Rep. Justin Amash, who toyed with running for president as a third-party candidate, has decided against doing so. Amash has come – however slowly – to see that, in his words, “circumstances don’t lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year.” His candidacy was always a bad idea. See Only a Grand…
Politics
Politics, Trump
3 Views of the Trump Digital Campaign Operation
by JOHN ADAMS •
Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, is proud of the digital campaign operation he’s created for Trump’s election. He’s even referred to it (absurdly) as a ‘Death Star’ operation. Views of the Trump digital offering are mixed. Dave Weigel sees Trump digital platform as interactively engaging for Trump’s fans: Trump 2020 did not let me go…
Coronavirus, Federal Government, Local Government, Planning, Politics, Public Health, State Government
A Necessary Public Policy Question
by JOHN ADAMS •
Now, and ending one knows not when, public policy proposals that involve human interaction should address, as a necessary element, the question of whether the coronavirus pandemic affects the proposal. A person might assume that he could walk through a forest without ever encountering a wolf, and even convince himself that, by power of suggestion…
Politics, Trump, U.S. Senate
Forced Retirement
by JOHN ADAMS •
Libertarians, Never Trump, Politics, Presidential race 2020
Repost: Only a Grand Coalition Will Prevail
by JOHN ADAMS •
Posted originally 4.14.20 — and still true. One reads that Justin Amash, a congressman from Michigan, is thinking about a third-party run for the presidency. Forget him; only a grand coalition will assure Trump’s defeat. Those of us who are Never Trump (mostly conservatives but some libertarians as I am), are part of a diverse…
Courts, Elections, Law, Legislature, Politics, Public Health, Wisconsin
‘This Principle Is More Important Than Winning’
by JOHN ADAMS •
In the New York Times, Justice-elect Jill Karofsky writes I’m the Judge Who Won in Wisconsin. This Principle Is More Important Than Winning (‘We must get away from a partisan view of the law‘): In cities like Milwaukee and Green Bay, the wait [to vote] ended up being as long as three hours. And because the…
America, Bigotry, History, Mendacity, Politics, Race, Wisconsin, WISGOP
WISGOP Treasurer Brian Westrate ‘Well Understands’ Nothing
by JOHN ADAMS •
A horde of ignorant, but racially motivated, men infest the Wisconsin GOP. Brian Westrate is a good example of playing to this bad condition: in an attempt to discourage racist Republicans from displaying Confederate banners at a protest, he erroneously (and outrageously) contended that he did “well understand that the Confederacy was more about states…
America, History, Politics, Trump, Unfit
Great American Speeches
by JOHN ADAMS •
Coronavirus, Federal Government, Politics, Public Health, Trump
Frontline‘s Covering Coronavirus: A Tale of Two Washingtons
by JOHN ADAMS •
What the feud between President Trump and Washington Gov. Inslee reveals about federal-state tensions in the coronavirus fight. In his conversation with Gov. Inslee, FRONTLINE correspondent Miles O’Brien discovers that “what should be a partnership with the federal government is like this hostile relationship.” Inslee describes a scenario in which states are left competing with each other for…
America, Coronavirus, History, Politics, Public Health, Trump
How to Handle a Crisis
by JOHN ADAMS •
Babbittry, Boosterism, City, Culture, Local Government, Politics
Local Voting & Voting Locally in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
The spring election, conducted during a pandemic, is now behind Wisconsin. There’s little question that statewide, it was a good night for Jill Karofsky and Lisa Neubauer. (I supported both candidates.) Whitewater – the city proper – also supported these candidates. A majority of the city’s voters did, in fact, prefer these voters even while…
Bad Ideas, Coronavirus, Politics, Public Health, Religion, Scott Fitzgerald, Speaker Vos
If Vos & Fitzgerald Read More, and Spoke Less
by JOHN ADAMS •
So Speaker Vos and Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald want Gov. Evers to allow an exception to the Safer at Home order for Easter Sunday services. (They’ve also included Passover in their request, but they’re either too ignorant or too dishonest to concede that Passover is commemorated traditionally in a home setting. It’s obviously a certain…
Democrats, Elections, Never Trump, Politics, Presidential race 2020, Republicans, Television, Trump
The Unexpected (But Welcome) Never-Trump Haven @ MSNBC
by JOHN ADAMS •
Culture, Politics, Sloth, Television
Preparedness
by JOHN ADAMS •
Chris Matthews of MSNBC resigned (was pushed out, truly) on Monday night. Much has been made – rightly – of how his comments about his female guests made him unsuitable for his role. In the Washington Post, Margaret Sullivan raises a second objection, worth considering, to Matthews’s work: he was too-often unprepared. Sullivan writes that…