Is There An Upside to Donald Trump?

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be horrible for Americans and the people of the world.

But most politicians are thoroughly corrupt.  Neither the Democratic or Republican parties represent the interests of the American people. Elections have become nothing but scripted beauty contests, with both parties ignoring the desires of their own bases.

So today, 12 countries – Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia      Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, United States and Vietnam – signed the TPP.

They never followed through on their promise of an open and lively debate.

TPP still can be stopped … if the legislative bodies of the signatory nations refuse to ratify it.

Only by raising hell can we stop this monster.  

  Jimmy Carter endorsed Donald Trump apparently a few years back.  If I were Trump I’d have mixed emotions over this but you know Ted Cruz is going to make something of it.   I think the fact that Donald Trump is “flexible” in his beliefs might be a selling point if you are afraid that someone like Hillary Clinton might shed this masquerade as Shawn puts it of her liberalism- -and relate to at best a centrist or tool of Wall Street and be like the third term of a do nothing Obama administration that gets nothing done.  Today it was Joe Scarborough or someone who asked Rick Santorum just what he expects to prove by endorsing Marco Rubio for President.  “Name one thing that Marco has accomplished in his time in congress”.  Santorum was unable to come up with anything.  Somehow that answer didn’t bother anybody.  I think it’s fiction (if Obama wants to talk about fiction) that Hillary Clinton will somehow be swayed by all this popular sentiment to a more progressive vein.  If you read the links in the posting referenced above you will realize that the positions of both political parties are pretty much set in concrete and both are hopelessly unresponsive to the wishes of the American people.  There’s a part of me that believes Donald Trump might be just the person to shake up this hopeless status quo.

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus are all lined up in a grand conjunction tomorrow morning in the southeast skies.  As you know there was a “cosmic convergence” in mid August of 1987.  It could be one of those “moments” of mental clarity where the indecision and endless debates you’ve been having with yourself are all banished and you know exactly what you need to do.  This was true with Joey on DL who had one of these “moments of mental clarity” seeing his father with a woman he had been in love with for weeks about to make love.  OK he’s an impressionable teenager but you have to learn these things sometime, so it might as well be sooner.  Perhas there will be a break-out debate which everybody sees either on the Republican or Democratic side where the voters en mass have their moments of mental clarity and know who they have to vote for.  Right now I am speaking in the abstract.  It’s my hope of course that this “clarity” comes on the democratic side in the coming weeks, in favor of voting for Bernie Sanders.  

Let’s talk about Raphael – Edwardo – Cruz, with the R’s properly rolled, and I don’t mean in a joint.  Raphael Cruz cheated in the Iowa caucus.  Monday he sent mailings out to all of his prospective caucus goers saying that Dr Ben Carson had dropped out of the race, or would “in a few days” come out with a key announcement that he was dropping out.  This is why there is a drop-off between 23% points and just nine points for Carson in fourth place.  Conceivably there may have been another seven or eight points for Carson and they would have come out of Ted Cruz’s 28 percent that he won with.  Cruz has no remorse as to what he did.  But Raphael Cruz didn’t stop there.  He also sent notices that if his followers didn’t come out to caucus they would get a voter delinquency notice in the mail in the next few days, scaring people.

Norman Goldman is spinning and twisting things like Shaen Hannity has been known to do.  Goldman was going off on a caller who was pro Sanders, and wondering why Goldman was so critical of Sanders.  Sanders responded that the caller didn’t know how to get outside his own brain and think analytically and Goldman then says “It’s a fact that Sanders has no future now and the polling democraphics probe it and the numbers Monday night prove it so, “Don’t get mad at me, get mad at the pollers and the results on election night.  I get tired of this sort of slip-shod reasoning.

Mike Huckibee, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum Quit the Race

Whoever wins on our side faces Marco Rubio

Yesterday Mick Huckibee suspended (meaning “ended”) his campaign for President.  Today Rand Paul quit the Presidential race, and tonight Rick Santorum has announced that he’s going to withdraw from the race.  It’s the liberal talk show hosts that are much more- - perniciously against Senator Bernie Sanders rather than people like  Shawn Hannity.  As I’ve said elsewhere Hannidy’s view of the Iowa caucuses are in general more objective than the views we get from people like Norman Goldman.  These liberal hosts will hang up on any caller who offers a negative view of Hillary Clinton.  They offer little explanation for this permanent barring of such callers other than it’s just “wrong” for a democrat to attack another democrat.  But by their collective actions even people like Thom Hartman are systematically informing their listeners not to vote for Bernie Sanders under any circumstances.  It doesn’t matter whether Bernie has better ideas.  And it doesn’t even matter that polls show that Bernie would do better against the top three republican opponents than Hillary.  Any discussion of Hillary’s liabilities or weaknesses is simply “not allower”.  Contrast this with the Republicans.  They attacked Ted Cruz right and left attacking the New York bank loans and his position on immigration in the past and also the whole ethanol contraversy in Iowa.  Trump brought Sarah Palin into the campaign and even got the endorsement of Iowa’s governor.  It didn’t do any good.  My point is that hard work and a good “ground game’ win the day.  Bernie Sanders could have had a victor if the would be supporters would have had “permission” to vote for him by their esteemed leaders such as Thom Hartman and Norman Goldman.  Now Norman Goldman is as much as calling for Bernie Sanders to drop out of the race after losing one state.  What are Goldman and Hartman afraid of anyhow?  I remember how Hartman used to be having Sanders on his show every week.  I long for the days when Hartman referred to Bernie Sanders as “America’s senator”.

President Obama visited a mosque today and it’s apparently the first time Obama has visited a mosque since he’s been President.  Shawn Hannity threw a caniption fit over it and has two women with two competing opinions.  One was in favor of the visit and the other was and is rabidly against it.  Hannidy is talking about harshness toward religious minorities.  And of course he’s talking about terrorism and this mosque’s ties to Islamic terrorism.  Any time this President says anything favorable about Islam it sets off alarm bells on the part of the far right.  According to this lady early in his carrier- - Mohamed spoke peace to the Jews but when the Jews would not accept Islam then later verses were written and under Islamic law the later verses of the Koran always supplant the earlier verses.  If this is so it’s not the way Christians view the Bible.   If you asked me Obama made his first mistake severing ties with Jeremiah Wright.  Obama has been on the defensive with regard to religion ever since he did that.

Sean Hannity did a better analysis of the Iowa caucuses than did Norman Goldman.  Donald Trump was the big loser of the day coming in at 24% to Ted Cruz’s 28% and Marco Rubio at a strong third at 23%.   Norman thinks that Bernie is a lower because of the liberal grange movement that’s white and just the sort of voters that go for Bernie.  Sean Hannity pointed out that there were six coin flips and Hillary won them all and won six deligates.  The basic percentage was 49.8% for Hillary to 49.6% for Bernie, or a two tenths of a percent margin of victory.  Don’t call her Landslide Hillary.  But there was other funny business because Hillary voters were counted even after they had switched their allegence to Bernie at the caucus meetings.   But Bernie will get his comfortable victory in New Hampshire next week.   It was 62 degrees today.  I got vanilla flavored instant coffee from Glen in his room for four cigarettes. 

Norman Goldman is battling another pro Bernie caller defending his own hostility toward the Senator from Vermont.  If we were believe Norman's breakdown of the demographics, you'd think nobody voted for Bernie since Hillary leads in all the categories except the youths.  And the tilt toward Sanders there is impressive like 84% for Bernie ant 14% for Hillary.  But Goldman says "This year there was nowhere near the number of youths that came out for Obama eight years ago.  Actually the figure was down four percent.  Goldman considers four percent "nowhere near".  All it shows is that Sanders didn't lie and make wild promises the way that Obama did of things he never delivered on.  Yet Hillary is running for a third year of Obama mention Obama's name any time she has a chance.  I don't remember.  Did Humphrey bill himself as "another term of the Johnson administration?"  I don't think so.  Hillary leads among minorities in a major way and by moderates in a major way.  And yet there are key issues where Hillary fails.  She fought for the Trans Pacific Partnership relentlessly over the past four years.  Today they took some official ratification vote in New Zealand.  Hillary took money from Goldman Sachs.  Hillary is against bringing back Glass Steigle.  Hillary is too extreme on the guns issue.  There is a gender gap where women prefer Hillary.  So in a sense she is the "women's candidate" being for things like abortion, and paid medical leave for new mothers.  But the Trans Pacific Partnership is such an important thing I'd vote for Donald Trump over Hillary at this point because defeating the Trans Pacific Partnership is that important.   

Hillary Clinton Perhaps Not So Bad

Norman Goldman talked about the Iowa caucus.  Of course primaries for choosing party candidates began about the turn of the last century.  They flourished for a time but never really caught on long term, as “party regulars” chose the deligates.  This changed in 1968 on the Democratic side when clearly nobody had voted for Hubert Humphrey yet he still won.  So there were radical changes in the rules for the 1972 convention.  This is how George Mc Govern was able to win because he was the people’s candidate.  In Iowa Ed Musky won a third and George Mc Govern won a third and “undecided” won a third.  The way democratic caucuses work is that “undecided” can be your candidate of choice but any choice you make has to have at least fifteen percent of the vote or else you have to consolidate with partisans of other candidates.  When you arrive at a democratic caucus you divide up into groups and argue for your candidate for a half hour or more and then vote.  As long as there are fragments of less than fifteen percent remaining you keep on discussing and voting till those under fifteen percent votes get consolidated.  If you’re a Republican you just write your vote for your candidate on a piece of paper and drop it into the ballot box and leave and they count the votes.  It’s said that the Republicans have a more accurate representation of their party in Iowa than the democrats do.  This is because there are a lot of blacks and minorities in other parts of the country.  It’s this untapped minority wild card that could sway the election for either Bernie or Hillary as the weeks progress.  The Iowa caucuses start in just a couple of minutes from right now- - so it’s happening. 

Robert Ford was US Ambassador to Syria when the revolt against Syrian president Assad was launched. He not only was a chief architect of regime change in Syria, but actively worked with rebels to aid their overthrow of the Syrian government.Ford assured us that those taking up arms to overthrow the Syrian government were simply moderates and democrats seeking to change Syria’s autocratic system. Anyone pointing out the obviously Islamist extremist nature of the rebellion and the foreign funding and backing for the jihadists was written off as an Assad apologist or worse. Ambassador Ford talked himself blue in the face reassuring us that he was only supporting moderates in Syria. As evidence mounted that the recipients of the largesse doled out by Washington was going to jihadist groups, Ford finally admitted early last year that most of the moderates he backed were fighting alongside ISIS and al-Qaeda.

I watched Face the Nation and heard Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.  But soon they put in a ton of commercials with the promise of a lot more and I dialed away.  The problem with Marco Rubio is that he's shifty and mealy mouthed and won't own up to his own mistakes no matter the mound of evidence.  I went and smoked a long butt that was dry outside.  James said the coroner who was here today took someone away upstairs and said it was Janet, and I looked and there was a warning seal on her door by the coroner or something.  I can believe that no how.  Janet is as healthy as a horse.  Upon further reflection she wasn't that healthy.  She suffered from chronic diaria and was constantly taking medication for it.  Both she and Richard were heavy smokers.  Janet had three or four Cokes a day and an arsenal of snack items in her ice chest including cinnamon rolls and lots of chocolate bars, and Janet loved her coffee and was usually the one ahead of me in the coffee line at the liquor store in the morning.  There is also a rumor going around she jumped out the window in the middle of the night.  (Did she land head first and break her neck?)  Janet was not religious.

Hillary Clinton gave a pretty good speech at an Iowa campaign rally I played on C-Span.  Bill didn’t like it.  He was introduced first by Chelsea and then by Bill.  Chelsea looked like she needed make-up.  Hillary has this tendancy to say what she has done in the past but often (in previous speeches) has been inclined to not be specific about what she was GOING to do right NOW.  I thought this speech remedied that problem where she did challenge Bernie Sanders taking on his pet issues of Wall Street and the job market and inequity of incomes.  Even Hillary said she was going to take on the "shadow bankers" such as Lehman Brothers and Country-wide.  (I thought Lehman Brothers went out of business)  She didn't mention Goldman Sachs.  Let me just say if her latest speech on C-Span is any guide I will feel better about voting for Hillary in November, that she will carry on the cause of progressivism.  But maybe I better consult with Mike Papentonio first.  

Just to explain about Victor Kiriacus’s family, Victor has three brothers and he’s disowned two of them.  Alexix is the father of Justin and Justin is the father of Sonny and Alexander.  Titus is the father of Xander, who flirted with Nicole and caused other problems and has now left town.  Demas is the other brother who is blackmailing Philip, Victor’s son.  It seems a girl Philip was dating passed out in his hotel room and died due to a drug overdose.  Worse yet her father was the chief of police or something.  Philip and a friend moved the body to a different room and somehow Demas found out about it.  Now Philip is forced to do Demas’ bidding to sabotage his father, Victor’s, carrier and standing.  Demas has it in for Victor because he spent thirty years in prison based on the crime of killing Victor’s fiancée of the time.  I guess they could have done a whole Greek Godfather type documentary if they’d thought of it.