The 117 Insurrectionists Running For Re-Election To Congress

 The following comment and illustrations are by Steve Brodner in The Washington Post:

While the violent mob swarmed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, aiming to subvert democracy and keep President Donald Trump in power, another group was already working on the same project inside. In an unsuccessful bid to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, 147 Republicans formally supported objection to counting Joe Biden’s electoral votes.

Some have already left office. But as many as 117 members of Congress are running for reelection in 2024. Here they are, drawn together; a collection of American politicians engaged in using democracy in order to attain the power to subvert it.

Huge Support For Competency Tests For Politicians Over 75

The chart above reflects the result of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 2nd and 5th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,329 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.3 points, and for registered voters is 3.1 points.

Most Think There Should Be An Age Limit For Politicians

The charts above are from the CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done between September 5th and 8th of a nationwide sample of 2,335 adults, with a 2.7 point margin of error.

How Old Is Too Old?

The following is by Robert Reich: 

Nancy Pelosi, at age 83, is running again for Congress. Mitch McConnell, at 81, has had two bouts of freezing in front of news cameras this summer. Dianne Feinstein, the California senator, 90, is having difficulty doing her job. At 80, Joe Biden is the oldest president the United States has ever had. Donald Trump, his likeliest rival in the 2024 election, is 77. Iowa senator Chuck Grassley is 89. The U.S. Senate is at its oldest in history.

How old is too old? In 1900, gerontologists considered “old” to be 47. Today, you are considered “youngest-old” at 65, “middle-old” at 75, and at 85, you are a member of the “oldest-old.”

I ask with some personal stake. I’m now a spritely 77 — lightyears younger than our president. I feel fit, I swing dance and salsa, and I can do 20 pushups in a row. Yet I confess to a certain loss of, shall we say, fizz. 

 

Forgive me if I’ve said this before (I’m old and occasionally repeat myself), but Joe Biden could easily make it until 86, when he’d conclude his second term. After all, it’s now thought a bit disappointing if a person dies before 85. 

Three score and ten is the number of years of life set out in the Bible. Modern technology and Big Pharma should add at least a decade and a half. Beyond this is an extra helping. 

“After 80, it’s gravy,” my father used to say. Joe will be on the cusp of the gravy train.

Where will it end? There’s only one possibility, and that reality occurs to me with increasing frequency. My mother passed at 86, my father two weeks before his 102nd birthday, so I’m hoping for the best, genetically speaking. 

Yet I find myself reading the obituary pages with ever greater interest, curious about how long they lasted and what brought them down. I remember a New Yorker cartoon in which an older reader of the obituaries sees headlines that read only “Older Than Me” or “Younger Than Me.”

Most of the time I forget my age. The other day, after lunch with some of my graduate students, I caught our reflection in a store window and for an instant wondered about the identity of the short old man in our midst.

It’s not death that’s the worrying thing about a second Biden term. It’s the dwindling capacities that go with aging. "Bodily decrepitude," said Yeats, "is wisdom." I have accumulated somewhat more of the former than the latter, but Biden seems fairly spry (why do I feel I have to add “for someone his age?”). 

I still have my teeth, in contrast to my grandfather whom I vividly recall storing his choppers in a glass next to his bed, and have so far steered clear of heart attack or stroke (I pray I’m not tempting fate by my stating this fact). But I’ve lived through several kidney stones and a few unexplained fits of epilepsy in my late thirties. I’ve had both hips replaced. 

And my hearing is crap. Even with hearing aids, I have a hard time understanding someone talking to me in a noisy restaurant. You’d think that the sheer market power of 60 million boomers losing their hearing would be enough to generate at least one chain of quiet restaurants.

When I get together with old friends, our first ritual is an “organ recital” — how’s your back? knee? heart? hip? shoulder? eyesight? hearing? prostate? hemorrhoids? digestion? The recital can run — and ruin — an entire lunch.

The question my friends and I jokingly (and brutishly) asked one other in college—"getting much?"—now refers not to sex but to sleep. 

I don’t know anyone over 75 who sleeps through the night. When he was president, Bill Clinton prided himself on getting only about four hours. But he was in his forties then. (I also recall cabinet meetings where he dozed off.) How does Biden manage?

My memory for names is horrible. I once asked Ted Kennedy how he recalled names and he advised that if a man is over 50, just ask “how’s the back?” and he'll think you know him.

I often can’t remember where I put my wallet and keys or why I’ve entered a room. And certain proper nouns have disappeared altogether. Even when rediscovered, they have a diabolical way of disappearing again. Biden’s secret service detail can worry about his wallet and he’s got a teleprompter for wayward nouns, but I’m sure he’s experiencing some diminution in the memory department.

I have lost much of my enthusiasm for travel and feel, as did Philip Larkin, that I would like to visit China, but only on the condition that I could return home that night. Air Force One makes this possible under most circumstances. If not, it has a first-class bedroom and personal bathroom, so I don’t expect Biden’s trips are overly taxing.

I’m told that after the age of 60, one loses half an inch of height every five years. This doesn’t appear to be a problem for Biden but it presents a challenge for me, considering that at my zenith I didn’t quite make it to five feet. If I live as long as my father did, I may vanish.

Another diminution I’ve noticed is tact. Several months ago, I gave the finger to a driver who passed me recklessly. Giving the finger to a stranger is itself a reckless act. 

I’m also noticing I have less patience, perhaps because of an unconscious “use by” timer that’s now clicking away. Increasingly I wonder why I’m wasting time with this or that buffoon. I’m less tolerant of long waiting lines, automated phone menus, and Republicans.

Cicero claimed "older people who are reasonable, good-tempered, and gracious bear aging well. Those who are mean-spirited and irritable will be unhappy at every stage of their lives." Easy for Cicero to say. He was forced into exile and murdered at the age of 63, his decapitated head and right hand hung up in the Forum by order of the notoriously mean-spirited and irritable Marcus Antonius.

How the hell does Biden maintain tact or patience when he has to deal with Kevin McCarthy or Joe Manchin or the White House press corps? 

The style sections of the papers tell us that the 70s are the new 50s. Septuagenarians are supposed to be fit and alert, exercise like mad, have rip-roaring sex, and party until dawn. Rubbish. Inevitably, things begin falling apart. My aunt, who lived far into her nineties, told me “getting old isn’t for sissies.” Toward the end she repeated that phrase every two to three minutes.

Philosopher George Santayana claimed to prefer old age to all others. "Old age is, or may be as in my case, far happier than youth," he wrote. "I was never more entertained or less troubled than I am now." 

True for me too, in a way. Despite Trump, notwithstanding the seditiousness of the Republican Party, regardless of the ravages of climate change, near record inequality, a potential nuclear war, and another strain of COVID making the rounds, I remain upbeat -- largely because I still spend most days with people in their twenties who buoy my spirits. Maybe Biden does, too.

But I’m feeling more and more out of it. I’m doing videos on TikTok and Snapchat, but when my students talk about Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez or Jared Leto, I don’t have clue who they’re talking about (and frankly don’t care). And I find myself using words –- “hence,” “utmost,” “therefore,” “tony,” “brilliant” — that my younger colleagues find charmingly old-fashioned. 

If I refer to “Rose Marie Woods” or “Jackie Robinson” or “Ed Sullivan” or “Mary Jo Kopechne,” they’re bewildered. 

The culture has flipped in so many ways. When I was seventeen, I could go into a drugstore and confidently ask for a package of Luckies and nervously whisper a request for condoms. Now it’s precisely the reverse. (I stopped smoking long ago.)

Santayana said the reason that old people have nothing but foreboding about the future is that they cannot imagine a world that’s good without themselves in it. I don’t share that view. 

I’m not going to tell Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Grassley, or any other “middle olds” and “oldest olds” what to do. 

But as for myself, I recently made a hard decision. At the end of April, I taught my last class after more than forty years of teaching. Why? I wanted to leave on a high note, when I felt I could still do the job well. I didn’t want to wait until I could no longer give students what they need and deserve. And I hated the thought of students or colleagues whispering about the old guy who shouldn’t be teaching anymore. 

Getting too old to do a job isn’t a matter of chronological age. It’s a matter of being lucid enough to know when you should exit the stage before you no longer have what it takes to do the job well.

America's Most Popular Politicians (YouGov Poll)

 This is from the YouGov Poll. The first number is the percentage that has heard of the person, and the second number is the percentage that has a favorable opinion of him/her.

Most People Want Politicians To Compromise

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between June 17th and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,342 registered voters). The margin of error was 2.8 points for adults and 3 points for registered voters.

Mass Shootings Are Not Rare In U.S. - They're Daily Events

 

There is another mass shooting in the United States that's making headlines nationwide -- this time in Highland Park, Illinois. A 21 year-old idiot killed 7 people and wounded dozens with an assault-style weapon.

If you got all of your information on mass shootings from the national news, you might think mass shootings are fairly rare in the U.S. -- after all, it's been a couple of weeks since the last one. But you would be mistaken. They are not rare. They are commonplace.

Last year, there were 692 mass shootings in the United States according to the Gun Violence Archive. That is nearly two mass shootings for every day in that year. And they are not subsiding. As I write this, there have already been 315 mass shootings this year -- and we are just entering the summer months (the prime time for mass shootings).

Mass shootings are very rare in other developed nations. It is only in the United States that they are more than a daily event. 

Republicans would like for you to believe that it's because of the mentally ill. But most mass shooters are not mentally ill, and most of the mentally ill are not dangerous. The U.S. doesn't have any more mentally ill people than any other developed nation.

What we have more of - a lot more - is guns. We have over 400 million guns in this country with a population of only about 330 million people. And our laws are loose enough to allow anyone (including criminals and other dangerous people) to buy any kind of gun they want.

It doesn't have to be this way. We could pass some stricter (and constitutional) laws to control gun violence in this country. We could close the loopholes in the background check law. We could ban the purchase of assault-style weapons (the choice of most mass shooters). We could restrict the size of ammunition magazines. And we could pass a national red-flag law to take guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

All of the above are constitutional, and none would take guns away from honest and law-abiding people. Those who say it would are LYING!

Sadly, we have one political party that has decided guns are more important that American lives. They refuse to pass any kind of gun laws. Some of them voted for a rather weak bipartisan bill recently, but that bill did nothing that would actually curb gun violence in the country -- keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

Nothing will be done until gun-loving Republicans are voted out of office. It is up to the voters. Do you want politicians that will protect guns, or politicians that will protect the lives of innocent people.

Seniors Give Politicians A Poor Grade On Dealing W/Issues

The chart above reflects the results of a recent AARP Poll -- done between February 18th and March 3rd of a nationwide sample of 1,836 registered voters age 50 or above. The margin of error is 3.29 points.

The poll asked respondents to grade U.S. politicians on how they have wealth with 16 important issues facing the country. They overwhelmingly gave the politicians a D(needs improvement) or F(failure) on every issue. 

Gun Deaths & Mass Shootings Still On Record Pace In U.S.

While our politicians continue to ignore the problem, both gun deaths and mass shootings are on pace to set new records this year in the United States. It doesn't have to be this way. No other developed nation has anywhere near this kind of epidemic problem with gun violence.

The sad part is that there are measures that could be taken to at least partially fix the problem and save many American lives -- and those measures do not violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Currently, there are giant holes in the background check law -- holes big enough to allow anyone who wants a gun to get one (or more), and that includes criminals, the dangerously mentally ill, and those on a terrorist watch list. About 90% of the U.S. population (including gun owners) want those holes plugged so that anyone buying a gun (even in a personal sale) must clear a background check. But our politicians (especially the Republicans) won't even do that.

Majorities of the public also want stricter gun laws, and want assault weapons (and massive ammo clips) to be banned. Neither is even being discussed in Congress.

Easy gun access is not more important than American lives. We can have rational laws that will allow law-abiding Americans to own a gun and save lives. But to do that, we are going to have to get rid of the politicians who have sold their vote to the gun lobby.

The Public's Opinion Of The Most Talked-About Politicians

The chart above reflects the results of the recent Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 22nd and 25th of a national sample of 1,500 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

It shows that politicians of both parties are not very popular with the general public. Only one politician has majority favorability -- President Joe Biden with 51%. And only another two have a higher favorability than unfavorabaility -- Vice-President Kamala Harris and Senator Bernie Sanders.

Public Is Split On Pence, Pelosi, Romney - But Not Others

The chart above reflects the results of a new Ipsos Poll -- done between January 11th and 13th of a national sample of 1,019 adults, with a 3.4 point margin of error. 

Few Are Ready To Stop Social-Distancing As States Reopen

The chart above is from the Morning Consult Poll -- done on April 29th and 30th of a national sample of 2,201 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.

Nearly half of the states are starting to reopen businesses and end the stay-at-home orders, and several other states are planning to do so soon. But while the governors (at Trump's urging) want to get business and society back to normal (in spite of warnings from medical professionals), it looks like the public is not ready to do that.

Less than one in five adults are ready to stop social distancing. Only 18% say they are ready to eat in a restaurant or go on vacation. About 17% say they're ready to go to a shopping mall, while only 15% say they would go to a religious gathering or museum. Other activities draw even smaller percentages.

Most Americans are not willing to put their health (and maybe even their lives) in danger just to satisfy politicians.

All The Dems Have Flaws - And All Are Better Than Trump

There is a lot of truth in the graphic on the left (from John Pavlovitz).

The supporters of some of the Democratic candidates want us to believe that their candidate is perfect and their opponents are deeply flawed. That's nonsense. There is no such thing as a perfect politician. All of them have flaws, and that includes all of the Democrats running for their party's presidential nomination.

All a voter can do is pick a candidate they like, they generally agree with, or they think would make a good president -- knowing they won't agree on everything.

Here's how Eugene Robinson puts it in his op-ed for The Washington Post.

Look, I know that politics ain’t “Kumbaya.” It would be insane to go through the grueling experience of running for president without trying to win, and that means convincing voters you’re the best for the job. There’s a difference, though, between making the most effective case for yourself and arguing that your opponents are so flawed as to be disqualified for office.

Rather than being nailed to the wall for something they did or said 20 years ago, the candidates need to be given time and space to evolve, just as the nation has evolved. President Barack Obama, you will recall, opposedmarriage equality until the relatively late date of 2012 — long after it was a matter of faith for the progressive wing of the party.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the front-runner, is under withering attack for supposedly being simultaneously the second coming of Karl Marx, a toolof the National Rifle Association and the evil Saruman who marshals legions of online Orcs against his foes. In reality, he is a veteran U.S. senator who generally, though not always, votes the Democratic Party line and who has told the trolls to knock it off.

Mike Bloomberg is being pilloried as a onetime racist, inveterate sexistand Republican-at-heart who is using his vast wealth to try to purchase first the Democratic nomination and then the presidency — all of which is basically true. But he also has a sterling record of advocacy and accomplishment on some issues about which progressives care deeply, including climate change and gun control. And if he wins the nomination, his flaws will have to be measured against the prospect of four more years of Trump.

And Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is being slammed for some decisions she made as a prosecutor, including a case in which a 16-year-old was given a life sentence for murder after a questionable police investigation. It strikes me as a likely miscarriage of justice, but it really must be viewed in the context of Klobuchar’s overall record as a prosecutor. One dodgy case does not seem to me disqualifying. Most important, Klobuchar has called for the old evidence in the case to be reviewed and new evidence sought.

That same sense of balance is important in evaluating candidates who show other weaknesses. Joe Biden lacks sharpness at his rallies and in the debates and thus far has run a mediocre campaign. But he shows humanity and compassion in a way that other candidates struggle to do. And despite helping write the crime bill that led to mass incarceration, he has a genuine connection with some key Democratic constituencies, especially African Americans, that could help drive turnout on Election Day.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) seems to have lost traction with the media after middling showings in both Iowa and New Hampshire. But the breadth and depth of her grass-roots campaign are truly impressive, and her life story — from a hard-knocks beginning in Oklahoma to a Harvard professorship and ultimately to the Senate — is inspiring.

And Pete Buttigieg has very little experience in government, has had trouble gaining traction among African American voters and has a tendency — as did Obama early in his 2008 campaign — to lecture rather than speak from the heart. But does anyone seriously doubt he is smart enough to be president?

As the candidates make their cases, they should ask voters to look at what really matters. Purity tests are less useful than proof a rival has the ability to learn and to grow. Differences in style and emphasis are not mortal sins.

The party will have to unite — not superficially, for the duration of the balloon drop at the convention in Milwaukee, but genuinely. So dial back the hissing and spitting, people. It only helps Trump.

"Moscow Mitch" Is The Most Dangerous Politician In D.C.

Who is the most dangerous politician in Washington? A strong case could be made for Donald Trump, but his own ignorance and incompetence (along with the Democratic-controlled House) keeps him largely in check.

The most dangerous national politician may actually be "Moscow Mitch" McConnell -- the Majority Leader in the Senate. His position gives him enormous power, and his agenda is just as evil as that of Donald Trump.

Here's how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich puts it on his own blog:

He’s maybe the most dangerous politician of my lifetime. He’s helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism. He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. The politician I’m talking about, of course, is Mitch McConnell.

Two goals for November 3, 2020: The first and most obvious is to get the worst president in history out of the White House. That’s necessary but not sufficient. We also have to flip the Senate and remove the worst Senate Majority Leader in history.

Like Trump, Mitch McConnell is no garden-variety bad public official. McConnell puts party above America, and Trump above party. Even if Trump is gone, if the Senate remains in Republican hands and McConnell is reelected, America loses because McConnell will still have a chokehold on our democracy.

This is the man who refused for almost a year to allow the Senate to consider President Obama’s moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland. 

And then, when Trump became president, this is the man who got rid of the age-old Senate rule requiring 60 Senators to agree on a Supreme Court nomination so he could ram through not one but two Supreme Court justices, including one with a likely history of sexual assault.

This is the man who rushed through the Senate, without a single hearing, a $2 trillion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans – a tax cut that raised the government debt by almost the same amount, generated no new investment, failed to raise wages, but gave the stock market a temporary sugar high because most corporations used the tax savings to buy back their own shares of stock.

McConnell refuses to support what’s needed for comprehensive election security – although both the U.S. intelligence community and Special Prosecutor Mueller say Moscow is continuing to hack into our voting machines and to weaponize disinformation through social media. 

McConnell has earned the nickname “Moscow Mitch” because he’s doing exactly what Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump want him to do – leave America vulnerable to another Putin-supported victory for Trump.

McConnell is also blocking bipartisan background-check legislation for gun sales, even after the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, El Paso and Odessa, Texas.

So even if Trump is out of the White House, if McConnell remains Senate Majority Leader he will not allow a Democratic president to govern. 

He won’t allow debate or votes on Medicare for All, universal pre-K, a wealth tax, student loan forgiveness, or the Green New Deal. He won’t allow confirmation votes on judges nominated by a Democratic president.

The good news is McConnell is the least popular senator in the country with his own constituents. He’s repeatedly sacrificed Kentucky to Trump’s agenda – for example, agreeing to Trump’s so-called emergency funding for a border wall, which would take $63 million away from projects like a new middle school on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee. 

McConnell is even cut funding for black lung disease suffered by Kentucky coal miners. I know from my years as labor secretary that coal mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and the number of cases of incurable black lung disease has been on the rise. But when a group of miners took a 10-hour bus ride to Washington this past summer to ask McConnell to restore the funding, McConnell met with them for one minute and then refused to help them. No wonder Democrats are lining up in Kentucky to run against Moscow Mitch in 2020.

The not-so-good news is that McConnell is up for re-election the same day as Donald Trump, and Trump did well in Kentucky in 2016. Which means we have to help organize Kentucky, just as we have to organize other states that may not be swing states in the presidential election but could take back the Senate. 

Consider Georgia: Republican Senator Johnny Isakson is retiring, meaning both of Georgia’s Senate seats are now up for grabs. And this one extra seat—in a state that is trending blue—could be the tipping point that allows Democrats to win enough seats to end GOP control of the Senate.

Trump has to go, but so does McConnell.

Here’s what you can do: Wherever you are in the country, you can donate to McConnell’s challengers. If you live in or near Kentucky, you can get out and knock doors or make calls. Or if you have friends or family in the state, encourage them to get involved.

As to the question of who is worse, Trump or McConnell — the answer is that it’s too close to call. The two of them have degraded and corrupted American democracy. We need them both out.

If Social Media Can't Ban Lying, Should It Run Political Ads?

The chart above reflects the result of a recent YouGov Poll. They questioned 2,913 adults on October 31st -- asking them if they would support banning all political ads on social media for a year before an election. The response was overwhelmingly in favor of such a ban.

There has recently been a lot of discussion about social media running political ads. It started because of an ad run by Trump/Republicans that accused Joe Biden and his son of corruption regarding the younger Biden's connection with a Ukrainian gas company. The ads is a lie, since there is absolutely no proof of any corruption.

Mark Zuckerberg, and his company (Facebook), have refused to take the ad down. Zuckerberg tried to claim it would be a violation of free speech to censor a politician's ads. He obviously doesn't understand free speech. The constitutional guarantee of free speech just prevents the government from censoring political speech. It does not (and should not) prevent a private company from banning political speech that is nothing but lies. Allowing untrue political ads is not a service to the American public, but to dishonest politicians.

I suspect Zuckerberg is either afraid of the blowback his company would receive if it banned the lies by Trump and the Republicans (which they do repeatedly and often), or his company doesn't have the ability to police the political ads they are paid to run. Neither is an acceptable excuse to allow politicians to lie to the public.

A California left-wing PAC sought to expose Facebook's policy by running an ad saying the Republicans love the Green New Deal (an obvious untruth, since the GOP doesn't even understand it, let alone support it). Facebook banned the ad, saying it was run by a Pac and not someone running for office. The PAC's leader then filed to run as a candidate for governor, and again placed the ad. Facebook again banned it, saying he was not a real candidate.

That is rather disingenuous. If Facebook has the ability to determine who is a real candidate and who is not, then they should be able to determine when a politician is lying in an ad. If they can't, then they probably shouldn't run any political ads at all -- from any politician or political party.

The American public would support that. Note the chart above. Overwhelming majorities of Americans (in every group) supporting banning political ads from social media (like Facebook) for a year before an election. I agree.

If Facebook can't do it right, they shouldn't do it at all!

The Mass Shootings And Gun Deaths Have NOT Stopped

(Cartoon image is by Marc Murphy in the Louisville Courier-Journal.)

The news coverage of mass shootings and gun deaths in the United States are no longer on the front pages or being reported by national news media. One would be tempted to think that these mass shootings and deaths have miraculously stopped, or at least slowed way down. But that is not true -- it is not even close to true!

As of October 17th, there have been 337 mass shootings in the United States this year (an average of more than one mass shooting for every day of the year), and 31,037 gun deaths (more than 100 gun deaths for every day of the year). No other developed nation has anywhere near this many mass shootings or gun deaths -- only the United States (which has more guns than people).

After the last widely reported mass shootings (resulting in multiple deaths) in El Paso and Midland-Odessa, Donald Trump promised something would be done -- and even bragged about his support for stricter background checks for gun buyers. He was lying. He did nothing.

He could have pressured Mitch McConnell to allow debate and a vote on the background checks bill (passed by the House more than 230 days ago), but he didn't. And McConnell continues to block that bill -- refusing to allow either debate or a vote on it.

Both Trump and McConnell have blood on their hands -- the blood of thousands of innocent gun victims. It is increasingly clear that nothing will be done by the federal government to curb gun violence until both Trump and McConnell are voted out of office.

Thoughts and prayers from cowardly politicians will not solve our epidemic of gun violence. It will take action. Keep pressure on Congress to do something, and in November of 2020, vote any politician out of office who refuses to act.

U.S. Continues To Average A Mass Shooting Every Day

(This photo from the latest mass shooting in from the Baltimore Sun.)

There was another mass shooting making the news on Thursday. This one was at a warehouse in Maryland.  But it wasn't alone. There were a couple more in the last 24 hours -- one in Wisconsin and another in Pennsylvania.

The truth is that mass shootings are now a commonplace occurrence in this country -- so common that most of them don't even make the national news anymore. The Maryland shooting was the 262nd mass shooting in the United States in 2018 -- and there have been 263 days so far this day. That means the U.S. is averaging one mass shooting for every day of the year.

I expect our politicians will once again give their "thoughts and prayers". That's not enough. Thoughts and prayers have never brought a victim back or prevented a shooting. They need to take some action.

They could easily fix the loopholes in our background check law, and their would be no political repercussions. That's because over 90% of the population supports doing that. And there are some other actions that a significant majority of Americans would support -- like banning assault weapons and ammunition clips holding more than 10 bullets.

Those actions would reduce deaths, and they would be constitutional. Unfortunately, our politicians (especially the Republicans) have made it clear they will do NOTHING. They have been bought by the NRA and the gun manufacturers, and the donations they receive from them are evidently more important than saving the lives of American citizens.

It's time to vote these political fools out of office!

The Most Popular Political Figures In The U.S. Are . . .

The YouGov Poll has been questioning nearly 5,000 respondents since November of 2017 through the current date on what they think of 336 well-known people around the world. It turns out that the most popular are Bill Gates (62%), Queen Elizabeth II (61%), and Barack Obama (59%).

I thought it would be interesting just to look at the most popular political figures in the United States, so I went through the list and pulled out only American political figures. The result is shown in the chart above. Note that 5 of the 8 most popular are Democrats, and 1 is an Independent. The only Republicans in the top eight are Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

The charts below show the list when it is broken down by gender and generation.

Do Endorsements Matter In A Political Race? (Not Much)

In the last presidential election, Hollywood turned out big for Hillary Clinton -- she still lost. In Alabama, Trump and other Republicans got behind the GOP candidate (Roy Moore) -- he lost to a Democrat in a very red state. It brings up the question -- Do celebrity or political endorsements matter any more?

The Rasmussen Poll surveyed on that question, and what they found was that it doesn't matter very much. Only 26% said such endorsements were important to determine who to vote for, while a whopping 70% said those endorsements were not important to them in determining how to vote.

The Rasmussen Poll was done on December 11th and 12th of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, with a 3 point margin of error.