Articles

Essays and opinion pieces from our hosts and listeners involving American politics touching on current events, politics, history, and the like.

Don’t Score the Debate Until SNL Does

September 26, 2016

Immediately after Monday night’s debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the cable networks will use pundits and flash polls to try to tell you who won. Don’t believe them. On Tuesday they will parade out campaign surrogates and online polls to tell you who won. Don’t believe them. On Wednesday and Thursday they will use newspaper editorials and major national polls to tell you who won. And you may think by then you know how it all played out.

But you still won’t.

Don’t score the first presidential debate until Saturday Night Live lampoons it when the show returns for its 42nd season on October 1, and the news media reacts to that event. Only then will you know who really came out on top.

Though it’s only a comedy show, SNL has set the national perception for presidential debates going back four decades. Political pundits can analyze and deconstruct the real matchup, but well-written satire almost always creates the more lasting – and damaging – impression. Read More

Stop Blaming Hillary for Iraq

September 19, 2016

I was on a thread in my Facebook political group, Open Fire, arguing with hardcore liberals who still blame Hillary Clinton for the Iraq War because of her vote for the 2002 Iraq War Resolution. But when I asked them these questions, I got nothing back:

1) Who did you vote for in 2004? If you voted for Sen. John Kerry and Sen. John Edwards, you voted for two of the senators who voted with Hillary for the War Resolution. So why was it okay to support them for the White House but not her? Read More

Show Me That Voter

September 12, 2016

by Kevin Kelton

Show me that voter. Show me that guy who is now thinking, “Hm…I was going to vote for Hillary Clinton. I prefer her positions and her values, and I think she’d make a better president than Donald Trump. But now that she might be in less-than-perfect health, I think I have to vote for Trump. Because, should Hillary die in office, God forbid that Tim Kaine becomes president!”

Really? Do you really think that voting logic exists? I mean, sure, I guess in a country of 330 million people, there might be a handful of voters – even several dozen – who could come to that warped conclusion. Because any crazy thing you can think of will probably occur to some idiot someplace.

But really, does anyone in the news media or in politics really think that there is a treasure trove of leaning-Hillary voters out there who would have to toss a coin to decide whether to vote for Donald Trump or Tim Kaine?!

Read More

I’m Not You, But…

August 30, 2016
I’m not a woman, and probably never will be. (Sorry, guys.) But if I were a woman, I couldn’t see voting for anyone but Hillary Clinton. Not BECAUSE she’s a woman. But because her policies and career prove her to be a passionate advocate for the issues that most directly affect women’s lives. Trump’s policies will make it harder for single working mothers to pay for childcare, harder to get health insurance, harder to afford college and, by the way he is vociferously supporting Roger Ailes, probably harder to deter sexual harassment in the workplace. Hillary Clinton says “women’s rights are human rights.” Donald Trump never says a single word about either.
 
I’m not black. But if I were, I couldn’t see voting for anyone but Hillary Clinton. How could blacks even think of voting for Donald Trump, who took sides against the BLM movement in favor of tougher policing and a crackdown on violent crime (which he implies is mostly caused by blacks and illegal immigrants). Trump says he wants to “crack down” on inner city street crime. But everyone who’s paying attention knows that means cracking down with stop and frisk, presumptive policing, racial and ethnic profiling, longer prison sentencing guidelines, more death penalty prosecutions, and Kent State style militarized responses to civil protest. Trump doesn’t care about black people; he cares about white people who are suspicious of black people. Hillary Clinton used the term “super predator” once twenty years ago. Trump uses the word “thug” as often as a first name. Donald Trump’s America is a conceal carry America, a George Zimmerman America, a Philando Castile America, and a Sandra Bland America.

In fact, in Trump’s America, the photo above might just as easily look like this:

No, this is NOT a real photo. But that underlying message comes through in Trump's policies.

Read More

Is Trump Good for Israel?

August 30, 2016

One of the crazier outgrowths of this election year is how many of my Jewish liberal friends are planning to vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson instead of Hillary Clinton, making it more possible that Donald Trump could become our next president. I wonder if these staunch supporters of Israel’s right to exist have even thought about what it would mean for the Jewish state if Trump wins. Let’s take a look.

What are the biggest threats to Israel’s security these days?

  1. Iran developing nukes
  2. An emboldened Bashir al-Assad in Syria
  3. The development of a territorial Islamic State
  4. Growing regional tensions with Egypt, the Arab street, and northern Africa

In every one of those concerns, a Trump presidency vastly increases the risks. Read More

Why Not Indict James Comey?

August 9, 2016

Every day on Facebook I see several posts claiming that FBI Director James Comey said Hillary Clinton had lied about her emails, and several posts counter-arguing that Comey proved Hillary didn’t lie. It all proves to me one very unimpeachable fact: James Comey did a crappy job of clearing things up.

In his July 5th press conference, reading from a prepared script, Comey mixed up his explanation of what material was marked classified, what wasn’t, and whether it was indeed classified at the time or not. He further expressed his opinion that Clinton exhibited “extreme carelessness,” a subjective opinion not bound in law and therefore beyond the scope of his official responsibilities. The FBI director is not supposed to give opinions or pass judgments beyond what is legal and what is not. His job was to find evidence of criminal wrongdoing, not to evaluate Mrs. Clinton’s performance as Secretary of State.

Then, in his July 7th testimony before congress, Comey backtracked on most of the so-called facts he had laid out a few days earlier. He acknowledged that only three out of 30,000 emails were indeed suspected of containing any material that was classified at the time, that those emails had no formal headers to show them being classified, just a small (c) marking in the body of the text, and that it was therefore a “reasonable inference” for Clinton to think they weren’t classified. He also changed his characterization from “extreme carelessness” to “great carelessness” (a distinction lost on me) and gave plenty of other testimony to either exonerate Clinton or dilute his earlier, stinging rebuke from behind his FBI lectern. Read More

The Politics of Presidential Impressions

August 5, 2016

As you know, I often pontificate about politics without any professional experience, inside expertise, or anyone listening. So today I thought I’d change things up a bit by writing about a subject I actually do know something about: political comedy. Or, as it’s known in the industry, political comedy.

In my distant past, I’ve written for dozens of TV series and major bombs, including election year stints at Saturday Night Live and Fridays, a truly unmemorable sketch comedy show that ran from 1980 to who cares. So my professional bona fides clearly qualify me to make stuff up on this topic.

Starting with SNL in 1976 AD, it’s been an American tradition for sketch comedy shows to mock and humiliate presidential candidates, much to the chagrin of everyone involved but Donald Trump. And what I’ve noticed is that you can predict a lot from the impression the actors do. For instance, I can predict with fair accuracy that these debate sketches will happen every four years, except February. And that Morning Joe will show clips without either host understanding them. Read More

Dispelling the Trump Invincibility Myth

August 4, 2016

An urban myth of legendary proportions has built up around Donald Trump. The fable is that Trump defies all rules of politics and polling, so that no matter what deficiencies or giant screw ups he shows on the campaign trail, he will somehow turnout out masses of previously unidentified voters to defeat mere mortal politicians and install him in the Oval Office with ease.

I don’t buy it, and neither should you.

Sure, Trump surprised us all by vanquishing his 16 more experienced primary opponents. (Well, 15 more experience. I still don’t know what the heck Ben Carson was doing there.)

But he didn’t do it with black magic or voodoo. While all the pundits may have dismissed his chances, Trump was leading in almost every GOP primary poll since July 2015. So it wasn’t a Houdini trick that Trump won the primaries; it was our refusal to believe what was right in front of our own eyes. Read More

A Jobs Program That Costs Us Nothing

August 3, 2016

by Kevin Kelton

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to merge two opposing problems into one solution. I think Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump could score a major policy victory by addressing jobs and untaxed offshore profits at the same time.

American companies are currently holding 2.4 trillion dollars in accumulated profits offshore to avoid what they consider onerous U.S. corporate tax rates. That’s almost $800 billion in owed taxes that we may never ever see.

To get that money back into the U.S. economy, politicians are proposing temporary preferential tax rates – called a transition tax – that they’d like to apply to those profits to coerce them back to the United States. President Obama has proposed a transition tax rate of 14%, but corporate lobbyists and their bagmen in congress are balking that it’s too high. Some want it at ten percent, some want it at six or less – rates so low that they would be seen as a giant giveaway to corporate greed. Some even propose a “tax holiday” by setting the rate at zero.

That’s not a “holiday.” That’s a full and absolute pardon.

At the same time, American companies are not hiring at as brisk a pace as we need to grow GDP and spark wage growth.

So how about we merge the two problems into one solution? What if we made creating American jobs a patriotic and profitable thing to do? Read More

Bill Maher May Have Just Won It For Trump

July 31, 2016

I like Bill Maher’s politics, but he may have just put Donald Trump in the White House. On his “Real Time” show this week, Maher noted that Bernie Sanders seems to defy normal age limitations and that “You can run again in four years” – sending that defiant message out to his predominantly liberal 4.4 million viewers, most of whom probably supported Sanders over Clinton.

Way to go, Bill! After several weeks of castigating Bernie Bros. for threatening to throw away their votes on Jill Stein or just not vote, which he knows could cost Clinton the election, he’s now given Bernie fanatics a perfect excuse to not support Hillary.

Their logic? “Sure, voting for Stein or Johnson might elect Trump. But so what if he fills a SCOTUS seat or two? In four years Bernie can run again, whup Trump’s ass, and all will be right with the universe.”

If only a tenth of Maher’s audience gloms onto that idea, that’s almost half a million lost votes right there. And I guarantee you that that message will spread on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit millions of times. That ahead of an election where just a few thousand lost votes could change the outcomes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Colorado, and/or Iowa.

So if Jill Stein ends up exceeding expectations this year, costing Hillary the election, you have Bill Maher to thank for it. I’m sure Donald Trump is already thanking him.

Kevin Kelton is co-host of “The More Perfect Union” podcast and founder of the Facebook political discussion group, OPEN FIRE. Come join us for the best political debate in town.

The Problem Isn’t Our Candidates

July 22, 2016

by Kevin Kelton

I keep hearing the same forlorn complaint: “Why do we have such bad candidates this year? Why must we choose between the lesser of two evils?” But the truth is, our 2016 presidential candidates are not any worse than ever before.

Donald Trump, for all his personal peccadillos, is no worse on policy than Mitt Romney, who also promised anti-choice judges and a repeal of Obamacare, wanted to press immigrants to self-deport, and proposed tax cuts just as massive and just as onerous as Trump’s. And they are both just as recklessly hawkish and just as wealth-gap enabling as John McCain or George W. Bush. Take out Trump’s antipathy for trade deals (one of his few plusses), and you could line up all their policy positions in a spreadsheet and not be able to tell who belongs to which column.

Hillary Clinton, for all the GOP-inspired caricature myths about her trustworthiness and cozy relationship with Wall St., is very much in line politically and temperamentally with previous nominees Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore, and Michael Dukakis. Read More

Kelly Thomas Police Beating Video

July 10, 2016

This is the video that is mentioned in our episode 44 podcast (“Politics, Policing, Pride, and Prejudice”) that shows the violent police arrest of Kelly Thomas in Fullerton, Los Angeles that led to his death.

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