated willingness to use force to impose it. To date, however, Beijing’s emphasis has been on diplomatic pressure. It has successfully isolated the Taipei government by hounding other nations to break off relations and blocking Taiwan’s membership of international bodies. Anything that smacks of international recognition of Taiwan is strongly opposed by Beijing, and a visit by a high-profile American politician who is third in line to the presidency is extremely high profile—especially given Ms Pelosi’s strong anti-Beijing position. She has repeatedly attacked the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights record, entertained the Dalai Lama, unfurled a pro-democracy banner in Tiananmen Square and supported Hong Kong demonstrators. In short, she is not well-liked in Beijing. But there are other problems related to President Xi’s position within the Chinese Communist Party. It is not strong at the moment. He is viewed by many as having badly managed the covid pandemic and China’s response to the war in Ukraine. In October the Party will hold its national congress at which Xi is expected to be voted a third term. It is important that the vote is a general acclamation rather than a mere majority vote. Failure to stand firm on Taiwan—added to covid and Ukraine—could undermine that.
Overnight, Politico published a draft of a US Supreme court decision which, if confirmed, will end the right of American women and pregnant people to access abortion. This has been an inevitable trajectory since Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court in June 2018, giving Donald Trump the chance to ensure a conservative majority. During his term, Trump appointed three conservative justices, a move destined to roll back not just abortion rights, but potentially the right to same sex marriage as well.
Ending the legal right to seek an abortion is a disaster for women. Before it was enacted, women in many states died when pregnancy threatened their lives because they could not get an abortion. This is a basic civil rights issue for women.
Not only that, but we have to remember that the US is a country without either universal health care or paid maternity leave. Crooked Media’s Hysteria podcast host Erin Ryan gave birth to her daughter Juniper last November and in this post highlights the thousands of dollars she had to pay out just to get through her pregnancy and birth and how she had to ask the specialist administering her epidural if he took her insurance:
By Caron Lindsay
| Tue 16th November 2021 - 12:16 pm
If, like me, you were waiting for life to calm down a bit before you binge watched the new drama about Bill Clinton’s impeachment and his appalling behaviour which led up to it, think again. The first episode disappears from iPlayer at 9:15 on Thursday (18th November) and the subsequent 4 every Thursday afterwards.
I watched the first two episodes on Sunday night and found it to be absolutely brilliant, made with sensitivity and understanding. That may well be because Monica Lewinsky is one of the producers and has the chance to tell her story in a way that she couldn’t at the time. And it is very true to the way I remember it. Great care has been taken to make the scenes that took place in public, like the hug between Clinton and Lewinsky at a White House event after his 1996 victory look very authentic.
I remember Bill Clinton’s furious denial of sexual relations with “that woman”, I remember the fury I felt at the public shaming of Monica Lewinsky while Clinton basically got away relatively easily. It seemed to me that the women at the heart of this suffered so much more than the man. Hillary also came in for criticism for choosing to stay with him with little recognition of the agony she clearly went through. I could always feel her pain and understand why she would choose to stay, having been with him at that stage for almost 30 years.
As recently as last year, Clinton was trying to make excuses for his behaviour. The BBC reported his comments in a documentary:
It’s not fun to wake up this morning to discover that Virginia has elected a Trump-endorsed Republican as its governor. Glenn Youngkin is projected to defeat former Democrat Governor Terry McAuliffe by 2.7%.
What on earth has gone wrong?
It’s a bit of a perfect storm made up of a new way that the Republicans have found to frighten people into voting for them and the failure of Joe Biden to deliver what would have been a very popular series of measures, including paid family leave, mainly because of the failure of two right wing Democrat Senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
It’s a year since we all spent 5 days on tenterhooks waiting for confirmation that Trump was on his way out. I certainly wasn’t filled with unbridled optimism that Joe Biden was what the country needed, though I thought that his long experience in Congress would be enough to get his legislative programme through.
Just imagine if Joe Biden had been able to hit the stump in Virginia saying he’d put in a $3.5 trillion package which included, for the first time, measures that we in Europe take for granted. Things like paid family leave and a tax credit that would take children out of poverty. Opinion polls suggest that these measures are popular across the political divide, so failure to deliver them will surely bring disapproval.
If Biden had had a good story to tell, there would be no void for the malevolent right to fill with poison.
The toxin of choice in this case was a faux argument about “critical race theory”, something that isn’t even taught in Virginia’s schools.
McAuliffe’s all-out effort to portray Youngkin as an acolyte of Donald Trump proved less effective than the Republican’s laser-like focus on whipping up parents’ fear and anger about culture war issues in Virginia’s schools.
In the aftermath of the November 2000 US presidential election, I was off-work with a stress-related mental illness. In a good way, this meant I had plenty of time to read about the Bush/Gore hanging chads dispute. As a result, I discovered Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire. In the twenty years since then, hardly a day has gone by that I have not logged on to Political Wire – often several times a day.
It is a news aggregation website which is “light touch” – providing a miscellany of key political news and articles each day.
In the last few years, I have enrolled as a Political Wire member. The other day I saw a post advertising a webinar for members. I thought it would be fun to join it. This meant staying up until 1am last night! But it was a real treat. Amongst an audience of 900, there were such eminences as legendary pollster Charlie Cook and Obama adviser David Axelrod!
I might have known that after I had written about Obama’s inauguration speech earlier, how I would fall down the rabbit hole of the Obama White House You Tube Channel.
I came across the unveilings of the official portraits of George W and Laura Bush. Now, I am not a fan of him or his presidency at all. It is, however, very difficult not to love Laura.
Despite all that, when you watch all the speeches from the Obamas and the Bushes, you pick up a real warmth between them.
There was not a lot of common ground between them when Obama took office, but he went to great pains to point out how helpful Bush had been to him, then and since, and how there was quite a rapport between all the living occupants of the Oval Office. It is enjoyable to watch.
I think back to 1992, when Bill Clinton won after a pretty fraught election campaign with not a lot of love on either side. The first President Bush was similarly helpful and graceful to his successor and they struck up an enduring friendship as a result.
Obviously, this is not going to happen this time round, but Donald Trump, as in so many other ways, is very much the aberration here.
We need to see more examples of people with totally opposing views can behave with grace towards one another without compromising their principles. We need to follow the example of our own Charles Kennedy, whose friendship with Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell had been so important to both of them, as we found out after he died. Charles had been subjected to the most appalling abuse for his opposition to the Iraq War, yet away from the heat, those two had a close personal friendship.
As we prepare to welcome Joe Biden as US President a week on Wednesday, I thought it might be an idea to look back at previous inaugurations.
Let’s hope that we get to 20th January without any more of the scenes we saw this week. There may well be drama in Congress as the Democrats attempt a second impeachment, but the last thing anybody needs is more injury or loss of life.
I’m thinking back 12 years to Obama’s inaugural speech. I will never forget it. But that is partly because our hamster Puffball died during it, not just for its inspiring and hopeful qualities.
Then LDV co-editor Stephen Tall said that he came across as the “ultimate pragmatist CEO”:
Was this speech a mesmerising tour de force which will rank among his best? Not for me. But that’s not a bad thing at all, because what the speech did demonstrate was a sense of uncompromising purpose – and I’ll take that over highfalutin oratory from the most powerful leader in the world. For sure, there was the soaring promise:
The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
But what struck me more was the sense of the ultimate pragmatist CEO, impatient to fix what he sees as broken:
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
I was still learning to love him. Obviously I was delighted that he had been elected, but I have always been a Hillary fan. Somewhere there’s an alternate universe where we are now at the end of Obama’s first term as 45th President with her having been the 44th. That would have been a lot better.
Obama was just starting to inspire me. His inaugural speech certainly made me warm to him more as I wrote on my own blog.
Obama’s speech still had the idealism and the confidence that we have come to expect from him, but this was tempered with sobering realism and a call to all Americans to give of their best to deal with the unprecedented challenges ahead.
You could actually see George W Bush squirming as his legacy was laid bare in a few well chosen, but very frank words. “Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet”
There were two phrases that I thought were the signs of the new age. “We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” So it’s goodbye Guantanamo. The poisonous vernacular of the war on terror is replaced with “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Well, I loved it.
And if this is true, then bring it on: “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.” I hope Israel was listening and will be made to think about the way it consumes the resources of the middle east. It would be good if clean waters flowed in Gaza.
Another theme of the speech was personal responsibility, and embracing your duties as a citizen to help the nation succeed. “For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.”
The two things I really loved most of all about the speech was the inclusion of non-believers in the list of value systems at one point and the addition of curiosity as one of the “values on which our success depends.” I like the willingness to abandon conventions as novel solutions are sought for challenges.
What will America do with Mr Trump when he ceases to be President? There will be those who believe that the relatively narrow margin of Biden’s victory means that America is still a bitterly divided country and that the healing process means that any question of prosecution would be a non-starter because it would ‘re-open the wounds”. Trumpism will not go away even in the unlikely event of the man himself disappearing into the sunset sometime in January. But national divisions are nothing like as simple as the binary choices of a two-horse race or a yes/no referendum.
Going against a majority view can be difficult for politicians but if it matters so much the voters have the option of sending them packing in due course. MPs who voted for the abolition of the death penalty were not, for the most part, punished by their constituents. We didn’t have council elections in the Mets in the May following the UK referendum but in 2018 many of us in the North were happy to be elected or re-elected in wards which voted heavily Leave, myself included. Because voters are human beings their political views can be more complex (sometimes contradictory) than we might like them to be.
I am a massive fan of The West Wing. There are several episodes (The Midterms, for example) where I am almost word perfect. So you can imagine how excited I am that it’s very briefly returning in an HBO Max special on Thursday. It’s being done for When we all vote, an organisation chaired by Michelle Obama to:
increase participation in every election and close the race and age voting gap by changing the culture around voting, harnessing grassroots energy, and through strategic partnerships to reach every American.
The cast will reunite to perform the 2002 episode Hartsfield’s Landing. It’s the one where Josh and Donna try to make sure that there as many Bartlet votes as possible in a small village in New Hampshire that votes at midnight. I love it.
The trailer, published this week, gave me goosebumps. If you haven’t seen it, enjoy.
https://youtu.be/g868M-27qpI
I’ve heard that a lot of fans have this week been rewatching the episodes at the end of Season 4 which involve the invocation of the 25th Amendment for reasons that I can’t imagine.
It comes at a time when Democrat House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed legislation on the subject of the 25th Amendment, looking in more detail about when a President is unfit for office.
The office of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced a Friday press conference about the bill after she expressed concern that Trump, who is under treatment for coronavirus at the White House, is suffering a “disassociation from reality”.
The president has unleashed a barrage of erratic and self-contradictory tweets and declarations in recent days that have left staff scrambling and raised concerns over his stability.
In a zig-zagging interview on the Fox Business channel on Thursday, his first since being hospitalised, Trump, 74, boasted: “I’m back, because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young. And so I’m lucky in that way.”
If Aaron Sorkin had put forward scripts for the West Wing which outlined what is going on now, he would have been laughed out of the tv studio.
The relaxation of the UK’s lockdown continues, albeit somewhat falteringly. Yes, you’ll probably be able to go into a pub soon, but your kids may not be back at school until September. And that’s partly because politicians are increasingly ignoring scientists, as Rishi Sunak quite openly acknowledged. He is, I think, right to do so – advisors advise, politicians decide. If only many of us had more faith in the quality of those politicians who form our current government…
Caution is probably the watchword though, as many, if not most, people are still uncomfortable with crowded places, and are …
Every week I do an hour long programme for American radio. The purpose is to try to explain what the rest of the world is thinking about America and what is happening in the world which should be of interest to Americans.
The format takes the form of a discussion between myself—an avowed liberal expat—and an old school friend, Lockwood Phillips, who is a staunch Trump supporter. Not surprisingly, the mix leads to some lively discussions. This week was especially so.
Actually, it was the off-air discourse that was at times off-colour and even more interesting was the exchange of emails …
Black Lives Matter. A simple statement that probably ought not to be necessary, but is. The demonstrations in our bigger towns and cities will have drawn most of the coverage, but the picture is from that well-known radical heartland of Bury St Edmunds, where a demonstration took place yesterday afternoon. Perhaps it is a sign of promise that, even in a community like this, where the non-white population is small, hundreds of people felt moved to express their anger at the injustice of a society which treats black people …
Yesterday, the New York Times published an opinion piece by the junior US Senator for Arkansas, Tom Cotton, which called upon President Trump to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to
employ the military “or any other means” in “cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws”
by way of an overwhelming show of force against protestors. Why is this important? Because Tom Cotton is a potential Republican nominee for the Presidency in the not that distant future.
It’s Friday, it’s five to five half-past seven, and it’s time once again for…
2 big stories
Yesterday, Matt Hancock announced that he was writing off £13.4 billion worth of NHS debt – on the face of it a thoroughly good thing. Of course, you find yourself wondering how it could have repaid that debt anyway, and the problem of the legacy of PFI remains a shadow over the finances of our healthcare, but it will obviously help to ease the burden on day to day finances in our hospitals.
I’ve been looking back at Liberal Democrat Voice past over the weekend, and jolly interesting it has been too – the archives are a glimpse into a rather different political party and, indeed, a rather different Liberal Democrat Voice. As for us, we’re not the same people we used to be, indeed, the Editorial Team of ten years ago bears little resemblance to today’s lineup.
But something drew my eye, and so, in magpie style, I’m stealing it, or perhaps more generously, recycling it. The Daily View feature ran in 2009 and 2010, and was meant to be an early preview …
The collision of two of my favourite worlds will keep me well occupied until June 26th when the Democrats choose their candidate for New York Governor. Yesterday, Cynthia Nixon, who played my favourite character in Sex and the City, Miranda Hobbes, announced her candidacy with a very effective video.
The Democrats already hold the seat, of course. Andrew Cuomo seeks his third term and won in 2014 with 54% of the vote in the General Election. He is the obvious frontrunner to fight again for the Democrats with, at the moment, a fairly massive lead over all-comers. From the New York Times:
Ms. Nixon, 51, has never before run for elected office and has chosen a huge undertaking for her first bid: seeking to unseat a two-term incumbent (and son of a three-term governor) who is sitting atop more than $30 million in campaign cash. “Our leaders are letting us down,” she says in a video posted on Twitter, talking about the inequities in New York spliced between images of her walking on the streets of New York City and taking the subways. “Something has to change,” she says in the ad. “We want our government to work again, on health care, ending mass incarceration, fixing our broken subway. We are sick of politicians who care more about headlines and power than they do about us. It can’t just be business as usual anymore.”
The mantra “EVERY VOTE COUNTS” is an article of faith for political activists everywhere. Liberal Democrats know this more than most, having won one election and lost one in the last twenty years by a margin of two votes (Winchester 1997 and North East Fife 2017).
Now, from the state of Virginia, comes another reminder that every conversation with an undecided voter can swing an election, in a very unusual outcome. On election night last November, Republican David Yancey ‘won’ a crucial state house seat by ten votes, just preventing Democrats from overturning a 32-seat Republican majority. However, his challenger, Shelly Simonds, filed for a recount.
Held in December, the recount appeared to have Simonds winning the seat by a single vote, 11,608 to 11,607. Great news for Virginia Democrats, who thought they would now split control 50-50 of Virginia’s 100-seat lower House of Delegates.
However, their initial euphoria was short-lived. Two days later, a three-judge panel threw out Simond’s one vote win, ruling a disputed ballot should count for Yancey, the Republican, and tying the race. (Veterans of disputed ballot arguments at recounts might want to look away now – here’s a copy of the disputed ballot in question, which shows a mark against both the Democrat and Republican candidates, but then also crosses out the Democrat candidate’s name).
If you get a chance over the Summer, have a read of Kate Andersen Brower’s book detailing the history and lives of the people who look after the first families at the White House. Find out about their relationships with the various occupants of the biggest goldfish bowl on the planet. From the Roosevelts to the Obamas, find out about the details of domestic life and the varying relationships between staff and residents.
It is a little biased towards the Republicans and if you know a lot about US politics, there are no new sensational revelations, but it is a fascinating read nonetheless. My emotions went from sympathy for the Clintons and Obamas to annoyance with Lyndon Johnson’s obsession with his shower. You feel the shock and fear around the Kennedy assassination and 9/11. How does it feel when you realise that your workplace could be the next target – especially when you leave some of your colleagues behind.
Way back in 1980, as Ronald Reagan and George Bush were battling it out for the Republican nomination, they were asked whether the children of Mexicans working illegally in the US should be able to get educated. Their answer, posted on the Houston Chronicle’s Facebook page, might surprise you. Today’s politicians and tabloid editors might learn something.
What would Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush say about immigration and securing the Mexican border today?Well, here's what they said about it in 1980 during a GOP debate in Houston.(Archival video from Getty Images)
It is lovely to watch a US President taking the oath of office and not be scared. The feeling of dread I experienced in 1981 and 2001 when Reagan and the younger Bush took office was not pleasant. While Barack Obama has not been perfect, his heart is generally in the right place. His achievements in his first term are all the more remarkable when you consider that he faced a Congress full of some of the most right wing, conservative Republicans we’ve seen in our lifetimes whose sole aim was to thwart his every move.
Craig Levene No amount of money can compensate for policies that resonate with voters and address their concerns . Harris had the ground game and the financial backing , but...
Nigel Jones Both sides in ths middle east confict is to blame. Hamas and Hebollah of course but Israel also in its revenge and dtermination to control all areas near but ou...
David Raw @ Mark Frankel According to the Vatican news in November, there have been 44,300 deaths in Palestine since that terrible 7 October day - 70% were women and chi...
Pamela Manning Mark Frankel if you look at facts you will find that Israel is the one not to be trusted. Israel signed up to Oslo accords which prohibited the creation of or e...
Nigel Jones Looks to me Elon Musk's financial support for Reform is good reason for our party to talk to other parties about urgent reform of party donations, something we ...
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"Ooh, Your Eminence!": A short review of Conclave (2024)
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
Ongoing huge cost of Brexit divorce
Craig Levene 
Nigel Jones 
David Raw 
Pamela Manning 