Democratic party

In Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, a posse of violent ne’er-do-wells forced by circumstance into a house together descend, through duplicity, avarice and lies, into bloody chaos which leaves everyone dead. The title is a fitting one for the eight Republicans who crossed party lines to vote with House Democrats, unanimous in their belief that they are better off without Kevin McCarthy as speaker. In doing so, they ensured the House is controlled by Democrats in all but name. As the speaker race begins, the odds favor Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan — both more satisfying to the right wing than McCarthy, but far less capable of fundraising as he did to protect the tenuous hold of moderates in blue states.

Let me tell you a ghost story. We are, after all, only a month out from Hallowe’en. It’s about a titan of American politics, who reshaped the nation’s, and the West’s, history over the tail-end of the last century. His leadership helped thaw the Cold War and transform the country’s languishing economy. And now, four decades later, his specter still looms large over the party he recalibrated. Tonight, the GOP’s undercard contenders will clash at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. And you can be darn sure his name will come up a lot.In last month’s debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, America’s 40th president was the subject of one of many flashpoints between former VP Mike Pence and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

You don't need to be a political genius to see that this Hunter Biden indictment is an obvious smokescreen for the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill. The three-part indictment is very simple and straightforward and could’ve been brought a long time ago... so why this week? Why does it come after a rough opening to September for Democrats, with horrible polls released concerning Joe Biden's age and approval ratings — and particularly the same week that Republicans finally pulled the trigger on an impeachment inquiry? First, it serves to muddy the waters.

In the closing months of the 2022 midterms North Carolina residents began receiving text messages and phone calls from unfamiliar numbers, a ritual all too familiar to a swing-state voter. The benevolent voice on the line had seen the recipient’s name on a petition to allow the Green Party on the ballot and wanted to ensure the signature was on the up and up. With validity confirmed the anonymous caller would reveal himself to be a Green Party representative. “If the Green Party is on the ballot, it’ll take votes away from Democrats, giving Republicans a huge advantage. It will help them win North Carolina in 2022 and 2024. There’s far too much at stake to let this happen. Are you interested in asking to have your name removed from this petition or leave it as is?

Sparks flew during a series of testy exchanges about “nonconsensual nudes,” domestic terrorism and social media censorship as FBI director Christopher Wray testified before the House’s Judiciary Committee. The hearing marked Wray’s first appearance to Congress since Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate former president Donald Trump. It kicked off with some snide remarks from committee chair Jim Jordan, who chided his Democratic counterpart for mispronouncing a name, perhaps because he missed an earlier deposition. Republicans portrayed Wray as disconnected with his own department, while Democrats used him as a stand-in to praise all law enforcement.

When Barack Obama set out to fundamentally transform the country, he took for granted that it could be transformed back — and could only look on as America sent a populist billionaire to do just that. The aspiring media mogul has only now discovered that part of a politician's legacy is the successors he leaves behind. It has dawned on Obama that his chief legacy from eight years in office will not be healthcare reform but Joe Biden — and now he is scrambling to cultivate a new champion. Politico is reporting that America's first black president is holding closed-door meetings with the likes of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and moderate Michigan representative Haley Stevens to try to find an heir worthy of the crown.

Welcome to Thunderdome, your weekly update on all the crazy that 2024 has to offer! Thanks for listening to our weekly podcast, the latest edition of which is available here — and yes, we start off by talking about golf and soccer, but don’t worry: we don’t focus on important things for too long. There’s presidential stakes to be talking about, and questions to answer! Like: who is Doug Burgum, and why is Doug Burgum? Let’s get to it. Christie the kamikaze, or Pence the pure of heart? Everyone assumes that Chris Christie is going to be the thorn in the side of Donald Trump on the debate stage in August. But what if he isn’t?

Is the United States a one-party state? Surely not. Just look at the ballots the next time you vote. There are nearly always Republican as well as Democratic candidates, and often there are candidates from other parties as well (Green, Working Families, Libertarian, etc.). But when you go beyond the labels, what do you find? Tucker Carlson, a recent victim of the uniparty monopoly, put it very well. “Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one-party state,” he said in a post-Fox video. “That’s a depressing realization,” he added. “But it’s not permanent.” I think he is right about both things: the depressing reality that the United States looks more and more like a one-party state and the fact that the situation is not, at least not necessarily, permanent.

Extremists have got to learn to take half a loaf. Just like the cheap labor-demanding GOP donors, pro-lifers need to be told: you can’t get everything you want. If Republicans give you this, they’ll lose their jobs, and the people who’ll replace them want you dead. Unlike a lot of people complaining about the anti-abortion zealots, I am an anti-abortion zealot. That’s why I’m begging them to stop pushing wildly unpopular ideas. These fanatics are going to get millions more babies killed when Democrats win supermajorities in both houses of Congress and immediately pass a federal law making abortion-on-demand the law of the land.

The Democratic establishment has never looked more vulnerable to progressive upheaval; Biden's supposed leadership bridge to a new generation leads nowhere. "Moderate" darling transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg has seen his slim national prospects dwindle with every near-miss in the air and toxic train derailment on the ground. Vice President Kamala Harris has been about as visible as Biden was on the 2020 campaign trail — and a geriatric Capitol Hill leadership class appears on its last legs. The scene is set for the party’s progressives to strike. And yet there is little relief in sight for the party’s left wing as its own geriatric champion rides off into the sunset.

North Carolina sparked some hope for the GOP future this week, after the “historic” defection of a longtime Democratic legislator handed Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the state’s House of Representatives. State representative Tricia Cotham, a moderate now-former Democrat, was joined at a press conference by her new colleagues in the state House’s Republican conference and US House representative Dan Bishop, who was on crutches after injuring himself playing pickleball. “I didn’t care if I had to have the leg amputated, I was going to be standing next to Tricia,” he told me.

President Biden has been clear: he’s itching to attack Republicans for “wanting to cut Medicare.” But he’s running into a problem: his own administration rolled out a little-noticed rules change that’s poised to slash benefits for millions of retirees across the country. The change could jeopardize his own standing with a crucial voting bloc and could put down-ballot Democrats in electoral peril.  Biden has used everything from the pages of the New York Times to his State of the Union’s teleprompter to accuse Republicans of wanting to slash benefits to seniors who’ve paid into the retirement fund.

She only officially entered the presidential race on Saturday, and already critics are counting Marianne Williamson out. To be fair, I understand why. On paper — and off paper for that matter — she is not your traditional candidate. The author and spiritual advisor made waves in 2020 with her eccentric debate moments, including her focus on the moon landing and her insistence on harnessing love for political purposes to defeat Donald Trump. But this time around, Williamson and her ethereal diction might be able to seize on one of President Biden’s major weaknesses: his incredible lack of empathy. During the 2020 election, one of the media’s major selling points for their favorite hair-sniffer was that he was a person who cared.