SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2016
Today’s Good News And Bad News
From Our Local Political Junkie We’ll Call “Cincy Dave”
Yes, that is correct. A new voter I.D. bill was passed in Missouri and Governor Jay Nixon (D) vetoed it, saying that it would disproportionately affect senior citizens, people with disabilities and others, and that it solves a non-problem because voter impersonation is very rare. In recent years, 33 states have passed voter I.D. laws and virtually all were passed by majority Republican legislatures. Opponents claim that they are just an effort to suppress Democratic voters and some Republican politicians have even bragged about how they will help them win. An effort to over-ride Nixon’s veto is expected.
After a long week of negative news coverage over the email controversy, Hillary is supposed to receive the long-awaited endorsement by Bernie Sanders at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Tuesday. Apparently, both sides have finally reached agreement on how much socialism she can put up with in her campaign and in the party platform, so he has agreed to end his holdout. Hopefully, the over-taxed payers will also get a break as he should release his Secret Service detail that has been costing us about 40,000 dollars per day.
Even better for Hillary, reports are that Bernie is going spend every day until Election Day working to defeat DJT. His personal involvement carries a lot of weight with his supporters and will help bring out their vote, as well as reduce defections to the Green Party or others.
As you may know, the head of Fox News, Roger Ailes, is being sued by former employee and former Miss America, Gretchen Carlson, for sexual harassment. Now, at least six more women have come forward to back up her allegations. As long as the fat paychecks were coming in, our former Channel 9 reporterette was willing to put up with a lot, but when Ailes finally fired her for not having sex with him, that was the limit. We guess that she couldn’t stomach thinking about those jowls, which are not anyone’s idea of love handles.
Fox and Bill O’Reilly bought themselves out of a similar sexual harassment lawsuit several years ago, but this one could be far more expensive. Expect the man behind the curtain to be gone soon. Could we eventually see some changes in the Fox model of pretty blonde women in tight skirts and high heels reading the Republican slant on everything? Time will tell, but whatever happens, just hope they keep the lovely Megyn.
Usually, only one person on earth has any real choice in who the vice presidential candidate will be for each party. Trump claims to have 10 people on his “short list” but Hillary has said nothing. Either way, nobody really knows anything until the candidate makes his/her choice known. (Isn’t that a great way for a so-called democracy to work?) Betting on politics is illegal in the U.S. except for a few small-stakes prediction websites but not so in the U.K. where you can bet on virtually anything. For what it’s worth, here is what odds makers in the U.K. (Paddy Power) see as to who it might be and what the American prediction site, Predictit bettors think:
U.K bookmakers’ Odds Predict It $1.00 Share Value
Republicans
Newt Gingrich 9/4 .27
Chris Christie 4/1 .09
James Mattis 4/1 not listed
Jeff Sessions 4/1 .08
John Kasich 9/2 .04
Mike Pence 5/1 .31
Michael Flynn not listed .14
DemocRATS
Tim Kaine 8/5 .41
Elizabeth Warren 7/2 .15
Julian Castro 7/2 .05
Bernie Sanders 7/1 .05
Tom Perez 9/1 .11
Cory Booker 16/1 .10
Sherrod Brown 16/1 .09
If you never heard of James Mattis or Michael Flynn, you are not alone. They are not politicians but Retired Generals. We will talk about them in a future article. These odds bounce around every day, depending on who is in the news or who has been seen with one of the candidates. None of it means anything, except to the gamblers.
Too bad we can’t (legally) gamble on politics because, with the differences in odds on each site, one could make some real money betting on both sides of a few peoples’ chances.