Tag: Democrats

Since 1947, just two years after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has maintained what is known as a "Doomsday Clock." This clock is reset annually and is supposed to measure approximately how close the world is to the apocalypse due to a man-made catastrophe, with midnight representing the apocalypse and however many minutes before midnight representing how close mankind is to causing it.

Stephen Breyer replaced a liberal justice, and a liberal justice will replace him. That much is assured. There’s no underestimating President Joe Biden’s ability to foul things up for Democrats. It’s easy to imagine him picking someone for Breyer’s seat whose nomination somehow blows up, or at least proves more contentious than expected.

With the turn of the calendar to 2022, Republicans are not only looking to the 2022 midterm elections but to the prospect of Donald Trump running in 2024. Trump is hugely popular with the party’s base and that popularity freezes the plans of other possible candidates for the 2024 nomination. Trump’s hold on that nomination is brittle, however, because of his age. On election day in 2024 Donald Trump will be 78 years old. That is one year older than Ronald Reagan’s age when he left office in 1988.

Progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives can be forgiven their anxiety about whether Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will support the more than $1.8 trillion Build Back Better plan. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, for example, rues the two senators’ outsize influence, while her colleague Rashida Tlaib of Michigan worries that Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema are “corporate Dems” led astray by special interests.

Regaining momentum, Democratic leaders are pressing ahead on President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy bill, with the House expected to vote later this week and the Senate vowing to follow by Christmas in hopes of boosting the party’s standing and delivering on a main campaign promise.