Congress

PURE ELECTORAL GOLD: Cory Booker Dating Mindy Kaling?

Featured, News
THE MINDY PROJECT -- "While I Was Sleeping" Episode 402 -- Pictured: (l-r) -- (Photo by: John Fleenor/NBC)

THE MINDY PROJECT — “While I Was Sleeping” Episode 402 — Pictured: (l-r) — (Photo by: John Fleenor/NBC)

Is Cory Booker running for President? We could read the tea-leaves in all of his impassioned Instagram posts; We could place his populist speeches under a micro-scope; Orrrr We could speculate wildly and with very little reason, that Cory Booker is Dating Mindy Kaling. The universally loved star of the Mindy Project is apparently also LOVED by Cory Booker himself. The two interacted on social media and after a few smooth texts from Booker, made plans to meet in the real world.

The interaction began when Booker expressed that his heart was broken by Kaling when she told an insulting joke involving his beloved city of Newark, New Jersey. The two exchanged declarations of mutual love, Booker then asked for a date and ultimately offered to send a car for Kaling (instead of letting her take the PATH Train system).

In the world of campaigns, this is literal Electoral Gold! The famous love stories of politicians have been pillars in the election efforts of every successful Presidential contender in history. Mindy Kaling is a magnetic starlet with an approachable disposition and penchant for social justice. Stump speeches by the would be “First Lady” would be both epic and electric. Mindy is also a trained actress and her phenomenal sense of humor and excellent comedic timing would be excellent attributes in the rigorous campaigning required during Presidential elections. Are we getting carried away and over analyzing harmless flirting on Twitter? OFCOURSE We Are! It is still fun to consider the possibilities.


 mindy-kaling-cory-booker-twitter-2

 

THE DEMOCRATS MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Featured, News

AHCA

Today, the House of Representatives will vote on the American Healthcare Act. Despite, holding both Houses of Congress and the White House, the Republicans are expected to vote down their own bill. The reform will cost 24 million Americans their healthcare. It slashes Medicaid and will raise premiums on all but the young and healthy. After 7 years of opposing Obamacare, the Republicans have managed to write a bill that fails to satisfy any of the ideological metrics that Republicans have used to assault Obamacare. Most prognosticators are certain that the AHCA will fail in a fantastic display of legislative pyrotechnics. TrumpCare, if you ask Paul Ryan or RyanCare, if you ask the Whitehouse, is so unpopular that the Whitehouse and Speaker of the House have publicly jousted regarding which Nom De Plume will go on the bill, with neither side desirous of having the dishonor. As the Republicans tempt fate and court decimation in the midterm elections, where are the Democrats? An article in The Politico offers an answer. “The Democrats New Obamacare Strategy: Get Out of The Way”. As a legislative strategy, this is largely the right approach. Democrats should not try to stall republican attempts to vote on a bill that reveals how their party has abdicated its core principles and were perhaps never sincere in their criticism of Obamacare. However, “Get Out of The Way” also seems to be the ethos of the national party. In an epic failure to capitalize, Democrats nationally have not used the disastrous AHCA as a mobilizing tool. Together, with the equally reviled Trump-Budget, the Democrats could easily assemble the ultimate Megazord to fight the GOP in the midterms. And yet, the Democrats have not begun to lay the foundation for an effective mid-term effort. The Democrats should have already hired new organizers and deployed them in the backyards of rural Republican districts. Organizing wins’ elections but Organizing isn’t about phone-calls or door to door. The foundation of Organizing is about building relationships and as Republicans turn their backs on the voters that elected them by offering policies that gut the programs those voters depend on, Democrats have an unprecedented opportunity to build new relationships with rural voters. As these rural Republican voters are forced to confront the reality that they need government programs just as much as the inner cities Republicans often lampoon, the Democrats have a chance to expose the core Republican obsession with the gutting of government programs as fundamentally flawed. Never before have Democrats had such an obvious opportunity to bring about a fundamental collapse of Republican orthodoxy by laying siege to the foundations and overly simplistic principles of the GOP. As rural Republican voters suddenly realize that they are just as dependent on government funding as liberal bastions and minority communities, Democrats have a real chance to batter the intellectual pillars that have buttressed conservative thought since the era of William F. Buckley. And what are Democrats doing instead: They are Getting Out of The Way. Democrats should have been using this time to reconstitute their army of Organizers and begin deploying them to the rural communities that roundly rejected their message in the last election. They can now show those voters the true cost of Republican cuts and argue forcefully for the power of government to improve their lives. The Dems should be giving Organizers the time it takes to build bonds with these new prospective voters who often hail from regions where being a Democrat is socially synonymous with being a communist. Democrats cannot afford to implement the “tried and failed” strategy of waiting until shortly before the mid-term or the Presidential election to deploy Organizers in the hope of making gains in communities that have believed for generations that being a Democrat is akin to being a traitor. The achilles heel of the Democratic Party is a lack of a sustained presence in these communities that nurtures and builds relationships with these votes. For the first time in a long time, these voters have eyes and ears to hear the message of the Democratic Party. The Democrats cannot afford to miss this opportunity.

NO SOUP FOR YOU: Trump Budget Slashes After-School Food Programs

Featured, News

nbc-fires-donald-trump-after-he-calls-mexicans-rapists-and-drug-runners

President Donald J. Trump’s first budget slashes funding to programs like Meals on Wheels and After School Programs that feed children in America’s public schools. After acknowledging that these programs are designed to feed kids that “can’t get a meal at home”, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney claimed that “there is no demonstrable evidence” programs that feed children “help kids do better in school”. Mick Mulvaney and his budget live in contradiction with the real world.

The finest example of increasing productivity by providing healthy lunches can be found in Silicon Valley where technology hubs have become famous for their comfortable cafeterias filled with delectable dishes like Ceviche, Quinoa Salads, Gourmet Pizzas, Espresso Bars (w/ Energy Drinks) and even Deserts. The  costly extravagances reflect the well-established, and quantitatively verifiable link between feeding workers and increasing their productivity. The World Health Organization’s studies have proven a 20% increase in brain power and productivity as a result of a healthy lunch. Entrepreneur Magazine sighted a study showing a 150% return on productivity for companies that invested in providing high quality lunches. Harvard Business Review, a school which ironically counts Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as an alumni, published that “food has a direct impact on our cognitive performance, which is why a poor decision at lunch can derail an entire afternoon. Just about everything we eat is converted by our body into glucose, which provides the energy our brains need to stay alert. When we’re running low on glucose, we have a tough time staying focused and our attention drifts. This explains why it’s hard to concentrate on an empty stomach”. It seems reasonable to conclude that although these studies were conducted on adults, they apply to children who obviously don’t have a greater capacity to contend with hunger than their parents. Until now, no one has ever been craven enough to deny children food so that we can measure the decline in their performance. If feeding workers in Silicon Valley, where workers make substantial salaries makes sense, then feeding children who have no control over their economic situations is even more reasonable.

The budget put forth by President Trump and Director Mulvaney is cruel and short sighted. It induces a decline in performance and courts the academic failure of our children which creates ripples in the pool of workers from which our businesses draw.

THE FIGHT FOR OBAMA’S LEGACY GETS COMLICATED

Featured, News
2016 presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

2016 presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

Who is the rightful successor of the Obama Legacy? The fight to become the President’s standard bearer became the central theme of last night’s Democratic Townhall on MSNBC. 

During the Townhall Hillary Clinton launched a series of attacks on Senator Bernie Sanders, alleging that he once encouraged disenchanted democrats to launch a primary challenge to President Obama’s second term in 2012. The attack while effective is also tactically blind to Clinton’s own previous actions.

Clinton has been informally running for President longer than any other candidate. One of the early narratives of her campaign was a direct rebuke of the Obama foreign policy.  The Washington Post wrote  that “there is little precedent for a secretary of state preparing a presidential campaign in part by criticizing the foreign policy being carried out by the administration she helped lead.” In the earliest moments of 2014 Clinton began a very public critique of President Obama’s Foreign Policy, highlighting moments when the President failed to heed her sage advice and the disastrous consequences of his naivete. At one point Clinton mocked the President (and his famous phrase) declaring that “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff is not an organizing principle” effectively attacking his reluctance to get the U.S. bogged down in long engagements.

While Clinton attempts to position Sanders as a disloyal soldier in the democratic ranks, her attacks on the President came at a much more precarious time for the President, while he was bogged down in the tumult of new complications in Iraq and the Ukraine. Clinton went even further, outpacing even right wing critics of the President becoming among the first to blame the President and the failure of his policies for the rise of Isis. Clinton stated in The Atlantic that “The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the Protests against Bashar al Assad-there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle-the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled”. The public spat evolved into a very embarrassing verbal joust, leaving a sitting President to publicly debate his former Secretary of State in the pages of the New York Times, in which he declared that the postulated scenario of success from Clinton’s recommendations had “always been a fantasy” (Washington Post 8/11/14).

Clinton’s early campaign was positioned to seek political benefits by distancing herself from the President. The Atlantic noted that Clinton repeatedly referred to the President’s policy as a “Failure” a remark she now assaults Sanders for making. As one who now seeks the mantle of the Obama Presidency, the inconvenient truth is that in the early months of 2014, Hillary Clinton was tacking right, praising President Bush and attacking President Obama as a failure (to summarize TheWeek.com 7/28/14).

The most costly charge for the Sanders team is the claim that Sanders once sought “someone” as a primary challenger for President Obama in 2012, however it is worth noting that the challenger most speculated about was Hillary Clinton. Team Clinton supporters, were the most vocal proponents of a Primary challenge for the President. In an article posted to TheHill.com frustrated democrats like Peter DeFazio suggested that a primary challenge might salve the wounds of disappointment he and other democrats felt about the President. A primary challenge he stated would “push the president and his advisers a bit……to give us back the candidate we had three years ago”. An unnamed lawmaker told TheHill.Com that Clinton was the only candidate that could “crystallize the issues”.  The same liberal lawmaker told The Hill that “She could do the job and hopefully lead us to a better place”. The clamor culminated with articles like the Daily Beast’s “Hillary Told You So” in which numerous democratic acolytes loyal to Clinton asserted that the disappointment voters felt in Obama could have been avoided had voters made the wiser choice of electing Clinton. Redemption they argued could be earned by supporting a Clinton in 2012 primary challenge. While Clinton vociferously denied interest, fuel was given to fire by Clinton attacking her own Commander In Chief while serving as his Secretary of State, suggesting that Obama’s “Failure” economically was making her job harder as early as 2010.