What follows is the most recent edition of Political News Items. If you would like to sample the newsletter, you can do so by clicking here. Political News Items can be found in the “Newsletters” tab. The offer is “first month free.” You can unsubscribe at any time. — —…

One of the least convincing arguments in politics is “electability.” The pitch is that “electability” trumps belief(s) and that primary voters should therefore get with the program and do the right thing. Which is: Vote for the candidate who asserts that he or she is the most “electable.” It has…

Long-time News Items subscribers have heard me bang on about Fox News as follows: “the audience programs the network, not the other way around.” Yet more evidence for this assertion arrived recently in filings by the voting-machine company Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox for defamation and seeking $1.6…

This first appeared at Political News Items, then at News Items and now at Medium.com. Tinkers to Evers to Chance. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in the recent past, everyone became a “strategist.” I get up early in the morning to begin assembling News Items…

1. Veteran political analyst Tom Edsall had a typically interesting column last week that included the following paragraph (slightly reworked by me): Katherine Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, summed up the discontent among rural voters (in the 2016 general election) as follows: “It had three elements…

This “piece” ran in Political Items on Saturday, 21 January. Pieces like this are part of what Political Items offers. You can subscribe to Political Items by clicking here. The first 14 days are free. Unsubscribe any time. You can share this piece by clicking on the “button” below. “Inequality”…

If you aren’t a subscriber to Political Items, you missed this piece, posted yesterday. Beginning 9 January, Political Items will require a subscription at the low, low price of $60 per annum (or $5 per month). You can subscribe by clicking on this link. The first 14 days are free. …

How does a Chinese national say “President Xi was completely wrong” without finding himself or herself on the midnight express to re-education camp? “Delicately” is the answer. Zhong Nanshan appears to have thread the needle. The South China Morning Post reports: China’s response to Covid-19 should now focus on preventing…

I sent this “column” to News Items subscribers on November 16th and am reposting it here for non-subscribers. The thoughts expressed in the column were echoed in today’s Financial Times by its global media editor, Alex Barker. 1. Former President Trump’s announcement of candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination…