Lydic, Meyers, Kimmel, and Colbert take closer looks at the 'Melania' documentary and other news

I wrote, "I plan on sharing the monologues of Colbert, Meyers, Kimmel, and The Daily Show, likely Desi Lydic" today. I'm shuffling up that order, beginning with Melania's $40 Million Docu-Bribe Movie Premieres & Dems Make ICE Demands | The Daily Show.

Democrats express their outrage over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, with Chuck Schumer calling Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller "f**king liars" and Hakeem Jeffries on accidental mute. Plus, Desi Lydic plunges into the world of Melania ahead of her documentary debut, which was produced by Jeff Bezos, directed by disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner, and created by a crew too ashamed to have their names in the credits.

Before I discuss Melania the documentary — I can't avoid entertainment and movies during awards season — I'm sniping at the "Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller are "f**king" joke. That's a great punchline, but the rumor is that it's Noem and Corey Lewandowski having an affair, not Miller. By the way, this is the first time I've mentioned Lewandowski on this blog, despite him being Donald "Hoover Harding Cleveland" Trump's first campaign manager. He joins Paul Manafort and Brad Parscale, who I've written about here. Just for completeness, I'm also going to name check Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, Hoover Harding Cleveland's 2024 co-campaign managers just so everyone who has served in this capacity now appears on my blog. Wiles is the current While House Chief of Staff, so I might write about her in the future.

As for the Melania documentary itself, it's pretty transparently an attempt by Jeff Bezos and Amazon to curry favor with Hoover Harding Cleveland and a cash grab plus PR opportunity for the Trump family, as Michael Kosta and Ronny Chieng point out. Just for that, I hope it fails as PR/propaganda as well as at the box office, and earns a Razzie nomination or two next year.

The next late night talk show host I'm featuring is Seth Meyers, who opened last night's show with Melania Trump's Documentary Premieres Worldwide.

Seth addresses Melania Trump's documentary Melania opening worldwide and more in his monologue for Thursday, January 29, before taking a closer look at Trump spreading lies after Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar was attacked at a town hall event.

Hoover Harding Cleveland telling self-serving lies and insane takes on the news? What a surprise — not! Time to remind my readers that the voices in his head are not reliable sources. This includes Pam Bondi deceiving herself about all "the creative and correctly spelled signs" being a sign of outside influence. No, she's just dealing with a well-educated population in Minnesota, along with Democrats writing better than Republicans.

Speaking of Hoover Harding Cleveland lying, the preview image for Jimmy Kimmel's monologue, Trump Celebrates Melania’s Movie Premiere, Has New BFF Nicki Minaj & Government Shutdown Looms, reads "Lies, Camera, Action!"

We are once again staring at another government shutdown, Trump has a new celebrity friend in Nicki Minaj, she is now in possession of a Trump Gold Card which she claims she got for free, Trump had another cabinet meeting today where he ranted about windmills and extolled the virtues of coal, Trump’s FBI has been raiding the elections office in Fulton County, Georgia as part of an investigation into “voter fraud” in the 2020 election, Tulsi Gabbard showed up to watch which isn’t suspicious at all, Border Czar Tom Homan is in Minneapolis doing his best to right the ship, a smattering of Republicans have stepped forward to criticize the damaged brains behind this operation, tonight was the much hyped premiere of Melania’s documentary, she has been doing rounds of press to promote it, and we ask folks passing by a movie theater what they think of it even though they haven’t seen it yet.

Jimmy K is right; gold card visas are actually issued by the government, not Hoover Harding Cleveland himself. The man has the worst case of "L'État, c'est moi" I've ever seen. As far as he's concerned, he is the country! At least when he says "boom," he doesn't sound like Crazy Frog.

In addition to blogging about the First Lady for the first time in a while, I'm mentioning Tulsi Gabbard for the first time in months. Despite what Jimmy K said, she does have some domestic jurisdiction, overseeing the FBI Intelligence Branch (IB), Coast Guard Intelligence, Office of National Security Intelligence (Part of the Drug Enforcement Agency), and the Offices of Intelligence and Analysis for both the Department of Homeland Security and Department of the Treasury. Those authorities make her presence even more ominous.

As for the men and women on the street interviews about Melania the documentary, those were hiliarious, even though a lot of them were reading cue cards instead of giving candid reactions.

Last but not least, I'm sharing Colbert's monologue, Springsteen's Scathing Protest | Italy: No ICE | Trump Threatens MAGA Donors | Skipping "Melania".

The Boss dropped a fiery anti-ICE protest song, the people of Milan don't want Trump's DHS thugs to provide security at the Winter Olympics, the president's latest MAGA fundraising email is bizarrely threatening, and no one wants to see the First Lady's movie.

It's hard to protest Amazon by buying stuff on Amazon. Sigh.

Finally, I wrote that I would let the music speak for itself in Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, and the Marsh Family sing about Minneapolis, Minnesota. Just the same, I'm glad Stephen commented for me. I'm also glad The Boss followed up with Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Lyric Video).

Directed by Thom Zimny
Edited by Thom Zimny and Samuel Shapiro
Production Footage: Pam Springsteen and Thom Zimny

That's a wrap for today. I'm returning to awards show coverage tomorrow, because the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films released the Saturn Awards nominations. Stay tuned.

Kosta, Colbert, and Kimmel mock Trump for blaming crash on DEI and his Cabinet picks

I'm returning to topical posts today with the late-night talk-show hosts ridiculing the horse loose in the hospital's response to the first fatal commercial airline crash in the U.S. for 12 years (16 years for a fatal crash involving a U.S. carrier), beginning with Trump Blames D.C. Plane Crash on DEI and Dwarfism | The Daily Show.

Michael Kosta on the tragic Washington D.C. plane crash and Trump's baseless blame of DEI for the catastrophe. Plus, the Best F**kin' News team breaks down which of Trump's nominees was least qualified at their Senate hearings.

Paraphrasing what I wrote in Pete Davidson hosts as 'Saturday Night Live' returns, the crash is not funny, but the reactions to it can be, and Hoover Cleveland's qualifies as worthy of mockery and scorn. It also came right on schedule, as I posted the following on Bluesky yesterday.

Also able-bodied.

[image or embed]

— Vince Lamb (@vincelamb.bsky.social) January 30, 2025 at 11:36 AM

Mrs. Betty Bowers missed "National Disability Employment Awareness Month" in her post, but I caught it. I wasn't watching C-SPAN at the time, but I posted that within minutes of Hoover Cleveland making his ableist remarks, so I'm not surprised — appalled, but not surprised.

I'm repeating what I wrote in Randy Rainbow sings 'I Think I'm Gonna Hate It Here' for Hoover Cleveland's remaining terrible nominees.

Seriously, that supposed ideological diversity probably comes from former Democrats Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr., who I called cases of failing upwards. I thought I was done with both of them when they dropped out of the 2020 and 2024 Presidential contests, respectively. Instead, I could be writing about them for the next four years. Ugh. At least my readers and I have Randy and others to keep us sane. May they be like Ben Carson AKA Doctor Pyramid, about whom I ended up writing "At least you were too boring to write about for the past four [years]" after Carson's service as HUD Secretary. May we be so lucky with Gabbard and RFK Jr.

May we be even luckier and have them not be confirmed. The same is true of Kash Patel, who I've only written about once before.

I also think that the announcement of Kash Patel's nomination for a position that isn't open yet — Christopher Wray's term doesn't expire for another three years — and Joe Biden's pardon of his son Hunter are more closely connected than he lets on. Patel might just have gone after Hunter even after he had gone to prison just to please convicted criminal Donald Trump.

Marcy "Emptywheel" Wheeler has more to say about him in A Summary of Kash Patel’s Disqualifications to Lead FBI. Only the best people.

Follow over the jump for reactions to Hoover Cleveland blaming the crash on DEI, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Barack Obama and unqualified Cabinet nominees from Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel plus a bonus closer look from Seth Meyers.

Randy Rainbow sings 'I Think I'm Gonna Hate It Here'

Today's post I can share next month, which is also next year, is Randy Rainbow singing I Think I'm Gonna Hate It Here.

Parody of “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here” from ANNIE (Music by Charles Strouse, Lyrics by Martin Charnin)

Parody Lyrics by Randy Rainbow

Song Produced, Orchestrated, Mixed, Mastered by: Michael J Moritz Jr @michaeljmoritz

Vocal Arrangement - Brett Boles @thebrettboles

Lead and Backing Vocals - Randy Rainbow
Piano, Synths - Michael J Moritz Jr
Drums/Engineer - Billy LaGuardia
Brass - James Canty
Winds/Reeds - Andrew Snapp

Randy quoting sources on the Right calling convicted criminal Donald Trump's picks for his incoming administration "ideologically diverse" reminds me of a line from The Blues Brothers: "Oh we got both kinds. We got Country and Western!"


Snork!

Seriously, that supposed ideological diversity probably comes from former Democrats Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr., who I called cases of failing upwards. I thought I was done with both of them when they dropped out of the 2020 and 2024 Presidential contests, respectively. Instead, I could be writing about them for the next four years. Ugh. At least my readers and I have Randy and others to keep us sane. May Gabbard and RFK Jr. be like Ben Carson AKA Doctor Pyramid, about whom I ended up writing "At least you were too boring to write about for the past four [years]" after Carson's service as HUD Secretary. May we be so lucky with Gabbard and RFK Jr.

Randy's sponsor message also reminds me of what I wrote in the footnote to Randy Rainbow sings 'Look At Me, I'm MTG!'

Randy's plug of Ground News reminds me of what I wrote in Future Proof examines 'The RISE and FALL of Malls in America,' a tale of the Retail Apocalypse, "the paid promotion by Ground News reminds me that I promised a comparison and contrast between AllSides and the Media Bias Chart three years ago." I still haven't done that, but it really is time. Maybe when I make my monthly page view goal and write evergreen entries near the end of the month.

That would make a good post to share next month. Stay tuned to see if I actually write it.

The Capitol Police Inspector General's report on the preparation for January 6 riot updates Election 2020 and its aftermath for Throwback Thursday

I foretold the topic of today's post twice, first in last week's Noah and Colbert on vaccinations vs. a possible fourth wave of COVID update the pandemic for Flashback Friday, when I wrote "The next retrospective should be about the 2020 election and the actions that led to impeachment for Throwback Thursday next week." I repeated myself in yesterday's Seth Meyers, 'SNL,' and 'Tooning out the News' take closer looks at Matt Gaetz "stay tuned for retrospectives on Throwback Thursday and Flashback Friday. Tomorrow's should be the last one about the 2020 election and its aftermath." I'm recapping the top entries featuring serious news reports about those topics over the jump after I update them with current news stories, beginning with NBC News' Inspector General Report: Authorities Ignored Intelligence Ahead Of January 6th Capitol Riot.

A report from the Capitol Police inspector general says that authorities ignored intelligence ahead of the January 6th riot, including a warning that “Congress itself is the target”. NBC News’ Tom Winter and Leigh Ann Caldwell break down the details of the warnings and how Capitol Police are responding to the report.

I wish I could say that I wasn't surprised. There were lots of reports and worries that the January 6th event would be violent. Olivia Troye said "I am very concerned there will be violence on January 6" in an MSNBC interview on December 28, 2020.

Former member of the Trump administration Olivia Troye expresses her worry that the divisiveness Trump has stoked in this country will have damaging and lasting implications.

She turned out to be right. I wish I could say I was with her when I mentioned the joint session of the new Congress on January 6, 2021 as an opportunity to game the system back in November, but that's all I thought would be, an attempt by Congress to overturn the election, not a violent coup attempt when then Vice President Pence refused to go along.

Back to yesterday's news. I agree with Tom Winter that this wasn't a failure of gathering the information; the Capitol Police had the information. It was a failure of leadership to understand what it meant. At least they agreed with the findings and then used it as an opportunity to ask for more money. Defund the police? Not in this case!

The facts and analysis need a context and an opinion, so I'm sharing the most germane MSNBC clip about the report, Hayes: Jan. 6th Would Have Been A Massacre If Police Reacted Like They Do To BLM Protests | All In.

"It is very hard not to see some fundamental contradictions in how our country, the state, wields force against its citizens," says Chris Hayes, comparing police responses in Black Lives Matter protests and the Capitol riot. Aired on 04/14/2021.

One would have to have a bad case of "Who are going to believe, me or your own eyes" to not see the inequitable responses of the police to the two different classes of protestors.

While I desire a more equitable level of policing, Steve M. at No More Mr. Nice Blog despairs at the likelihood of achieving it.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the report says that the Capitol Police had adequate warning of what was coming and should been able to prevent the Capitol from being breached. On the other hand, do we trust any police agency right now to find the sweet spot where order is maintained without the use of excessive force?

Even if the Capitol Police had used an appropriate amount of force, if that included stun grenades, can you imagine the right-wing reaction -- not just at the time, but even now, and for the foreseeable future? Can you imagine this being done ... not to evil BLM/Antifa commies, but to Real Americans? We'd have never heard the end of it.

Sigh. Probably not.

I conclude the update part of today's post by quoting part of a comment by Frank Wilhoit at Crooked Timber (Emphasis mine).

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protectes (sic) but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.

So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

The contrast between how the police treated the Black Lives Matter protestors and the January 6th insurrectionists is consistent with Wilhoit's formulation of conservatism while my ideal is what Wilhoit stated about anti-conservatism and then repeated at the end of his comment: "The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone."

Follow over the jump for the top posts featuring serious news sources about the election and its aftermath, including the insurrection and impeachment.

Ta-ta, Tulsi, as Gabbard gives up

I had another plan for the second post of the tenth year of the blog, but COVID-19 intervened, causing the cancellation of Marche du Nain Rouge.  Looks like the Nain won this year.  Instead, I'm reporting on another fallen tribute in The Hungry for Power Games, Tulsi Gabbard.  The Hill reposted the video Gabbard uploaded on Thursday, Tulsi Gabbard makes 2020 endorsement, drops out of 2020 race.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) dropped out of the 2020 presidential contest Thursday, endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden in what is now officially a two-man primary with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Now that Gabbard has suspended her campaign, there are no more women running for a major party nomination for president.  That's disappointing, given the record number of women running for U.S. President I reported for International Women's Day last year.  At least Joe Biden's pledge to select a woman as his running mate partially makes up for it.

As I have for all the other candidates who have dropped out, follow over the jump for the drink suggestions and memes I am retiring now that Gabbard is gone from the race.

Colbert says farewell to Warren after she drops out

I told my readers to "stay tuned for another installment of The Hungry for Power Games, as Elizabeth Warren just dropped out" at the end of John Oliver on coronavirus.  That makes for five candidates ending their campaigns in one week, beginning with Tom Steyer and followed by Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bloomberg, and now Warren.  It's enough to make my head spin.

It's also enough to make me cry, as it's no secret I'm a Warren supporter.  As I told Infidel753 in a comment yesterday:

I'm disappointed. I have my absentee ballot in front of me waiting to be filled out. I was hoping to vote for her, but now it would be even more of a wasted vote than before. Now I have to pick either Sanders or Biden (no way in Hell am I voting for Gabbard; anyone who's been paying attention to my blog knows I don't care for her) and I'm not looking forward to it. Sigh.

Since I don't want to cry, I'm going to laugh instead.  Watch Late Show's Alter Egos: Elizabeth Warren Edition, the cold open for last night's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

As she exits the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, we bid a fond farewell to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and the many alter egos bestowed upon her by our host Stephen Colbert.

Continuing with the comedy because I'm trying to avoid feeling tragic, here's Stephen's monlogue, Elizabeth Warren Bows Out Gracefully, While Trump Spreads Dangerous Coronavirus Misinformation.

While Sen. Elizabeth Warren was demonstrating grace and eloquence in comments to reporters after dropping out of the Democratic primary race, the man she hoped to replace in the White House was demonstrating his inability to tell the truth in an interview with Fox News about the Coronavirus.

Colbert forgot about Gabbard, but that's O.K.  I'd rather forget about her, too.

Follow over the jump for the drink suggestions and memes I'm retiring now that Warren has ended her campaign.

Adios Amy and Bye-bye Bloomberg as both drop out and endorse Biden

When I told my readers to "stay tuned for Marching Music Day and a follow-up post to both Super Tuesday and Mayor Pete packs up his campaign" at the end of A drum corps Super Tuesday 2020, I knew I would be writing about Amy Klobuchar dropping out right before Super Tuesday.  Only the timing was a surprise, as "I expected Amy Klobuchar to drop out next, but only after Super Tuesday."  What I didn't know was who else would drop out.  Well, as CNN reported earlier today, Michael Bloomberg suspends 2020 presidential campaign.

Michael Bloomberg has dropped his bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and is endorsing Joe Biden, his campaign announced.

With that, every single moderate connected to the Democratic Party establishment other than Biden has dropped out and all of the ones I listed in Democratic candidates from left to center for the 2020 primaries have thrown their support to him.*  Talk about The Party Decides!

Speaking of which, watch CBS This Morning interview Klobuchar in Klobuchar says "Joe Biden is the answer" to beating Trump.

Senator Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the Democratic primary race on Monday after outlasting higher-profile rivals in the race. She joined fellow former contenders Pete Buttigieg and Beto O'Rourke in endorsing Joe Biden ahead of Super Tuesday. Klobuchar joins "CBS This Morning" to talk Super Tuesday and her support for the former vice president.

With that, all of the candidates picked in FiveThirtyEight's second drop out draft in November have now dropped out.  Nine down, none to go.  I can now close that tab, which I've had open since December.

Follow over the jump for all the drink suggestions and memes I made for Bloomberg and Klobuchar, which I will retire unless and until either become the running mate for either Joe Biden (possible for Klobuchar) or Bernie Sanders (ha) or runs again in the future (still a possibility for Klobuchar).

Democratic candidates from left to center for the 2020 primaries

I concluded Bye-bye Booker as Cory climbs down from his campaign by noting that I've been delaying on making good on a promise I had made late last year.

I had one final comment on Booker's ideological scores at On The Issues at the end of Kamala Harris heading home came as a complete surprise.

While I'm retiring this chart because Harris has dropped out, I would have had to been retired even if she were still running.  First, Harris left the campaign with a more moderate social score of 73, which, combined with her economic score of 10 places her closer to Amy Klobuchar than Joe Biden.  Harris ended her run as the fourth most liberal member of the field according to On The Issues.  Second, Biden himself has become more moderate with an economic score of 15 and a social score of 80.  The two no longer share the same point on the Nolan Grid.  Time to make a new graph for Biden, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Tom Steyer, and Andrew Yang, who now share a spot.

That prompted me to ask "Now, do I hurry to make new memes for all the remaining candidates for tomorrow's entry, or wait until Booker drops out?  Decisions, decisions" at the end of Julian jumps from the plane as Castro campaign crashes.  By not making the memes before Booker dropped out, I made my decision through inaction.  I guess I have no excuse now.

Now that there are only eight major Democratic candidates after Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet, and Deval Patrick all dropped out, I think it's time to fulfill that promise, as I told my readers yesterday in John Lewis earns Chairman's Award plus movie and TV winners about politics and government at the 2020 NAACP Image Awards.

I begin by being a good environmentalist and recycling to explain my methodology.

[I] rank[ed] the candidates by economic score from low (left) to high (right, or in this case center) to make it comparable to the liberal-moderate (there are no true conservatives running for the Democratic nomination) ranking I used last [month and again earlier this month] which was based on the economic dimension [of Voteview's DW-Nominate scores].  I then used the social score to break ties in the economic score with high scores being considered more liberal and low scores being considered more conservative.

For the four remaining candidates who are sitting members of Congress, I'm also recycling my methodology for their Voteview scores.

Voteview allows users to view every congressional roll call vote in American history on a map of the United States and on a liberal-conservative ideological map including information about the ideological positions of voting Senators and Representatives.
...
Ideological positions are calculated using the DW-NOMINATE (Dynamic Weighted NOMINAl Three-step Estimation). This procedure was developed by Poole and Rosenthal in the 1980s and is a "scaling procedure", representing legislators on a spatial map. In this sense, a spatial map is much like a road map--the closeness of two legislators on the map shows how similar their voting records are. Using this measure of distance, DW-NOMINATE is able to recover the "dimensions" that inform congressional voting behavior.

The primary dimension through most of American history has been "liberal" vs. "conservative" (also referred to as "left" vs. "right"). A second dimension picks up differences within the major political parties over slavery, currency, nativism, civil rights, and lifestyle issues during periods of American history.

...the scores of liberals are all negative and the more liberal they are, the more negative the scores, so the most liberal candidate will have the lowest or most negative score.

I last updated both the the Vote Match scores from On The Issues and first dimension DW-NOMINATE scores from Voteview in August, so it's been half a year.  Follow over the jump to see how the remaining candidates rate from left to center.

Drinks and drinking games for the 2020 Democratic Primary debates

I finished Pier 1 Imports files for bankruptcy, a tale of the Retail Apocalypse by telling my readers to "stay tuned for an update to Drinks for candidates at the September and October Democratic debates.  I bet it will be time to add Bloomberg's drink suggestions.  Any takers?"  Well, that happened, as NPR reported yesterday NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll: Sanders Leads, Bloomberg Qualifies For Debate.    Good thing no one took me up on betting against that happening!

With that, it's time for a new drinking game.  I begin with a meme from Delish.


This drinking game, in addition to being simple, has aged better than the others, even DebateDrinking.com, which hasn't been updated since December.  Rolling Stone last updated its game in January.  BTR at least has one for the last debate in New Hampshire, but I don't know how well it will work unless one substitutes New Hampshire for Iowa and Nevada for New Hampshire.  Just the same, happy drinking! 

Follow over the jump for the drink suggestions, which I've recycled.  Of course I did; I'm an environmentalist.

The Doomsday Clock is at 100 seconds to midnight, least remaining time ever — so far

I interrupt my continuing coverage of the impeachment story arc of "The Worst Wing" for the latest on the Doomsday Clock, which The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved yesterday to 100 seconds to midnight, the least remaining time ever, so far.

The news has made the biggest splash among mainstream sources in Australia, where they are seeing the catastrophic effects of climate change first hand as wildfires are a major environmental threat.  I begin with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC Australia), which uploaded Doomsday Clock moves closest to midnight in its 73-year history this morning in the U.S.

Australia's ongoing bushfire crisis is driving up global carbon dioxide levels according to a UK climate report.

Carbon dioxide is a key measuring stick in scientific projections of global warming.

And the outlook doesn't look good, with a panel of world scientists and leaders saying we're closer than ever to doomsday.

Randolph Nogel reports.

The Australian wildfires are projected to contribute one-fifth of the increase in carbon dioxide this year?  Wow!  That's an example of a positive feedback loop and those usually lead to catastrophes.

ABC Australia's clip served well as a reaction to this year's announcement.  News.com.au uploaded Doomsday Clock: Apocalypse fears over nuclear weapons and climate change yesterday, summarizing the history of the Doomsday Clock and placing the recent movement of the hands of the clock in context.

The Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds to midnight with scientists blaming nuclear weapons and climate change for the jump forward.

As I mentioned above, the Australians seem to jumping on this news because of the climate change dimension; I've never seen them this interested in the Doomsday Clock before.  After all, Australia is the setting of "On the Beach" and "Mad Max," both of which share the premise of Australia surviving a nuclear exchange among superpowers, although the survival is only a few years in the first and the "Mad Max" franchise has changed the nature of the apocalypse in its post-apocalyptic setting from nuclear war to, guess what, climate change.  The Australians have known for a while which is the greater immediate threat to them.

The more-or-less mainstream news outlet that devoted the most time on YouTube to the announcement was Newsy, which also played up the climate angle in Climate effects on the Doomsday Clock.

For more than a decade, scientists have considered the threats from climate change when they set the symbolic Doomsday Clock.

At least this video mentioned signs for hope, including Greta Thunberg, Time Magazine's 2019 Person of the Year, who started and is the symbolic leader of the Youth Climate Strike.  That's in marked contrast to Steven Mnuchin, whose dismissive comments about Thunberg were quoted by ABC Australia in the first video I shared.

Of course, nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war are still central concerns of the people who set the hands of the Doomsday Clock.  One of them speaks about that threat in Wait Just a Minute: Rachel Bronson on the Doomsday Clock from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds to midnight, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced this morning. In this episode, Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, takes a minute to explain how the Doomsday Clock works, examine if nuclear weapons make the world safer, and recommend her favorite movie involving nuclear warfare.

I agree with Bronson about "Dr. Strangelove," but now I'll have to check out "Command and Control," which I don't recall ever hearing about until she mentioned it.

One presidential candidate picked up on the message, Tulsi Gabbard, who uploaded Doomsday Clock: It's time to wake up! to her YouTube channel this morning.

It's time to wake up! As president and commander-in-chief, my foremost responsibility will be to protect the lives, safety and freedom of the American people -- and that means preventing a nuclear holocaust. My personal commitment to you is that on the first day of my presidency, I will contact the leaders of China and Russia to set up a summit to end the new cold war and nuclear arms race, which will inevitably result in a nuclear holocaust.

Wow, Tulsi said a bunch of things I agree with, not least that talking about them makes one sound like a crackpot.  Heh.  Still, it means that she's a fellow Crazy Eddie.  That doesn't mean I'll vote for her. I would rather vote for Andrew Yang, another Crazy Eddie.  Even he is a ways down my list.

Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert react live to last night's Democratic debate

I'm taking a break from Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick to have some fun with last night's Democratic debate.*  Watch 2020 November Democratic Debate in Atlanta from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

Trevor went LIVE after the Atlanta 2020 Democratic primary debate between Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, and Tom Steyer.

Noah wasn't alone in reacting live after the debate.  Watch The Late Show's Stephen Colbert Breaks Down The 5th Democratic Presidential Debate.

Birthday boy Joe Biden provided the day's first gaffe, and the Democratic debate hadn't even started yet! Watch Stephen Colbert's LIVE post-debate analysis to find out who had the best night at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta.

Stephen wasn't the only one on his show having a good time with the debate.  Alex Wagner & John Heilemann: Cory Booker's "Weed" Comment Will Go Far.

The hosts of "The Circus" on Showtime, John Heilemann and Alex Wagner, join Stephen Colbert for LIVE analysis after the fifth Democratic debate.

Not only were these segments funny, they were informative, too.  I'm sure the other late night talk show hosts will have more to say about the debate tomorrow.  In particular, I'm looking forward to what Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel have to say, although they might do what both Noah and Colbert did — move on to impeachment.

*I'm still planning on creating and posting graphs of Bloomberg's and Patrick's ideological positions from OnTheIssues.org.  Stay tuned.

Drinks for candidates at the September and October Democratic debates

Since the third round of Democratic debates (actually just one debate) is being held tonight, it's time to update and recycle Drinks for the Democratic debates, Part 1 and Drinks for the Democratic debates, Part 2 by selecting the drinks for the debating candidates.  In addition, I am recommending drinking games for the debates.  Along with the ones at DebateDrinking.com, Spectator USA, and A.M. New York, I'm adding Rolling Stone and BTR Today.

Follow over the jump for the drinks.

An update on Democratic candidates' Voteview scores before Congress returns from August recess

I told my readers to "stay tuned for an update to Senators and Representatives running for the Democratic nomination are drifting to the left as they campaign as the final post of the month."  I decided to go ahead even after I finding little change with no clear trends.  I suppose that's what happens when the members of Congress are campaigning instead of voting, both because they are choosing the former over the latter and because Congress is in recess during August.  That's a marked contrast to the story told by their Vote Match scores at On The Issues, which can be revised based on their statements on the campaign trail and do not depend on their votes and so told a tale of the bulk of them moving left.

Here are their current scores presented from left to center.  More negative scores mean the member of Congress is more liberal, while less negative scores mean they are more moderate.

• Elizabeth Warren was -0.774 in July and is now -0.769, moving slightly to the center/right, but is still the most liberal member of Congress.
• Kamala Harris was -0.710 in July and is now -0.713 and is still the second most liberal member of the current Senate, so she is continuing her leftward drift according to Voteview, which contrasts with her drift to the center according to On The Issues.
• Cory Booker continued drifting to the center from a Voteview score of -0.611 in July and a score of -0.607 now, but is still the third most liberal member of the current Senate.  This contrasts with his move left according to On The Issues.
• Bernie Sanders remained at -0.526 as the fourth most liberal member of the current Senate.
• Kirsten Gillibrand left the nomination contest with her Voteview score unchanged at -0.439, which is still more liberal than 81% of Democrats in the current Senate.
• On the one hand, Tim Ryan's Voteview score remained unchanged at -0.403.  On the other hand, his relative position became more liberal.  He was more liberal than 55% of Democrats in the 116th House in July but is now more liberal than 62% of Democrats in the current House.  As I wrote last month, nice trick!
• When Seth Moulton complained about Democratic candidates moving too far to the left when he dropped out, he looked hypocritical, as Vote Match scores at On The Issues showed him moving sharply to his left.  However, his Voteview score makes him look more sincere. In July, it was -0.293, making him more conservative than 73% of Democrats currently serving in the House of Representatives in July.  Now, it's -0.286, a measurable move to the right making him now more conservative than 74% of House Democrats.
• Tulsi Gabbard remained unchanged at -0.279 and more conservative than 78% of Democrats in the current House.
• Amy Klobuchar continues to move to the left according to both Voteview and On The Issues.  Her Voteview score was -0.265 in July, which placed her as more conservative than 70% of Democrats currently serving in the Senate then.  Now, it's -0.269, which is more conservative than 68% of Democrats in the current Senate.  This is the largest score change to the left of any of the candidates.
• Finally, Michael Bennet became more slightly more liberal according to his Voteview score, moving slightly to the left from -0.211 to -0.212 while becoming relatively more conservative at the same time.  Bennet was more conservative than 86% of the Democrats in the upper chamber of Congress in July but is now more conservative than 88% of Democrats now, which is where he sat in May.

The next recess is scheduled for the first two weeks of October.  I will try to update the candidates' Voteview scores then.

That's it for August.  Stay tuned for an entry about the Emmy nominees for a Sunday entertainment feature to begin September.

Democratic candidates continue to drift leftwards according to On The Issues

It's time for me to update On The Issues shows most of the Democratic candidates have moved left during the campaign, too as I've been promising all week, beginning with the summary.  Once again, the majority of candidates have become more liberal.  Eleven have moved to the left economically, two have moved to the left socially, and four have moved to the left along both axes for a total of sixteen moving to the left one way or another.  Meanwhile, six have remained in the same ideological spots, while three have moved to the right economically including one who became more socially liberal, four have become more socially moderate, including three who became more economically liberal, and one has moved to the right (center) along both axes.  Yes, someone is completely bucking the trend.

To explain my methodology, I'll be a good environmentalist and recycle.

Before I start, I'm sharing a reminder of my methodology.

[I] rank[ed] the candidates by economic score from low (left) to high (right, or in this case center) to make it comparable to the liberal-moderate (there are no true conservatives running for the Democratic nomination) ranking I used last [month and again earlier this month] which was based on the economic dimension [of Voteview's DW-Nominate scores].  I then used the social score to break ties in the economic score with high scores being considered more liberal and low scores being considered more conservative.

With that out of the way, here are the Democratic candidates from left to center based on their Vote Match scores at On The Issues.

Follow over the jump.

On The Issues shows most of the Democratic candidates have moved left during the campaign, too

I concluded Senators and Representatives running for the Democratic nomination are drifting to the left as they campaign by observing that the phenomenon was more widespread than just current members of Congress.

By the way, the leftward movement of Democratic candidates isn't only shown by the Voteview scores of the current members of Congress; it's demonstrated by the Vote Match scores of all the candidates at On The Issues, which is something I found out after I wrote Wayne Messam at On The Issues, take one.  Nearly every candidate has become more liberal either economically or socially, and a few have moved left on both axes.

My findings are that, of the 25 candidates and one former candidate that I have examined, On The Issues rates eight as having become more liberal economically, six have become more liberal socially, and five have become more liberal along both scales, while four have remained the same and two actually become more moderate economically, so a total of nineteen have become more liberal on one or both dimensions.  Follow over the jump to see which candidates have new ideological scores and how those scores now arrange the candidates from left to center.

Senators and Representatives running for the Democratic nomination are drifting to the left as they campaign

I noticed that Amy Klobuchar had moved left according to her first-dimension DW-Nominate score at Voteview since the end of May when I compared her to  Joe Sestak a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to see if that was true of the rest of the Senators and Representatives running for the Democratic nomination for President.  It turns out that nearly all the Senators have more liberal ideology scores at Voteview, but only one of the Representatives.  However, even if their DW-Nominate scores haven't changed, half of the Representatives running for President have become relatively more liberal compared to the rest of the chamber, as the caucus as a whole has moved closer to the center over the past month.

Follow over the jump for all the changes in the candidates' scores and or placements since I posted Democratic presidential candidates from left to center from Voteview on June 1st.  Just as a reminder, the more negative a member of Congress's score, the more liberal their voting record is.

Drinks for the Democratic debates, Part 1

Four years ago, I wrote a five-part series about drinks for the Democratic debates.  Since the first Democratic debate for the 2020 nomination is tonight, it's time to revive the series.

The first item of business is the drinking game.  Unfortunately, Paul W. of You Might Notice A Trend is not creating drinking games this year; his experience with the 2016 election soured him on the idea.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that I've found three good ones at DebateDrinking.com, the site I used for the general election debates three years ago, Spectator USA, which is the funniest and most complex, and A.M. New York, which is the simplest.  I don't care which one my readers play, but please pick one.

Next, the drinks, one for each candidate in tonight's debate, which DebateDrinking.com lists as follows.

NIGHT 1
Wednesday, June 26

• Cory Booker
• Bill de Blasio
• Julián Castro
• John Delaney
• Tulsi Gabbard
• Jay Inslee
• Amy Klobuchar
• Beto O'Rourke
• Tim Ryan
• Elizabeth Warren

Follow over the jump for the drinks, one for each candidate.

OnTheIssues.org's take on the Democratic presidential candidates from left to center

I concluded Democratic presidential candidates from left to center from Voteview with a promise to revisit the topic.

[T]his won't be the last time I plan on examining the ideology of the candidates.  On The Issues has pages and ideological evaluations of just about all the candidates, including ones who never served in Congress.  Compared to Voteview, it's more complete, but less objective and based on rhetoric, not action....Still, ranking the candidates by ideology, and comparing it to their DW-NOMINATE scores, if available, should be both entertaining and informative.

Since the participants in the debates later this month have been selected, it's time to follow through.

As I did for the rankings using Voteview, I'm sharing the methodology.

Candidate's Political Philosophy
The below is a way of thinking about the candidate's political philosophy by dividing the candidate's VoteMatch answers into "social" and "economic" questions.  It is only a theory - please take it with a grain of salt!

Social Questions:  Liberals and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while conservatives and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.

Economic Questions:  Conservatives and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while liberals and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.
...
Social Score

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people's personal lives or on social issues. These issues include health, morality, love, recreation, prayer and other activities that are not measured in dollars.

• A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in tolerance for different people and lifestyles.
• A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that standards of morality & safety should be enforced by government.

Economic Score

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people's economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

• A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in personal responsibility for financial matters, and that free-market competition is better for people than central planning by the government.
• A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that a good society is best achieved by the government redistributing wealth. The candidate believes that government's purpose is to decide which programs are good for society, and how much should be spent on each program.

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people's economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

How We Score Candidates

How we determine a candidate's stance on each VoteMatch question:

1. We collect up votes, excerpts from speeches, press releases, and so on, which are related to each question. Each of these are shown on the candidate's VoteMatch table.
2. We assign an individual score for each item on the list. The scores can be: Strongly Favor, Favor, Neutral/Mixed, Oppose, Strongly Oppose. The scoring terms refer to the text of the question, not whether the candidate strongly opposed a bill, for example.
3. We then average the individual scores, using the numeric scale: Strongly Favor = 2, Favor = 1, Neutral/Mixed = 0, Oppose = -1, Strongly Oppose = -2.
/OL>
• If the average is above 1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Favor.
• If the average is above 0, the overall answer to the question is Favor.
• If the average is exactly 0, the overall answer to the question is Neutral.
• If the average is below 0, the overall answer to the question is Oppose.
• If the average is below -1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Oppose.
...
• To get the political philosophy of the candidate, we sum up the answers on two scales, the Personal/Social scale and the Economic Scale. Some questions aren't used in the political philosophy calculations.
• The VoteMatch table indicates the number of scale points from each answer (any one question can provide from 0 to 10 scale points on one scale or the other).
• The combination of social/moral scales and economic scales produces a political philosophy description.

Enough of On The Issues' methodology.  Mine was to rank the candidates by economic score from low (left) to high (right, or in this case center) to make it comparable to the liberal-moderate (there are no true conservatives running for the Democratic nomination) ranking I used two weeks ago which was based on the economic dimension.  I then used the social score to break ties in the economic score with high scores being considered more liberal and low scores being considered more conservative.

Follow over the jump for the rankings.

Democratic presidential candidates from left to center from Voteview

Full-sized original at In These Times.
This past April, I read a tweet describing Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders as "being objectively further left then the rest of the Dem primary field."  I thought "Really?  I don't think the data supports that claim" and decided to test it with the DW-NOMINATE scores and relative placements from Voteview.com of all the declared candidates for the Democratic nomination who had scores at the time.  Well, it's two months later, more candidates have declared, and the first two Democratic candidate debates are happening at the end of the month, so it's time to convert the scores into a post.

First, what's Voteview?

Voteview allows users to view every congressional roll call vote in American history on a map of the United States and on a liberal-conservative ideological map including information about the ideological positions of voting Senators and Representatives.
...
Ideological positions are calculated using the DW-NOMINATE (Dynamic Weighted NOMINAl Three-step Estimation). This procedure was developed by Poole and Rosenthal in the 1980s and is a "scaling procedure", representing legislators on a spatial map. In this sense, a spatial map is much like a road map--the closeness of two legislators on the map shows how similar their voting records are. Using this measure of distance, DW-NOMINATE is able to recover the "dimensions" that inform congressional voting behavior.

The primary dimension through most of American history has been "liberal" vs. "conservative" (also referred to as "left" vs. "right"). A second dimension picks up differences within the major political parties over slavery, currency, nativism, civil rights, and lifestyle issues during periods of American history.

In other words, liberal-conservative scores are calculated in two dimensions using DW-NOMINATE.  The votes are fed into the program and the program assigns scores and maps them out.  There is no human judgment involved so it's about as objective a measure of ideology as I can find.

The maps themselves have been animated to show changes in partisanship over time.  Watch This 60-second animation shows how divided Congress has become over the last 60 years, which is based on a study that used DW-NOMINATE data from Voteview.

It's news to no one that Congress has had a hard time passing legislation in recent years. Some have even asserted that partisanship in Washington has reached historic levels. But how do we put the current divide in perspective? A group of researchers recently tried to quantify and visualize House partisanship in a paper published in PLoS ONE.

That was fascinating, but enough about Voteview and its methods.  Follow over the jump for the ranking from liberal to moderate for the Democratic candidates running for President who are current or former members of Congress.

Record numbers of women running for U.S. President on International Women's Day 2019

Happy International Women's Day!  For today's theme of "Balance for Better," I'm following up the past two year's entries examining record numbers of women running for office, which resulted in record numbers women elected and serving in Congress, by examining the record number of women running for president.

With Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota launching their presidential bids over the weekend, there are now more women running for a single party’s nomination than ever.

Warren and Klobuchar join fellow Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Altogether, they comprise nearly a fifth of the Democratic women serving in the Senate. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, is in the field, as well. Author Marianne Williamson, who counts Oprah Winfrey as a fan of her books, has also launched a presidential campaign.

Voters who want to see a woman in the White House will have many more candidates to choose from in 2020 compared with past elections. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, or CAWP, at Rutgers University, there has never been more than two women competing at the same time in the Democratic or Republican primaries.

CBS News covered this story last month in Women already making history in 2020 campaign.

Democratic women are already making history as the 2020 presidential race begins to take shape. CBSN political reporter Caitlin Huey-Burns spoke to CBSN about the growing field of female candidates.

Since CBS News uploaded the video, all five major women candidates have entered the contest.  Marie Claire interviewed all of them in One of These Women Could Be Our Next President.

This election season, a history-making, record-setting number of women are attempting to break that highest, hardest glass ceiling: the Oval Office. Marie Claire went to the Capitol and spoke to the women running for President in 2020.

I wish all of them luck, although my favorites are Harris and Warren.*  I may like Jay Inslee for making climate change his signature issue, but I think Harris, Warren, Klobuchar, and Gillebrand have more of a shot than he does; Gabbard, not so much.

I promise to have more on the presidential candidates as the campaign develops.  In the meantime, a final happy International Women's Day!


*Harris needs a label, so I'm creating one for her with this entry.