Politics

Donald Trump’s Joe McCarthy moment?

When CBS, NBC and ABC cut away from President Donald Trump’s news conference at the White House on the evening of Nov. 5, they took pains to explain why they were shutting off the nation’s commander-in-chief. It was a moment that for me, as a journalism historian, carried echoes of the 1954 takedown of another flamboyant populist demagogue, Sen. Joe McCarthy. Making false accusations The…


An embarrassing failure for election pollsters

Election polling is facing yet another reckoning following its uneven-at-best performance in this year’s voting. Although the outcome in the 2020 presidential race remained uncertain the next day, it was evident that polls collectively faltered, overall, in providing Americans with clear indications as to how the election would turn out. And that misstep promises to resonate through the field of survey research, which was battered…


Bernie Sez: Get out there and vote for Joe

(This is a very special interview conducted by ace cub reporter Ayomi Wolff for Madison 365, a fellow member of the LION group of independent online news organizations and used by special permission granted by editor Rob Chappell. For more, madison365.org. Check it out!) With only one more day until the election, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), urges BIPOC people, especially young people, to get out and…


Carpetbagging Issa refers to coronavirus, wildfires as ‘moronic doomsday scenarios’

Got to hand it to the carpetbagging, shameless Darrell Issa, who self-quarantined himself from his 49th Congressional District home in 2018 due to voter revulsion. He says coronavirus is the result of a left-wing conspiracy. Actual fact, this is what Issa said in a fundraising letter district voters received this week: “I won’t ignore the true threats to our national security because of moronic doomsday…


Marie Waldron flunks ‘Courage Report Card’

Got to give it to Marie Waldron, Valley Center’s ode to abuse of mileage reimbursements in the California Legislature — for more on that, visit this link — but YOUR Republican representative for California’s 75th Assembly District managed this week to score a solid “F” for her 2019 “Courage Score” from The People’s Report Card of California. In fact, Waldron couldn’t have fared worse to standing…


Issa’s Trump trade job burned to the ground

When it comes to carpetbagger Darrell Issa, the California 50th Congressional District race is not a prime example of sloppy seconds, but of sloppy thirds. First, Issa was such a coward in 2018 that when he realized he might lose his California 49th Congressional District seat due to demographic and voter registration shifts along with Dotard Trump backlash, not to mention revulsion over his piss…


Duncan Hunter’s ONLY successful bill killed

Say what one will of the convicted legislative fraud that was Duncan Hunter (R-Vapeville), but in his 10 years in office partying and scamming like there was no tomorrow, he managed to pass ONE — count ’em ONE — measure out of a committee during his time in “public service.” Yeah, it was “sarcastic,” Hunter said after his measure requiring women to register for the…


When are the Hunters going to jail already?

Who knew that the easy part of Duncan and Margaret Hunter taking the heat for their campaign finance fraud would be arranging plea agreements sending them to prison. The hard part, apparently, is for them actually to serve time in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to use over $250,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses. Last week, Margaret Hunter’s sentencing was moved to July…


Virus-denier Issa sues to stop mail-in ballots

An original virus denier, Darrell Issa must believe forcing people to go physically to polling places amid the coronavirus would help him somehow. Issa on Thursday, May 21 sued to halt California Governor Gavin Newsom’s order requiring all registered voters receive absentee ballots. Issa, a Vista Republican conducting a carpetbagger campaign — he lives in the 49th District — to return to Congress, argued that…


Hunter sentenced to 11 months in prison

Former California Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Vapeville) has been sentenced to 11 months in prison after pleading guilty to misspending campaign funds. The funds bankrolled private school tuition for his children, his wife’s shopping sprees, weekend trips with his mistress and drinking parties in Washington. The former Marine’s defense attorneys had asked for home confinement, citing his military service, including fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors…