Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Trump on shaky ground near treason

As we all know, president Trump went to Helsinki to prop up his shaky claim to the presidency. He called his first witness: Vladimir Putin.


He claims the FBI is unreliable. There is no evidence of this, as testified by the FBI agent whose phone texts had been examined for months. He said "we must stop him", referring to us voters (not the FBI). That is the task now, in the 2018 election. Unfortunately Trump supporters are still 100% behind him. Because they voted for him. They can’t admit that their abortion/tax/immigrant/etc stance put a dangerous man in the White House. It is in fact hard for anyone to come to terms that they supported the wrong guy. Losing a job might finally do it.

Trump's actions will come out within his four years, and whatever he did will be in the press before the 2020 election. It is not appropriate for a president to be a conspiracy theorist and certainly not to commit treason. My belief is that Russia owns him by immense loans channeled to him over the years. Russia has his mortgage, by several intermediaries.

People who voted for Trump and went to the rallies are pretending nothing happened. These people are still holding on to the birther era Obama conspiracies, so we know the change is slow. Plus they voted Trump so they will never admit they were wrong, that the man is an actual danger to the US. Out here there is a chance to think that all that stuff is "out in Europe" or "out in Russia" and does not affect us. But the world affairs are not that simple that you can just order China for example. The tariffs will be felt by every American by 2020.

But we will see. I'll just post a campaign ad to explain that. Good luck to all brave candidates challenging the increasingly ridiculous GOP candidates standing behind Trump. The entire Trump experience has shaken the principles of Democracy here on the prairie as well, but apparently other things are more important to Trump voters.








Tuesday, July 10, 2018

What was it about Obama the right hated?

The Trump voters hated him as both black and "foreigner."

The times were mostly stable in the Obama years after the bail out of the Bush catastrophe. Obama inherited most foreign touchy spots from Bush, but Libya may have been new.

Yet the talk radio guys and the far right absolutely hated his liberal policy and foreign policy. On the one hand insurance was labeled BIG government. The foreign policy was the confusing part to me.

Only now with Trump in charge do I understand what they wanted. They did not want a diplomat or negotiator with Europe or with war torn countries. They wanted an autocrat. A leader of the "free world" who does not negotiate. He announces policy and "others must follow." This goes for trade, NATO, everything.

I'm glad we got that cleared up then. For them an asshole is a perfect leader. He is in Europe trying to break up the EU now.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

2018 elections

The 2018 elections are turning out to be a for Trump or against Trump run, even though the people running are congress members. The rural people strongly supported Trump, and even the most reluctant Republican in the middle is running as a Trump supporter. Many voters in the rural areas believed in the "draining the swamp" and "he's just getting started" goals. farmers in the plains have for generations thought of themselves as businessmen. In addition corporations own many farms. Rural people go with supporting the independent spirit of farming and somehow associate Republicans as support for farming. The farm bill is actually dictated by corporations so I don't know what is left of this independence.

There were in fact some libertarians voting in 2016. These people might be excused for voting Trump in that they have somehow gotten in their heads that all government is bad. Cut down government? Count me in! These people are not necessarily racist, and often disagree with the large group of Evangelicals here on the the prairie on social issues, mainly abortion. Their views on immigrants vary.

The news have run some editorials on Trump giving him more credit for his second year. It seems he is getting a few more things done, despite botching the immigrant children issue. One thing that makes the editorial writers more confident is Trump naming the new justice. However, it does not really change the voters any, in fact liberals are even more opposed to Trump and any GOP senator or congressman in the November election. Voter turnout will be good due to this divisiveness in the country.


The opposite is true of Colorado on the left as well as New Mexico below it. There are areas with Indian reservations such as in South Dakota, and the Democrats carry those. Nebraska has just two big cities and the Democrats carry those in presidential elections. The congresspeople are now all Republicans with one "sleeper" Democratic candidate running for the senate seat. Senator Fischer is a one term senator who has gone to Washington and supported Trump 100%. She has not gotten involved in farm state issues and a was a key player getting the education secretary approved. She has angered more Democrats in her state than recent Tea Party leaning senators or congressmen.

Ben Sasse has turned out to be a talker. He criticizes Trump, then:

U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., has written some witty tweets and interesting Facebook posts critical of the Trump administration. However, he has voted consistently with the administration: yes on the tax bill, yes on Obamacare repeals, yes on every executive branch nomination save one, yes on federal judge nominations and no on legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller.

Kansas has no senate seat in the race and the recent past does not suggest a Democrat would have much chance in a national election. They do have a congressional Democratic candidate with some hope, Brent Welder, who worked on Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.  Oklahoma is entirely red.