Sports At Politics

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency in order to build a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, despite the lack of a legitimate basis for such a national emergency. This is, by far, easily the most controversial national emergency declaration in U.S. history. Usually, a national emergency is declared by the president for a legitimate reason, such as, to use historical examples, the Great Depression and the 9/11 attacks. Trump's national emergency declaration to build a border wall is the first instance in U.S. history of a national emergency being declared for the purpose of achieving a purely political objective instead of due to the presence of a legitimate national emergency. Prior to today, the previous instance of a national emergency declaration being controversial was when then-President Richard Nixon declared a national emergency due to a postal workers' strike in 1970, in which members of the U.S. Armed Forces and the National Guard were used ...

I will preface this entire blog post by saying that I am currently undecided in regards to who I will support in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, although I fully intend to vote in the Illinois Democratic primary for a Democratic presidential candidate and his or her slate of Democratic National Convention delegates in my home congressional district. Now, there is a nasty smear campaign that is being waged against Kamala Harris, one of several Democrats seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, over her past relationship to Willie Brown, a former San Fransisco Mayor and California State Assembly Speaker. While the smear campaign appears to be largely waged by the far-right media, including outlets like Fox News and Breitbart, at least one person on the left has tried to smear Kamala over her past relationship to Brown as well. One of them is Lauren Steiner, who hosts a social media video series called The Robust Opposition , and Steiner went as far as t...

Soon-to-be-former U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke (D-TX), who is a possible candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, released this 48-second video, which made a very powerful case in opposition to President Donald Trump's demand for a border wall boondoggle among the U.S./Mexico border: pic.twitter.com/XONeh8HUf1 — Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) December 28, 2018 That might be the most well-produced web video that I've ever seen from a political figure of any kind, bar none. Beto did not physically appear in the video, and neither his voice nor anyone else's voice, was heard in the video. However, the video didn't need anyone to be seen or heard to drive home the message about the many reasons why the proposed border wall boondoggle would be an absolutely ridiculous idea, and the various images of the natural beauty of Rio Grande Valley also helped make the case against the border wall boondoggle. I will note that I am currently undec...

With a potentially very large field of candidates expected to seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2020, I made this observation about the divide within the Democratic Party being more complicated than a simple divide between a center-left establishment and a left-wing progressive insurgency: The 2016 primary campaign between Hillary and Bernie has probably led a lot of people to incorrectly believe that there are only two factions within the Democratic Party. In reality, it's a lot more complicated than that. — Aaron Camp (@ProgMid) December 25, 2018 Obviously, the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries/caucuses quickly became virtually a two-candidate race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders well before the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses were held that year, and became an actual two-candidate race between the center-left Hillary and the progressive Bernie after Martin O'Malley ended his longshot presidential bid after the Iowa caucuses. ...

This tweet from President Donald Trump may have just sunk the joint bid by the United States, Canada, and Mexico for the right to host the 2026 edition of the world's most prestigious men's soccer tournament, the FIFA World Cup: The U.S. has put together a STRONG bid w/ Canada & Mexico for the 2026 World Cup. It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don’t support us (including at the United Nations)? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2018 In other words, Trump, at least implicitly, threatened to revoke U.S. foreign aid from countries that intend to vote for Morocco's bid to host the 2026 World Cup over the joint USA/Canada/Mexico bid. Morocco, a country in northwestern Africa, was thought to be a heavy favorite to be selected to host the 2026 World Cup even before Trump's threatening tweet, and is probably even more of a favorite to be selected ...

Kim Jong-il, the now-deceased former North Korean dictator and father of current North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, once claimed to have made holes-in-one at five different holes at a golf club in North Korea , although that feat probably never actually happened, since a single hole-in-one in a round of golf is rare, even at the professional level, and actual instances of multiple holes in one in a single round are extremely rare. I'll let you guess who is also exaggerating about their golf scores...: LPGA legend Suzann Pettersen is fond of the sitting U.S. president. But she's not so sure about his handicap. [...] "He cheats like hell," the 15-time LPGA Tour winner said. "So I don't quite know how he is in business. They say that if you cheat at golf, you cheat at business." Pettersen also said the president must pay his caddies well, as drives that are headed for the woods always ends up back in the fairway. She also mentioned his fondness...