Tag: Campaign 2020

Their Lips are Moving Again

Trish Ponder
Trump claims he’s going off-label again

While denying he was using it but saying he’d be willing to, Vice President Mike Pence committed some other lies today about hydroxychloroquine sulfate, the drug Trump claims he is taking to prevent COVID-19.

Asked during the Fox interview if he had concerns about the message Trump’s use of the drug sends, Pence noted that the FDA approved the off-label use of the drug so physicians could prescribe it if they deemed it appropriate.

Yeah, no.

First of all, the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t “approve” drugs for off-label use. That’s an oxymoron. Here’s the FDA’s own explainer on the subject:

When you are prescribed a drug for its approved use, you can be sure:

    That FDA has conducted a careful evaluation of its benefits and risks for that use.

    The decision to use the drug is supported by strong scientific data.

    There is approved drug labeling for healthcare providers on how to use the drug safely and effectively for that use…

If you and your healthcare provider decide to use an approved drug for an unapproved use to treat your disease or medical condition, remember that FDA has not determined that the drug is safe and effective for the unapproved use.

Keep reading. […]

Timeline: Devastating New Biden Ad Tracks Trump’s Virus Crisis Lies and Inaction

Pensito Editors

“Timeline,” a new ad from the Biden campaign, takes the viewer through a chronology of Trump’s incompetence and failures as the covid-19 crisis swept the country from both coasts.

It ends with a kicker: “Donald Trump doesn’t understand,” the narrator says. “We have an economic crisis because we have a public health crisis. And we have a public health crisis because he refused to act. Donald Trump didn’t build a great economy. His failure to lead destroyed one.”

The ad is running on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in six battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,

Dems Suffering a Double-Digit Enthusiasm Gap

Buck Banks

24% to 53%

“Joe Biden has emerged as Democrats’ top choice for the presidential nomination in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, but with only bare majority support within his party and a massive enthusiasm gap in a November matchup against President Trump. … Indeed, strong enthusiasm for Biden among his supporters – at just 24% – is the lowest on record for a Democratic presidential candidate in 20 years of ABC/Post polls. More than twice as many of Trump’s supporters are highly enthusiastic about supporting him, 53%.”

Carlson Shows Who Is Really ‘Cynical and Darkly Clever’ — Him

Buck Banks

“To the cynical and darkly clever people who run the Democratic Party, Biden’s fading intellect is not a handicap. It’s an opportunity. Joe Biden is weak, and he’s getting weaker. Ask anyone who knows him, or who’s watched him carefully over the past 50 years. Biden is noticeably more confused now than he was even last spring, when he entered the race. … Why is this good news for the Democratic establishment in Washington? Because it means they can control him. That’s one reason the other candidates were so eager to swing in behind Biden the instant he won a state.”

— Tucker Carlson argued that Joe Biden’s “fading intellect is not a handicap” but “an opportunity” for the Democratic establishment to control the resurgent White House hopeful, The Hill reports.

Why Obama Hasn’t Endorsed Yet

Buck Banks

“He feels that he’s singularly positioned to help unify the party at the end of this. And if he were try to put his thumb on the scale now, it would take away his ability to do so when it’s most needed — the general election.”

— A confidant to Barack Obama, telling CNN why the former president isn’t endorsing yet in the Democratic presidential primary.

The Surest Way for Us to Lose is to Vote Based on Who We Think Can Win

Trish Ponder
Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash

Update: In light of the 60 Minutes interview with Bloomberg and the announcement by Buttigieg that he is dropping out, I’m switching my vote to Bloomberg.

“At a certain point, we have to stop backing away from Trump and turn around and start walking toward the America that we want to create. That’s the problem when the only political goal is defeating Donald Trump. All you’re doing is fighting a vendetta, you will literally accept any kind of foul evil as long as it’s not the specific evil that you’re fighting…

“People say, ‘Well HE can defeat him. THIS is the guy that can defeat him, or no, Biden can defeat him, or a moderate can defeat him, or a leftist can defeat him…’ Nobody knows who can take it so you might as well vote for the America you want to see, not the America you’re afraid to let go of.” — Moshe Kasher, comedian and writer

I live in a state that doesn’t vote until two weeks after Super Tuesday. A lot of tea leaves will have been read by the time I vote. The conventional wisdom will be set in stone and my state’s decision will be an afterthought.

And I am still going to vote for who I’m going to vote for. Pete Buttigieg has impressed me from the beginning. None of the other candidates feel right to me. I’m voting for Pete no matter what I’m being told by St. Patrick’s Day about who can win. I’m voting for Pete because he’s who I want to see in the White House in January.

The truth is that nobody knows who can or will defeat Trump. The truth is that most voters are not pundits. The truth is that by trying to be pundits, by voting based purely on who you think everyone else will vote for, you end up with a candidate that most don’t hate but no one loves. How did that work for us in 2016, 2004, and 1988?* […]

Forget the Presidential Race. This One is Way More Important

Trish Ponder

“We’ve already seen how he did, how he acted, the week after impeachment. Can you imagine this man after re-election?”
— Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to Pres. Obama and author

Party affiliation of the Senate of the 111th Congress

If impeachment taught us one thing, it has to be the importance of flipping the Senate from Republican majority to Democratic majority. Had Democrats controlled the Senate during the trial, evidence would have been pursued, witnesses would have been both called and believed, and Donald Trump would have been held accountable for his naked power grabbing.

Likewise, even if Donald Trump wins in November, with a Democratically-controlled Senate joining the Democratically-controlled House, he will get nothing done. He will be rendered the ineffectual red-faced crybaby that he is if he has no enablers to make his dreams reality.

Not convinced that the Senate races are more important in 2020 than the presidential contest? The next president will almost certainly get to nominate two Supreme Court justices — but those people will have to be approved by the Senate. We’ve already seen who Republicans approve. Having two more justices like the first two will change life as Americans, particularly progressive Americans, know it. […]