For years some people in New York City who knew Donald Trump said that based on his lack of ethics in both business and his personal life he should not have sought the Republican Party nomination. Trump would not fare well, they said, with every aspect of his life under the microscope. Though Trump would not have known the word that best defined his attitude in 2015, anyone with a healthy vocabulary called it hubris. Throughout his life, countless stories have surfaced concerning his refusal to pay legitimate bills and cheating both on his taxes and his multiple wives. Skirting the laws and g ..read more

It is not a place if we had a real choice, where we would be standing. Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has not demonstrated the wisdom or soundness of action while holding the gavel.  That was clearly demonstrated during the COVID pandemic starting in 2020 and showcased around the nation when in 2021 Vos knelt figuratively to Donald Trump. He failed to stand up to the election deniers and played far too close to the edge of the cliff when stating, “He (Trump) really wants to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to get to the bottom of what actually happened in 2020 ..read more

When the deplorable element of the electorate in 2016 voted for one of their own to sit in the Oval Office we knew the political norms of our country had cratered to the trashy side. But we could not have known the depths that we would travel due to grievance-prone and perpetually resentment-strapped white male voters. This week, we held our noses and slid deeper into the place the underside of the Trump base has taken our nation. Here then, are the editorial cartoons that say it better than a long column could today. Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon ..read more

November 22, 1963. President Kennedy speaks at a parking lot rally at a Texas hotel. L-R: President Kennedy, [unidentified], Senator Ralph W. Yarborough, Governor John Connally, Vice President Johnson. Photograph by Cecil Stoughton, White House. One of the often-used lines at our home is, “What would Lyndon Johnson do?”  Those words are offered after one of the far too usual stories from the dysfunctional House of Representatives where the Republican majority have more fondness for eating their own than offering any reason the nation should feel comfortable with their ‘leadership’.  ..read more

When asked who is the politician most divorced (no pun intended) from facts it would be Donald Trump. His whole life has been of a con artist grifting to make money, and since 2015 playing to voters without regard for the truth. But we keep asking, how is it so many of his supporters are gleeful to follow along? New data strongly suggests as NBC reported this week, that his base is easily led by Trump due to the fact they are utterly uninformed about the facts of the political world around them.   Since 2015, the year of the infamous escalator ride followed by the disgusting racist ..read more

The Republican Party wonders why they lose elections. It cannot be due to the presidential nominee being a fascist with an absolute baboonish personality, a gubernatorial candidate playing to an election-denying base, or a county board candidate being an anti-vaccine jokester. No, those cannot be reasons for the GOP coming up on the short end on the day of balloting. It must be something else. Now, what might that be? Well, the GOP leaders got together and figured out a way to cover their own self-inflicted losses with one of their nonsensical arguments that plays so well to the angry white b ..read more

This is going to be one of those weekends when we pay close attention to what is happening in Congress as the House has opened debate on several foreign aid bills, the most important being the needed support of Ukraine. That policy move is vital. Period. But given the fact we are also dealing with the most absurd base of the GOP opting for tantrums and their usual level of histrionics as they do the work of Russian President Vladimir Putin in combined efforts to undermine the process and the vote, means this political sideshow to the serious work of governing will also be on our radar. While ..read more

If you want to know how truly dysfunctional the House of Representatives is, or how devoid of principles the majority party of that chamber has become, all you need to do is consider the question that everyone in D.C. is asking. Can House Speaker Mike Johson keep his job if he does the work that this nation must engage in, so to meet the needs of the international community? Looming over that political question is a most powerfully driven one that each citizen must ask.  Will the United States be able to lead with funds, military hardware, and absolute resolve with ongoing efforts to rem ..read more

Two newspaper articles were appropriately placed alongside each other in Sunday’s Wisconsin State Journal that speaks to an issue we need to have more honest conversations about as a nation. The causes and the resulting consequences of spreading partisan lies and completely unfounded nonsense about our election processes are not new topics. The result of those lies is a growing acceptance of political violence in our nation, and that is something we simply must repudiate in the strongest means possible.  A troubling increase in the number of voters, as evidenced by polling data, even rati ..read more

I, along with many other politicos, have stated early and often that the 2024 presidential election would be won or lost on the abortion issue.  We have also stated the majority in the House of Representatives will be won or lost on the abortion issue, and several key Senate races will come down to the question of whether women should be able to make their own reproductive healthcare choices.  This week events have again occurred to underscore the potency of the abortion issue, and how the Republican Party finds itself far apart from the vast majority of the nation who favor pro-cho ..read more