Democrats, concentrate on beating trump

The most important chore the Democrats have is beating Trump in 2020. So far, the polls on Democrat Front runners to challenge Trump in 2020 are off the mark. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Beto O'Rourke are the wrong choices. Beto might be a good vice president candidate but not the right person for the top job.

Democrats can beat Trump if they can win the majority of Pennsylvania Ohio Michigan and Wisconsin. They need a candidate who can when the disaffected workers in those states. It is true that Bernie Sanders in Elizabeth Warren have messages that should play well there but so did Hillary Clinton. She did a lousy job of delivering her message. Bernie Sanders is too extreme and he will be labeled a socialist. That is not what those Midwesterners want. Elizabeth Warren is simply not a likable and does not really speak the language of the Midwest. By far the most likely candidate, and one who is not getting much attention is Sen. Sherrod Brown from Ohio. His economic policies– Anti-free-trade, anti-NAFTA and pro social welfare programs is what those Midwesterners want. Trump talked a good game but didn't deliver. His tax cuts went to the wealthy and his job creation bullshit never happened.

The Democrats need to focus on winning the election and not on whom they like the best themselves. They lost in 2016 by screwing up in the Midwest. They can't afford to do it again.

A different kind of president

Donnies apologists often seek to explain away his  stupid actions and remarks, which are endless by saying" he is a different kind of Pres.". They are  of course correct. We have never had such an ignorant, incompetent, lying and probably delusional president. In the past few days he has reached new heights of stupidity and incompetence by announcing a troop withdrawal from Syria and probably Afghanistan and petulantly refusing to sign a continuing budget resolution. With respect to the latter, he  obviously told House and Senate Republicans he would sign it but abruptly changed mind when criticized by Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingram and the leaders of the so-called House" freedom Caucus".

This was an opportunity for the traditional leaders of the Republican Party to reclaim ownership of the House and Senate and probably the party as well. They needed to pass what Trump had previously agreed to, send it to the White House and tell Donnie that should he veto it it would be passed over his veto. They also should've told him that if he continued to act in such a deranged manner he was going to have nothing but problems with Congress, including the republican Senate majority and would never be reelected.. Of course they did nothing of the kind but meekly rolled over. Luckily, the Democrats in the Senate refused to do so. Had they, Donnie would continue to believe he can do anything he wants.

Perhaps our major problem is that the president has wide-ranging, often unfettered power in foreign affairs. Lord only knows what  will do next. It seems from reporting that his Syrian decision was largely influenced by his phone call with Erdogen, certainly a  person who wishes the US well.

So the current situation is that trumps domestic follies are largely controlled by the radical right and his foreign-policy is largely influenced by our enemies, whom he appears to think are his best buddies, to the detriment of the US and our traditional allies.

Merry Christmas.

More dangerous than Trump

Many decades ago George Orwell wrote a great essay called olitics and the English language. It demonstrated how politicians use language to obfuscate and mistate their strategies and intentions. He later wrote the novel 1984 showing what happens when leaders in control simply mistate fax and lie. Now we have of course Donald Trump who seems incapable of not lying. But with him it seems obvious so why does he have a acceptance and approval of Republicans in general. Well some or die hard Republicans and would support him in all cases. Others have been called low information voters referring to a tendency of many to not dig into facts. But what we clearly have now is misinformation voters. These are voters who get their "facts and information" from duplicitous sources. One is of course trump but another is FOXNews, our current version of Pravda, and probably the worst is the Internet in which invented facts cascade through blogs and websites gaining currency has a ricochet through cyberspace. There becomes an exists an alternative reality that is obviously quite persuasive period

One of the great purveyors of deception is the radical libertarian right exemplified by the Koch brothers and their organizations and those aligned with them such as the Club for Growth which should be more accurately named the Club for Greed. They promote and sponsor organizations with highly deceptive names such as the" Americans for Prosperity". Now that sounds pretty good but what are their real aims? If they truly disclosed their goals it would be called Plutocrats and Kleptocrats seeking to eliminate social security, Medicaid ,Medicare ,operation Headstart, SNAP and any other social welfare program. Ultimately, they wish to reduce the federal government to an organization that focuses almost entirely on national defense and privatize everything else including such organizations as the Center for Disease Control, the national Institute of Health, The highway fund or any other program that could be privatized which in their mind is practically everything. They preached the notion that the best thing a voter could do for the nation is pay less taxes. This is a pretty easy sell. They have embarked on an ambitious program backed by enormous wealth and resources to achieve this. Part of this is controlling large parts of universities to spread the gospel. The best description I know of of this program is" Democracy in Chains" by Nancy McLean. Because of the vast resources they have in their deceptive programs they are much more dangerous then Donald Trump who is a transparent buffoon and whose presence on the stage is transitory. The republican party is pretty much in thrall to this movement. Traditional conservatives such as George will, Rick Scott, Steven Schmidt and others have left the party. The Republican Party is no longer conservative in the traditional sense. It is merely a group of professional politicians willing to work for the highest bidder. These things, not Donald Trump, are the real dangers to the republic.

Doin the White House shuffle

Things are uncomfortable these days at the old White House. Little Donny is clearly in an aggravated and petulant mood. Apparently someone told him that losing 40 seats and control of the House of Representatives was not a nearly one hundred percent victory and some have even suggested it's primarily his fault for being such a bozo as president. Also, he was not shown the defference he desires in Europe and in fact was dressed down byMacron. So, in his usual fashion trump is casting about who to blame and fire. His first Target is apparently Homeland security secretary Kristjen Nielsen. She hasn't been using the term" invasion" and also has an annoying tendency to explain to little Donnie about laws which prevent him from doing that which he wishes. Obviously, she has to go. Rumors are also circulating about Gen. Kelly whose tenure has been tenuous for sometime. You may remember Kelly once called our fearless leader either a moron or an idiot. Donnie doesn't want anybody that perceptive around .

Rumor has it that Kelly may be replaced buy either Jared Kushner or Littler Donnie. As Donnie explained, the cloud of the Mueller investigation is not hanging over these two crown Princess because Whitaker has told him that he will shut down the Mueller investigation. Donnie hastened to sav" strike that", I wasn't supposed to talk about Whitaker. Jared apparently has time on his hands as he has already brought peace to the Middle East and reorganized the federal government as well as becoming the BFF of the Saudi crown prince. Also, interior Sec. Ryan Zinke and commerce secretary Wilbur -the- talking- horse Ross also may be on the short list of the to be departed. It may be a race to see whether they are fired first or indicted first.

Meanwhile, the First Trophy Wife is demanding that deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardle be cashiered. Apparently Mira complained about seats on the plane when what's her name went to Africa all by herself. You may recall that while she was there she met actual African people but didn't stay long because the shopping was terrible. First trophy wife was said to state that Mira did not deserve the honor of being in the White House. As she told her confidantes, she had to agree to have sex with Little Donnie before she got the honor of being there and didn't see why other women got off so easily. Of course, the first trophy wife has now been replaced in the presidential bed by refuse from McDonald's and Burger King.

The American people breathlessly awake the next move by our buffoon in chief.

Bad hair day or bone spurs?

Donald Trump really shouldn't go to Europe. He makes a fool of himself and his done it again. He couldn't attend a ceremony honoring first world war casualties added military Battlefield Cemetery because of bad weather which cost him not to ride in his helicopter. He couldn't walk with the other heads of state to a ceremony because of" security issues". I am pretty certain the problem was that rainy weather causes him to have bad hair days. It is also possible that dampness causes his bone spurs to ache. You may recall those bone spurs prohibited him from serving in the military during the Vietnam conflict, even though he badly wanted to participate. He was in pain, could hardly play golf and tennis.

Trump also criticized the forest service for not preventing urban fires in California. Gifford Pinchot, and probably Teddy Roosevelt, are turning over in their graves .

Meanwhile, Trump's erratic behavior and delusions march onward. His claim of victory in the by elections  is reminiscent of George W. Bush's claim of "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the aircraft carrier.

But his approval rating among Republicans still remains at high. Work harder Democrats.

The phantom strikes again?

You may recall that after Christine Ford testified at the Kavanaugh hearing, and before Kavanagh's partisan political rant, the Republicans were in a state of dismay and disarray. Ms. Ford was clearly believable and sympathetic. The Republicans and had to acknowledge that. What were they to do to reconcile the effect of her testimony and demeanor with Kavanaugh's denial? They of course wanted to talk about a conspiracy by the Democrats but there was no way that Ms. Ford fit in with that narrative, particularly given her prior consistent statements. So they came up with a typical criminal defense strategy, positing an unidentified perpetrator as someone responsible for the treatment Ms. Ford described. Now this was completely preposterous but it was the best they could come up with.

Yesterday pres. Donnie had a similar problem to deal with. It appeared that Washington Post columnist Kashoggie had been murdered in the Saudi Arabia consulate in Ankara turkey. But, as Donnie the Daft said, the king" Strongly" denied any knowledge of such a thing. (People talking to Donnie always do so "strongly".) The problem was that there was increasing evidence from Turkish officials that the columnist had in fact been murdered in the consulate. What to do? As Donnie pointed out, there was a buck to be made from the Saudi's. So, perhaps with some help from the Saudi's, Donnie concocted another phantom perpetrator, a" Rogue attack ". Also there was discussion from the administration of the important role Southeast played in the strategic security plans of the United States as a valuable ally. They perhaps a forgotten that al Qaeda came out of the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia and that the 9/11 bombers we're Saudi's. In siding with Saudi Arabia and the Sunnis, they also forget that the terrorist in a Iraq were Sunnis not shia. In fact, the Saudi's are easily as despicable as Iran, witness their bombings of Yemen, and their purges of their own people. Nonetheless, Donnie went with the Rogue actor theory and maintained his support for the Saudi's. After all, they gave him a red carpet ceremony, promised to buy are  $125 billion in arms from the US, which of course they haven't, and were really nice to Jared.

Son of a gun, the Saudis are now apparently forced to admit that the columnist was killed in their consulate, but of course the royal family had nothing to do with it. It was a rogue operation. They have no explanation of why two plane loads of 15 operatives, apparently bringing with them a bone saw, flew in and out of Ankara in less than 24 hours. They also wish the world to believe that was done without the blessing of the royal family even though nothing ever is. That is the sad state of affairs. Just one more example of the incompetent liar we have for a president being made a fool of by a foreign autocratic state. The lesson is, if you can't fabricate a conspiracy, use phantoms.

Mini–me

There was a fair amount of speculation that when Bret Kavanagh went off in his rant against left wing conspiracies and revenge for the Clintons he was following instructions from the Trump administration. That is of course just a theory or a storey but it has a great deal of verisimilitude. His Imperial Majesty does not bless those who do not have a fair measure of attack dog in them. It is also instructive that during that rant he was reading from a prepared script. He was not reacting to a hostile question.

It is now clear that the nomination will pass and it is also clear that the nominee would do practically anything in order to secure his position. The clincher was the announce votes of Sen. Susan Collins. Her vote was at the end of a nearly hour-long" speech". I haven't heard her speak before and I must say that didn't sound like something she had written herself. It pretty much looked like a brief prepared by the Federalist Society, Particularly the analysis of judicial opinions either written by the nominee or which he had favorably described.

Be that as it may, it is hard not to believe that Trump now has a mini-me on the Supreme Court. The best we can hope for is that this justice will know he is under closer than usual scrutiny. It appears that he has exhibited wildly different behavior during periods of his life. Perhaps his better angels will reassert themselves. In any event, had this nomination failed the Federalist Society would've produced another clone. Regardless of the midterm elections, the Republicans would've controlled the Senate until January and pushed through their nominee. Our best hope now is justice Roberts who certainly is a conservative but it appears to have a fair amount of integrity.