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Remember the book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?” The modern GOP has clearly forgotten the point of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Much of the gaping credibility deficit of today’s Republican Party is the byproduct of what Jeffrey Berry and Sarah Sobieraj call The Outrage Industry. The hottest thing in the media business is outrage peddling and, unfortunately for Republicans, politically conservative consumers can’t get enough of it. The market for conservative outrage is flooded with low quality product that is crowding out serious criticism of folks like Hillary Clinton and President Obama.

Our campaign circus of big money, big media, and big data cheapen and threaten democracy.

Hillary Clinton's dumbed-down announcement video was an insult to the citizen.For an example of a candidate who took the voters seriously look to Ronald Reagan's 1980 announcement.

Boston 2024 is so 90210. Athletes and connected rich kids are at the cool table where decisions get made.  The Andrea Zuckerman’s of the world, ie the rest of us, are not included.  We’ll just have to look on as Kelly, Dylan, Brenda, and the gang decide what is best for West Beverly – er, Boston and a Boston Olympics.

That is unless anti-Olympic mobilization continues and further solidifies.  As Political Scientist Jules Boykoff has shown in his comprehensive study or the Olympics and activism, protest and local discontent dissuades the risk-adverse International Olympic Committee (IOC).  Activism and opposition works with the IOC and has repeatedly affected the IOC’s decisions.

So the task is simple:  Rise up, Andrea’s!    

From the perspective of sharing funds with more people (and, especially, from the point of view of reducing inequality and helping people make it into the middle class) the choice of supporting the EITC over the Film Tax Credit is a lay-up. So what's going on? Why aren't working families who could benefit from the EITC more visible than Film Tax credit supporters? At least six explanations stand out:

SuperPACs further corrode our deteriorating democracy.

Even though plenty of factors that impact his success are out of Governor Charlie Baker's control, being governor is still the best job in politics.

Why didn’t the 2014 campaign feature discussion of budget deficits or the condition of the MBTA? One reason is that media debates are more low comedy than high stakes.

Advice from political science: ignore polls.

Third-wave feminists face a dual determination in assessing Secretary Clinton's 2016 candidacy.  First, do they perceive that the American political system is so flawed that the only way to "win” is by sending in one of the elite’s own (HRC) who will inevitably disappoint on policy but nonetheless break barriers? And, second, can HRC convince third-wave feminists that while she is of the second-wave her policy views are not limited to liberal feminism alone.

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