Joe Biden just can't get his story straight on his green energy promises.
In Pittsburgh, in front of union workers last month, he declared: "I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again. I am not banning fracking. No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me."
"There is no... sound reason for the United States to continue sacrificing precious lives and treasure in a conflict not directly connected to our safety or other vital national interests."
The presidential campaign is at knife's edge. Both parties' campaigns assume that patterns of support will closely resemble those in 2016. And both are making surprisingly little effort, considering how close that contest turned out to be, with the 46 crucial electoral votes decided by just 77,744 votes, to increase their levels of support.
If Donald Trump loses the election, history will attribute his defeat to a pandemic that killed 200,000 Americans during his reelection campaign, and a historic depression deliberately induced to put the economy in a coma as the nation suffered through that pandemic.
In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden had this uninspiring assessment of America's current predicament: "The president keeps telling us the virus is going to disappear. He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him: No miracle is coming."
Front and center in the raging debate between liberals and progressives over whether they should support Joe Biden or opt out of the two-party trap by voting third party or not at all is the assumption that Biden would do less harm both to the world and to American leftism than Donald Trump.
To that nagging question, the answer increasingly seems to be yes.
When U.S. cities erupted after the death of George Floyd, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was in the vanguard of the protests, renaming a section of downtown Black Lives Matter Plaza, and painting the name in letters on the street so huge they could be seen from space.
Watch what people do, not what they say. Politicians who say one thing and do another are called hypocrites, but perhaps they have inside knowledge that the average person does not possess.
That the public is less confident in Biden’s chances than the polls could have a down-ballot impact; 14 House rating changes.
— Perceptions of the presidential race could have some impact down the ballot.
— Ticket-splitting is on the decline, but plenty of voters will vote for different parties for president and House, perhaps to the benefit of candidates from both parties.
— We are making 14 House rating changes, 10 in favor of Democrats and four in favor of Republicans. The changes don’t really impact our overall House assessment, which is that we are not expecting much net change in the makeup of the House.
The media obsess about Trump/Biden, but another candidate will be on every state ballot: Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen.
American workers across the wage scale are hurting. Small-business owners across the country are fighting for their survival. Young people face more uncertainty than ever about their futures and ability to put food on the table.
President Donald Trump isn't the first incumbent president to run for reelection facing a deficit in the late summer polls. At this stage of the election cycle in 1948, no one thought Democrat Harry Truman had a prayer of winning as he sank in the polls.
In northeast Syria last week, a U.S. military vehicle collided with a Russian armored vehicle, injuring four American soldiers.
"Jesus, Ted. All you ever do," some people tell me, "is complain. We get it -- you hate both the Republicans and the Democrats. We don't like them either. But those are the only two parties that have a chance of winning an election. Stop telling us what not to do. Tell us what you think we should do instead."
Is Joe Biden forfeiting the law-and-order issue to Donald Trump?
So it would seem.
You know the first two nights of the Republicans' virtual national convention have gone well when you see that Politico's morning Playbook leads with a lame joke about the U.S. Postal Service hiring a new lobbyist, aimed at reviving the post office non-scandal. Ho, ho, ho!
— After President Obama’s narrow win there in 2008, light red North Carolina has proved elusive for Democrats — but it remains a target for both sides.
— North Carolina’s politics are increasingly shaped by its growing bloc of unaffiliated voters.
— Over the past decade, North Carolina’s traditional east-west divide has evolved into more of an urban-rural split — a pattern seen in many other states.
— In a state known for volatile Senate races, 2020’s contest should be true to form, and further down the ballot, voters will weigh in on several statewide races.
Here we go again: Manufacture. Rinse. Repeat.
Everyone knows the cycle. Everyone knows it ends with false and incomplete narratives eventually being debunked by actual facts. Everyone knows that the racial mythmakers and political opportunists end up with fame, wealth and glory -- but never any criminal punishments or moral accountability.
