February 20, 2023

Boebert and Taylor-Greene once again display their racist bigotry and their ignorance of America

and its idealism.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/02/boebert-and-greene-again-anti-patriots.html

They are anti-American and anti-Patriotic and completely ignorant of American history.

February 17, 2023

Election shenangans in an Arizona county will go away when the voters recall

their two current Republican supervisors. These two are violating the public trust big time, ignoring voters and doing their own election denying thing. So recall them.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-solution-to-cochise-county-arizonas.html

February 15, 2023

Can we stop this?

The media, even the so-called left wing liberal media, keeps babbling about 2024 as if Trump is just another legitimate Republican candidate and as if there are no indictments hanging over his head and he didn't lead an insurrection against the United States and everything is all hunky dory so we can have something to talk about on our broadcast time. I want to throw something at the television when that happens.

There should never be a mention of Trump's candidacy without adding to it his criminal conduct and while I understand that we cannot put any pressure at all on the justice department, and must walk on eggshells around the word "indictment" and can't make our feelings known that this criminal insurrectionist, illegitimate traitor is walking around free and running for president again and should be in jail now awaiting the first of many trials for his multiple crimes.

I picked up the phone this morning and called MSNBC during Scarborough. I let them have it. Anyone else want to do the same? Maybe we can get at least some journalists to acknowledge that fact. Trump's candidacy should never be mentioned without the cloud of criminal investigation hanging over him.

Or maybe they already know he's not going to be indicted. Then they should tell us that so we can all move on.

February 13, 2023

The reputation earned by preacher's kids fits Sarah Huckabee Sanders

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/02/reputation-earned-by-preachers-kids.html

Of course, as a Southern Baptist, I knew about all of the denominational politics in the 80's and 90's, and about Mike Huckabee as a "rising star" among megachurch pastors, serving a term as President of the state convention of Southern Baptists in Arkansas, more of a peer recognition than a position of real power. The Baptist Press featured his transition to politics in Arkansas prominently, and when he stepped into the governor's office after a scandal, they crowed.

So when Sanders, raised as a Baptist preacher's daughter, with a political science and mass communications degree from Ouachita Baptist University, stepped into national prominence as the Trump administration's press secretary, following the Sean Spicer disaster, with the responsibility of repeating his outrageous lies and trying to justify them, my thoughts instantly turned to the stereotype about preacher's kids. That's exactly what we got. Her appointment was obviously a political favor to his Evangelical constituency. She's not articulate, has an annoying habit of attempting to over-ride an accent, is a dull, expressionless public speaker and was repeatedly backed into corners or verbally flattened by reporters. She earned, and solidified a public reputation as a denier of facts and a purveyor of outrageous lies. She was nicknamed, appropriately, "Sarah Pinocchio."

Sanders, as a newly elected governor of a deep red state, with a degree in political science that should have helped her discern the kind of opportunity she was being given, not only to reset a narrative that cost her party dearly in the midterm elections and raised optimism of a sweep election for the Democrats in 2024, but which also had the potential, God forbid, of launching her own possible bid for higher office. She chose neither of those possibilities, opting instead to simply repeat tired culture war themes that were at the top of reasons which moved independents and some moderate Republicans to the left, allowing everything the President said to stand unchallenged, including calling out GOP attempts to cut Social Security and Medicare, which he has raised to the level of a sonic boom across the country.

February 12, 2023

Lots of talk about President Biden's age, and running again in 2024 in the media. I think they need

to focus on what's being accomplished, but who am I to suggest the media and pundits get real?

One of the absolutely essential political realities of 2024 is that Democrats continue to control Congress and keep the White House. I hope there are broader gains and if the GOP keeps its focus on the pursuit of culture wars and non-existent evidence for their conspiracy theory investigations, a big victory for Democrats in 2024 is coming.

Honest questions, though.

How big of a concern is Biden's age? I'm not seeing it at the moment but lots can happen in a few years.

And if he doesn't run, who does that can win? And the top of the ticket needs to carry down the ballot and even into states to pick up seats and offices.

February 11, 2023

The far right's culture war is failing

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-far-rights-culture-war-is-failing.html

What I would like to know, and have been looking for information to find out, is what kind of rating the Republican culture war is getting from the voters. Their mishmash of everything they've gathered under the umbrella of their use of the now outdated term "Woke" which they are trying to convince people are the legislative agenda priorities of their opposition, even as the opposition's focus isn't on any of that, except opposition to the bigotry and white supremacy that drips off the anti-woke Republican culture warriors. I'd like to see the long term political effects of waging a war against wokeness, banning books, restricting school courses and violating the free speech and expression of thousands upon thousands of Americans. For some reason, pollsters don't seem to want to find out what people think of conspiracy theories, election denying and fighting to discriminate and take people's rights away from them.

Judging from the results of the midterm elections, I'd say that agenda is not doing well at all. Gerrymandered congressional districts were the main reason for the GOP's being able to get back a House majority, though it is not anywhere near what they would have liked, nor will it be effective in pushing the empty agenda of their investigations, which are already going nowhere because of a lack of foundational facts submitted in evidence. I don't necessarily read a lot of Florida news, but it seems like their governor's fascist attack on free speech is making some people angry, including many of those who didn't show up to vote.

The Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade, was a massive boost to the Democrats, in spite of opposition to abortion being the central issue of the far right's culture war. That one issue was likely responsible for the kind of turnout among Democrats that they needed. Democrats were highly successful in taking back state houses this midterm, and that was very likely the biggest motivating factor for those voters who turned out. And I think that's an indication that the approach to the culture wars taken by the far right, which is the anchor of their political movement, is not popular with the voters.

February 10, 2023

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is "all hat, no cattle" in her GOP response to the SOTU

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/02/is-this-face-republicans-want-to-put-on.html

We're just past two years into the Biden Administration, and after the best mid-term showing for the party of a sitting President in decades. After predicting that they were going to flip 60 House seats, the GOP had trouble getting to a ten seat majority, and it is far from certain, and getting less certain every day, as the party seems to continue on this losing track, that the majority will hold, especially on extremist legislation and extremist investigations. The Biden Administration is confident it will get the debt ceiling raised without negotiating anything away, and I'd bet on that.

So where was Sanders when Biden was giving his speech? Surely she had a copy of it in advance and was able to see what he was talking about. But with very little actual rebuttal, she let what the President said stand without a challenge, wasting an opportunity for a response which would at least demonstrate a realistic grasp of the situation instead of repeating themes in their extremist code language that cost them control of the Senate, several state legislatures and governorships and a disappointingly small majority in the House that will--mark my words--not support the extremism.

To use a phrase that I sometimes heard growing up in the ranchland of Southern Arizona, she was "all hat and no cattle."

February 9, 2023

Christian Nationalism keeps popping up; It's based on faulty history and theology

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/02/christian-nationalism-is-result-of.html

In a recent survey of more than 6,000 Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institute, 64% of white Evangelical Christians were found to be either firm supporters of Christian nationalism, or sympathetic to it, from agreement with statements such as these. Among Protestants of color, 52% are either considered adherents or in sympathy with Christian nationalist beliefs.

In my Evangelical background, such statements would be taken for granted as true, without any question of their veracity and without requiring any of the support from the biblical text that other doctrinal statements require among them. Most Evangelicals are biblical literalists, believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of the biblical text, and develop their doctrine and theology out of this approach to interpreting the Bible.

But when it comes to Christian Nationalism, which a majority of them see as a matter of settled orthodoxy, the threshold for biblical support, or for historical evidence, drops down to almost nothing. And if biblical text is cited for support, it is usually something from the Old Testament taken completely out of context.

February 8, 2023

One of the best State of the Union addresses of my lifetime!

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2023/02/one-of-best-state-of-union-addresses-of.html

If Republicans want anyone to believe that President Biden's age is a factor in his cognitive ability, sharpness of mind or physical stamina, they shouldn't point to this address as an example. This was a far better display of the grasp of how politics works, of the facts, of organizing a speech that did exactly what Democrats wanted him to do, and that was underline and emphasize what has been a remarkable two years of achievements and accomplishments by this President.

The list of accomplishments which he masterfully worked into this speech would make a series of campaign commercials. He pointed out that gas prices had dropped over a dollar a gallon in the last six months, that inflation is under control, still too high, but being handled by his administration's economic policy. He masterfully tied the crime rate to gun control and a push for control of assault weapons. And he brilliantly linked support for the Ukrainian government in its war against Russia to the foundational principles of American democracy, and got Republicans on the record for their continued support, dragging out applause and even some who decided it was better to stand up than look un-American and anti-patriotic.

In contrast to his predecessor, this speech clearly laid out specific achievements with references to the facts that supported everything he had to say. There was no wandering aimlessly off script, cannonading at gnats and making it difficult to distinguish fact from fantasy. This was the speech of a man who has the experience, knowledge and character to manage the Presidency in a way that few people are capable of doing. He earned, and got my vote the first time, and he has already earned and will get it again, if he decides to run. He is exactly what this country needs at this moment in its history, for the preservation of our democracy.

February 8, 2023

There's no mention at all in any news media sources, even the so called "liberal" ones

of any possibility that Trump might be indicted and not be able to run in the 2024 election. They are accepting that as a matter of course.