It’s been a busy week. We’ve had an unsuccessful impeachment, a nasty State of the Union address and a flubbed Iowa Democratic primary, the results of all this being somewhere between depressing and disastrous.
The Trump acquittal had all the recognition factor of a Banana Republic dictator putting himself on trial for larceny. The State of the Union speech was so replete with false bravado and outright lies that it was impossible to find a true statement about anything, though I did get a laugh from Nancy Pelosi tearing up her copy of the address at the end.
The Iowa primary had one thing going for it. It has finally assured us that this form of primary voting will most certainly never be used by a state again. The Caucus system was conceived in criminality and executed without functionality and now stands only to prove that the Democrats are as incompetent and non-functional as the GOP ever hoped to be. One man, one vote, secret ballot, written on paper, is the only honest, viable election format, and every honest or even minimally intelligent person in the nation should abandon everything else.
I understand that there are still twelve states that use this deliberately confusing, overly complicated format, which was obviously conceived as an assist to rigging an election. One man, one vote, secret ballot is not only the best, but it is by far the simplest system available for the voting process. We saw in the 2004 & 2016 elections, how even the far less complicated Electoral College is easily manipulated by criminal elements to arrive at a wholly unfair result. In both elections Presidents who had lost the popular vote arrived in the White House wholly unprepared to govern and as if it were a sign of God’s wrath, both are now incontrovertibly ranked as the two worst presidents in the history of the nation. One was an imbecile, led around by the nose by a hideously evil war criminal and the other is an egomaniacal, sociopath with monarchial wet dreams.
Remember, one man, one vote, secret ballot is the only functional voting system that should ever be used in this country.
There has been a lot of talk from those who understand that Trump was absolutely guilty of that for which he had been accused and that he must be pursued after he leaves office to pay for those crimes and much, much more. Although I despise Trump and know, as do all thinking people, that he is a far greater crook and much closer to a traitor than can ever be proved, I still hesitated about such a plan, believing that to start the practice of going after ex-presidents when they left office was to start down a very dark and dangerous path. However, upon seeing him leap so voraciously into a vengeance plan, attacking all those who have opposed him from a headquarters in the White House, I am definitely having second thoughts.
Instead of sitting back and taking advantage of the fact that he had the great deceiver, Moscow Mitch, covering his ample tail, Trump has begun a vendetta of terror, starting with General Vindman and Gordon Sondland and taking him God knows where. It is immediately apparent that Trump will never learn: either how to be grateful for McConnell’s crooked defense of an obviously guilty President or from his near brush with historical significance.
So, yes, we must go after Trump after he leaves the protection of the White House. We must go after him because like any vicious criminal, he will go right back to doing what he thinks he has gotten away with and the only remedy is legal punishment.
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Still on the impeachment thing; Lamar Alexander, when questioned about his strange speech convicting Trump for his actions while exonerating him from punishment, first claimed that impeachment was defined in the constitution but later reneged, claiming that his interpretation is not what the constitution says. Then without explanation of why the switch, he claims that he doesn’t think Trump will do it again. Really? What brings about that frame of mind? Trump is a career criminal and as such will naturally repeat all his criminal tendencies until he is forcibly restrained from doing so. Trump has already committed extortion just to hurt a candidate that might not even face him in the upcoming election. What does the senile Alexander think he might do when actually faced with losing said election?
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There has been a great deal of noise made since Mike Bloomberg’s entrance into the Democratic Presidential race and about his “party switching.” Bloomberg has gone from active Republican, to Mayoral Independent and now Democratic candidate. What does this say about Bloomberg other than he uses party membership simply as a tool to advance his political goals? Well, probably nothing. That seems to be exactly how he treats party membership and so what? Part of the problem with current party membership is that it seems to engender more loyalty to the party than it does to the country as has just been seen, primarily among the Republicans, during the impeachment of Trump. Maybe our whole political system would be better served if politicians used their party membership as more of an organizational tool than as a religious calling. It would sure promote bi-partisanship.
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Bernie Sanders has been doing a lot of talking recently about the concept that whoever wins the Democratic primary should have all the other aspects of the party get in line to fight for that person’s election. This sounds great except for the fact that his fanatic followers don’t seem to be getting the message. After all, it was Bernie’s followers who stayed away from the polls or voted for the Independent candidate during the 2016 fiasco and now, more than ever, we hear them attacking other candidates and even Hillary Clinton.
Don’t these people understand that Hillary is gone, vanquished by their lack of support at the last election? They have already stabbed their party in the back once. Are they planning to do it again?
Part of the problem seems to be that it appears Hillary doesn’t know she is gone either. Everyone would be better off if she kept her, “nobody likes Bernie,” comments to herself, and just enjoyed her retirement.
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And then we had another Democratic debate. This time it was from New Hampshire. It was a good, active debate, but it didn’t seem like much changed except Amy Klobachar picked up a little ground and Joe Biden seemed to lose a little. For me, the most significant part of the debate was the after show when Chris Christie started telling us about how Pete Buttigieg got caught lying about the black issue in South Bend and how you can’t lie to the public. I laughed so hard my pants will never dry. I mean, a Trump backer worrying about lies? That’s okay; we needed some humor in this race. So far there has been nothing but hate. But Christie let the real story slip when he came back later in the general discussion to go after Buttigieg again; this time tipping the point that the Democrat the GOP is really terrified about is Mayor Pete. And they should be. Put Pete on stage with the charismatic but unstable Trump and you will have a massacre. Pete is too smart, too quick and way too in control for Trump to get anywhere near able to handle. Where will Trump be able to go? And what will he be able to say if he can’t lie? Somehow the truth just doesn’t suit him.
I don’t know how Warren would handle Trump in a debate but it is more than clear that at least three, and possibly all, would handle him easily. Those three, Buttigieg, Klobachar and Steyer would beat him to a pulp, right on that stage.