Free Republic

One of the most durable political assets that Republicans have enjoyed throughout the 21st century is their edge among Americans 65 and older, who tend to turn out at the polls more reliably any other group. But with President Trump’s inept and erratic handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, he is rapidly losing support among the age group most vulnerable to its ravages - which is a big warning sign to Republicans as they look to the fall. Trump has also been showing slippage in support among the next-oldest cohort, those 55 and older. The shift has been showing up...

In a one-line blog post, "Health Reform: Euthanasia and Other Rumors," Time magazine's Karen Tumulty pointed readers to a blog post at The New Republic's Web site set on "Exposing the Euthanasia Scare" that has cropped up in the debate over health care reform: Harold Pollack dispenses with them (and their sources) here. Albeit in kinder, gentler language, Pollack posited that opposition to socialized medicine among American senior citizens was due to racism, xenophobia, and homophobia

They're really piling on him now...

Anti-Castro Majority Leader Tom DeLay enjoys a fine Cuban cigar Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, according to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a cigar is an economic prop to a brutal totalitarian regime. Arguing against loosening sanctions against Cuba last year, DeLay warned that Fidel Castro "will take the money. Every dime that finds its way into Cuba first finds its way into Fidel Castro's blood-thirsty hands.... American consumers will get their fine cigars and their cheap sugar, but at the cost of our national honor." DeLay has long been one of Congress' most vocal critics...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101041122-782133,00.html N O T E B O O K The Folklore of Election '04 Debunking the falsehoods springing from this November's contest By KAREN TUMULTY Monday, Nov. 15, 2004 Few political rituals are so honored as overreading the results of an election. In the rush to explain this one, at least six myths have taken root: A tidal wave of churchgoers won the day. As Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin notes, the percentage of the voting electorate that attends church once a week was 42%—precisely what it was in 2000. And President Bush's percentage of that vote was 58%, up a...

Bush's Bounce Poll shows Kerry flagging By KAREN TUMULTY Tuesday, Sep. 07, 2004 For the first time since the presidential contest became a two-man race this spring, it seems to have a clear leader: President Bush. The latest TIME poll shows Bush leading his rival, John Kerry, 52% to 41%. Kerry's decline has coincided with the airing of television ads attacking his Vietnam War record and antiwar activism. Anxious Democrats say Kerry was not quick or aggressive enough in countering the largely unsubstantiated attacks on his record by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but Kerry's drop...

<p>Never had John Kerry encountered a more target-rich environment than the week that saw the Bush White House hauled in to explain itself to both the Supreme Court and the 9/11 commission, not to mention the first anniversary of the aircraft-carrier landing that turned "mission accomplished" into a punch line. But what did the challenger find himself talking about for three days? The question of what, precisely, he tossed over a fence in front of the Capitol during an antiwar protest 33 years ago. The point of contention was whether the much decorated Vietnam veteran who still carries shrapnel in his thigh threw away medals, as he told a local Washington television station in 1971, or ribbons, which is how he subsequently described them to nearly everyone else. Political hands of both parties expressed wonderment over how it was that any politician could find himself on the defensive about his own medals for valor and sacrifice.</p>

On Sunday's Face the Nation, at the start of a segment on President Bush's National Guard duty, CBS's Bob Schieffer said he was "surprised, frankly," that the Guard story "has gone on as long as it has." As if he had no control over the subject matters addressed on his own show. But neither Schieffer, nor his guests on the topic, Time's Karen Tumulty and Boston Globe reporter Walter Robinson, went so far as Meet the Press panelist Roger Simon of U.S. News who remarked that, as opposed to Bush taking the nation to war, "nobody died when Bill Clinton...