Tag: Majority

Mitch, You Devil

This post is about the Senate’s majority leader. Mitch McConnell…..his actions during the impeachment trial of Trump leaves lots to desire…but that is for a future post (maybe)……

I have said on numerous occasions and posts that the GOP is excellent at politics….and for that I tip my hat….respect for their tactics…..and Mitch has shown just how masterful he can be as well…..

It’s not a sure thing, but the smart money says the Senate is poised to acquit President Trump of impeachment charges without calling witnesses. That became clear after GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, whose vote was said to be in question, announced that he did not want to hear new testimony. At CNN, Chris Cillizza points out this means the trial might be wrapped up before Trump’s State of the Union address on Feb. 4, and he gives Mitch McConnell all the credit for orchestrating this political feat. This outcome “was unthinkable 10 days ago and is a testament to McConnell’s skills as a persuader and vote-counting virtuoso,” he writes. Cillizza recounts the strategy, beginning with McConnell’s “power play” move to go ahead with the trial with no guarantees on witnesses.

As the trial progressed, McConnell kept a low profile, but Cillizza likens him to a duck—placid on the surface but paddling furiously below water. He persuaded enough GOP senators, especially vulnerable ones, that allowing witnesses would prolong the trial and cause more them harm in the long run. And then there was the Alexander factor. The Tennessee senator is a longtime friend of McConnell’s. At Mediaite, John Ziegler thinks the whole will-he-or-won’t-he drama was a McConnell charade believed by gullible reporters. “It was always clear that McConnell was setting Alexander up for the role of the guy who, after careful and considerable contemplation, decided that it was somehow in the best interest of the country for Trump’s impeachment trial to be the first in history to not have witnesses.” But there was never any chance Alexander would vote otherwise, he adds. Read Ziegler’s full column here, and Cillizza’s full column here.

This whole Senatorial affair has been brilliantly played….my hat is off to Mitch.

But it is a cesspool of nonsense masquerading as a “fair trial”….that stated…..well done Mitch!

Then there is the Supreme Court thing in this trial…..

The Senate vote Friday against permitting more testimony or documents in the impeachment trial did more than put President Trump on the fast track to acquittal, Nancy Pelosi says; it forced John Roberts into a bad place. “It is a sad day for America to see Senator McConnell humiliate the Chief Justice of the United States into presiding over a vote which rejected our nation’s judicial norms, precedents and institutions which uphold the Constitution and the rule of law,” she tweeted on Saturday. The 51 votes against witnesses all came from Republicans, NBC reports, including Mitch McConnell, the majority leader. Had the Senate vote been 50-50, Roberts could have stepped in to break the tie. The chief justice ruled that out Friday, saying, “I think it would be inappropriate.”

Two other senators alluded to the awkwardness for Roberts. In announcing Friday that she was voting against witnesses, Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said she didn’t want to “drag the Supreme Court into the fray.” The day before, Democrat Elizabeth Warren asked about the effect of the trial on the judiciary, per the Hill, saying that many Americans lack faith in their government. “Does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?” she asked.

I have said many many times….”Dems have great ideas but suck at politics”….and this whole impeachment thing has proved my point.

One last note about Mitch….recently the Dems have started calling him “Moscow Mitch”….a title I thought was a bit childish….but now with more information it may well be a good call….

McConnell recently voted to drop sanctions against Russian aluminum company RusAl which is still owned by one of Vladimir Putin’s sanctioned oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska. His action directly benefits one of the GOP leader’s major donors, whose fortune comes from Russian oil.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC run by Sen. McConnell’s former Chief of Staff, received a total of $3,500,000 ($2,500,000 in 2016 and $1,000,000 in 2017) via Access Industries and a subsidiary. Len Blavatnik is a Russian oligarch with US and UK citizenship who owns Access Industries and donated to Sen. McConnell’s 2016 Senate campaign vehicles.

Blavatnik’s Access Industries made many of its billions from Putin’s decisions about its Russian oil partnership. He is also a long-term business partner of Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska at RuSal, in which he is a major investor, as well as Viktor Vekselberg, who is entangled with Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen through his U.S. family office Columbus Nova.

View at Medium.com

It all comes down to where his loyalties lie…..money can be a powerful motivator…..and buys a lot of loyalty…..no matter the party.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who’s The Crook?

They are all bums…..they are all liars………they are all crooks……and they are all corrupt…….you have heard this all before….no matter which party you lean to…..the other is all a bunch of crooks and liars……Personally, I have been saying it for at least 30 years….maybe more……but now……there is some validity to the accusations……….

Voters are more convinced than ever that most congressmen are crooks.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters now view most members of Congress as corrupt. That’s up seven points from June and the highest finding yet recorded. Just 29% think most members are not corrupt, and another 25% are not sure…

Similarly, a whopping 85% of voters think most members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people. That’s a record high for surveys stretching back to early November 2006. Only seven percent (7%) believe most of the legislators are more interested in helping other…….

Could it be that the voter is just pissed at Washington….well, yes and no……I will tell you why I say yes…..

I recently wrote a piece about the insider trading being committed by members of Congress……..

Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call “significant positive abnormal returns,” with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually.

What’s their secret? The report speculates, but does not conclude, it could have something to do with the ability members of Congress have to trade on non-public information or to vote their own pocketbooks — or both.

The researchers, Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University, noted that the circumstances are ripe for abuse.

“In the course of performing their normal duties, members of Congress have access to non-public information that could have a substantial impact on certain businesses, industries or the economy as a whole. If used as the basis for common stock transactions, such information could yield significant personal trading profits,” they wrote.

So members are getting rich trading on information that the rest of us do not…….that is illegal…it is called insider trading…..the SAME thing that Martha Stewart was convicted of doing…..so why has the media NOT made a bigger deal out of this…..I mean Wiener’s wiener was NOT illegal…insider trading is…..why is the justice dept not investigating?

And then there is the investments of the House majority leader, Eric Cantor….while what he is doing is NOT illegal….it is a conflict of interests with his duties as the majority leader…..

Debt ceiling negotiations were shut down by House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) last week. This raised renewed fears that the U.S. is on the verge of total credit default, and it raised a question as to whether Cantor – the GOP’s key operative in debt ceiling talks – has a “glaring” conflict of interest. According to Salon, Cantor may be fighting against government credit default in Congress, but he’s personally invested in a mutual fund that will “skyrocket” should default occur.

SO one of the so-called “geniuses” of the GOP is betting against the country as he negotiates the economy situation……is that about it?  And the media has not jumped on this story either….they had rather let Nancy Grace’s head explode or report on a runaway Chihuahua…than focus on the real problems with this country…..it is ruled by criminals and liars…..you would think the justice dept would be all over a report like this….you would think!

All this is sickening!  These people are corrupt and crooks and especially liars…..the sooner we find a way to replace these criminals the better….at this point I am open to anything for a real change…..

In The Short Run

Ethics?  We have all heard of the so-called ethics investigations by the Congress….or the threat of an investigation……Weiner’s weiner comes to mind…..Rangel’s monetary antics……Ensign’s poking a staff member…. all the antics by our not-so-squeaky clean representatives.  I have been calling them everything I can think of except effective law makers…..most of them are do nothing pigs….

I recently wrote a post about the insider trading done by members of Congress….that is that members had been making lots of cash trading on information that they got while serving on various committees….and I asked why there is NO ethics violations and the no need for investigation…..but read the post if you need to have it cleared up a bit…….http://bit.ly/jeYLqt

But why am I re-hashing all this?  Good question…..

Let us go back to last week…..the negotiations on the debt crisis with VP Biden did not end well…..Majority leader of the House walked out of the meetings…..that would be Eric Cantor…..and we heard all the clap trap about tax hikes off the table and that Obama is NOT serious about debt reduction….yada yada….all the conserv talking points……but did you know that the big cheese Cantor is shorting US bonds?

Shorting?  HUH?

Shorting, in investment terms, means……Selling a SECURITY, such as a SHARE, that you do not currently own, in the expectation that its PRICE will fall by the time the security has to be delivered to its new owner. If the price does fall, you can buy the security at the lower price, deliver it to whoever you sold it to and make a PROFIT. The RISK is that the price rises, leaving you with a loss.

In a piece written by Steve Tarlow…..

Debt ceiling negotiations were shut down by House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) last week. This raised renewed fears that the U.S. is on the verge of total credit default, and it raised a question as to whether Cantor – the GOP’s key operative in debt ceiling talks – has a “glaring” conflict of interest. According to Salon, Cantor may be fighting against government credit default in Congress, but he’s personally invested in a mutual fund that will “skyrocket” should default occur.

Okay now get this right!  The person that is leading the negotiations on the debt crisis for the GOP will make a substantial profit if the country fails and defaults…..GOT THAT!  The man is BETTING on the failure of the country!  And to beat all, he is the lead man in the negotiations trying to find common ground to save the country from default…..

I asked before why they will not investigate those using inside trading on info they get in their job and now I ask WHY is Cantor NOT up for an ethics investigation?  This guy whose party is so centered on America to succeed, then why is he betting against it?

It is time for Americans to wake UP!  Know your representative….if these guys and gals are taking the country to the cleaners then we need to DEMAND more ethics investigations…….but there will be few investigations…..why?  These people try to protect their own and in doing so are just as guilty as those caught in the act (whatever that may be)………

If you will recall, the media was all over Weiner’s weiner (pun intended)……they spent an inordinate amount of time and with the help of the GOP made this a 2 week story….but yet NOTHING as far as my previous post or the Cantor thing……why is Weiner’s weiner so much more important than the financial shenanigans of elected officials?

We need to demand an ethics investigation into the underhanded antics of elected reps and they need to be held to something that they are seldom held up to……accountability!

The New House Majority Leader?

I saw this ad recently and just had to pass it along…..it was first posted on my Twitter site and just had to post it here in case someone someplace does not have a Twitter account.

http://huff.to/dboBrP

and there is more…..and this article is good and the vid is really clever…..

http://bit.ly/cGGO6G

I have been unkind towards Boehner in the past….but after years of watching this guy…from the days when he wept on the floor of the House onward until today….nothing in that time has shown me that this man cares about anything but himself….I love politics and try to instill some of that passion in my readers….at least I hope they will think about their choices more rationally than they have in the past….

Will Whites Become A Minority?

If so, what will the supremists do then?

White people are projected to no longer be in the majority in the United States by the year 2042 – eight years sooner than previous projections.

The US Census Bureau’s latest figures – based on birth, death and immigration rates – suggest that minorities will soon make up 55% of the population.

Hispanics who now make up about 15% will, it says, account for 30% by 2050.

It is projected that black people will make up 15%, a small increase, while Asians will grow from 4% to 9%.

White non-Hispanics currently make up about two-thirds of the population, but only 55% of those are aged under five.

It is likely that the demographic changes will be experienced right across the country – and no longer confined to urban areas as in the past.

Overall, the US population is expected to rise from 305 million people to 439 million by the year 2050.

The white population will also be ageing. The number of people over 85 years old will triple in the next 40 years.

“The white population is older and very much centred around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years,” William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution think tank, told the Associated Press.

“The future of America is epitomised by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future.”

The Census Bureau points out that its projections are subject to big revisions, depending on immigration policy, cultural changes and natural or manmade disasters.

This type of news should have some running scared.