Rest In Peace, Suzanne Somers

Congratulations to Jeff Landry!

Congratulations to Jeff Landry, the new governor-elect of Louisiana!

I think that everyone expected Landry to win the governor’s office.  What wasn’t expected was that he would do so well in the first round of voting that he would win the office without having to go to a run-off.

Landy, a Republican, replaces John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who governed largely like a Republican.

Why Would Anyone Want To Be Speaker Of The House

I don’t know that I could think of a less appealing job in Washington, D.C. right now than being Speaker of the House.  Not only do you have to govern with a tiny majority but you also have to do it with the constant threat of grifters that Matt Gaetz decided to come after you.

Steve Scalise would have been a fine Speaker but he can’t get the votes so he withdrew his name.  Jim Jordan appears to be the replacement selection but again, it seems like it’s going to be a struggle for him to win on the first ballot.

At this point, I’d be in favor of giving the Speaker to a totally random member of leadership, someone like Tom Emmer or even Guy Reschenthaler.  There’s too much going on in the world right now to justify continuing to dither when it comes to picking a Speaker of the House.

Kari Lake Is Running Again

I guess because the GOP has decided that they enjoy losing races that they would otherwise be favored to win, Kari Lake is now running for the U.S. Senate in Arizona.  The fact that the voters of Arizona selected an incompetent nonentity like Katie Hobbes over Lake in 2022 should tell you all you need to know about how Lake and her brand of election denialism has been received in Arizona.

But again, Hobbes is running and it sounds like the Arizona Republican Party has resigned itself to accepting her as their candidate.  I miss the old day when losing a race that you should have won effectively ended a politician’s career.  Now, if someone loses, you literally can’t get rid of them.  They just keep on running and losing by even bigger margins.

Personally, I think Kari Lake would have been a strong candidate for governor and perhaps even higher office after that if she hadn’t 1) jumped on the election denial train and 2) told McCain supporters that she didn’t want their votes.  But she did and it seems likely she’ll do it again.  The end result?  Arizona will end up electing Ruben Gallego, a politician who makes John Fetterman seem calm and thoughtful by comparison.  It’s a shame though you have to wonder how many McCain voters, faced with a choice between Lake and Gallego, will just vote for Kyrsten Sinema instead?

Steve Garvey Is Running

Steve Garvey has made it official.  The former baseball great is running for the U.S. Senate in California and he’s running as Republican.

Back when Garvey was still playing, he was one of those people who was always mentioned as a potential candidate for political office.  Unfortunately, he waited until he was 74 years old and had been out of the spotlight for three decades to announce his candidacy.  I doubt Steve Garvey is going to make it to the Senate but still, at least the Republicans now have a somewhat credible and accomplished candidate as opposed to having to give their support to whichever perennial candidate has decided to run.

Will Hurd Is Out

Former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd has ended his presidential campaign.  Most people didn’t have the slightest idea who Will Hurd was and he didn’t qualify for any of the debates.  Still, when Hurd originally announced his candidacy, he got the type of glowing coverage that most candidates could only dream about.

Hurd endorsed Nikki Haley for President.  I have a feeling that we’re heading for a repeat of 2016 with Donald Trump playing himself, Ron DeSantis taking on the role of Ted Cruz, and Nikki Haley having the misfortune to be this election’s John Kasich.  I sincerely hope that I’m wrong about that.  A Trump vs. Biden do-over is definitely what this country does not need at the point in its history.

End Of An Era

I just read that the Iowa Caucuses will no longer be first in the nation when it comes to the Democratic presidential nomination race.  Instead, Iowa Democrats will be voting during Super Tuesday and New Hampshire and South Carolina will be the first states to vote.

It shouldn’t make that much of a difference during this upcoming election, unless something happen that causes Biden not to run again.  Of course, there’s a lot of reason why Biden shouldn’t run again but he appears to be determined to do so and I doubt being challenged by either Dean Phillips or maybe Joe Manchin is going to be a huge factor for him in 2024.  (Remember when William Weld, Mark Sanford, and Joe Walsh all tried to run against Trump in the 2020 primaries?)

Still, whether it makes a difference or not, this feels like the end of an era and perhaps an acknowledgement on the part of the Democrats that Iowa isn’t going to be a competitive state for them.  Believe me, if they thought they had any chance of winning Iowa in ’24, they would never have moved the caucuses.

The Useful Idiots Make Their Voice Heard

Seeing news reports of pro-Hamas demonstrations across America, Canada, and the UK is disturbing.  Some of these people are driven by anti-Semitism.  Others are driven by the fact that they’ve been told, again and again, that anything done against Israel can be justified on anti-Colonial grounds, regardless of how brutal, cruel, and barbaric the actions may be.

Lenin used to refer to people like this as being “useful idiots” and indeed, there’s a lot of them out and making themselves known today.

Standing With Israel

The images and the news that have been coming out of Israel have been horrifying.  Unfortunately, if you’re only getting your news from the mainstream press, you have no idea just how bad things are or just how savage and bloodthirsty that attacks by Hamas truly are.  There is no justification for the attacks that were launched against Israel and anyone who says otherwise is either a flat-out anti-Semite or a useful idiot.

Israel is at war now and I will be paying close attention to who supports Israel’s right to defend itself and who, instead, is making excuses for Hamas.  Far too many people on the American Left have allowed themselves to bamboozled by the pro-Hamas lobby.  That’s one thing that’s been very obvious today as various Democrats have issued weak statements, calling for a cease-fire as if this wasn’t an unprovoked attack that was launched by one side against another.

In fairness, there are some members of the Democrat Party who unequivocally condemned the actions of Hamas and their supporters.  John Fetterman deserves credit for his comment.  So do Jared Moskowitz and Ritchie Torres.  Among the presidential candidates, Ron DeSantis condemned the attacks before either Joe Biden or Donald Trump even commented on them.

If you can’t take a stand against terrorism, what can you take a stand against?

Cornel West Is Not Green

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk (mostly online) about how Cornel West’s presidential candidacy could take votes away from Biden.  I wouldn’t worry too much about that happening because, as far as I can tell, West is a totally incompetent political strategist.

The Green Party was apparently prepared to nominate West and give him ballot access in every state in the union.  However, West has now announced that he will not run for the Green Party nomination but instead, will be running as a true, grass-roots, non-affiliated independent.  As countless aspiring third party politicians can tell you, there’s no better way to guarantee that you won’t even appear on the majority of the country’s ballots than to try to go at something like this alone.

I’m not sure what West’s logic is here but it doesn’t seem likely he’s going to be much of a factor, one way or the other, in 2024.