America Votes Tomorrow (Nov. 2018)

We've waited a long, long, long time for this day of reckoning. The Trump presidency, enabled by feckless GOP members of Congress and the vocal minority contingent of political lemmings known as Trumpsters, has been an embarrassment to our nation, our values, and the office the man holds. As election day dawns, there is reason to believe that starting next January at least one house of Congress will be controlled by people willing to fulfill their oversight responsibilities and hold the president and his corrupt administration accountable.

In an August 9 post, I predicted a 35-40 seat gain for Democrats in the House. Though 30-35 is probably the number I'd give today, I stand by my August prediction.

In response to my August 9 post, @reformed predicted that the GOP would hold the House, contending that the Democrats wouldn't "(get) close to anything" because "they have nothing." That means reformed predicted a GOP loss of no more than 22 seats.

By Wednesday morning, we will know whose prediction was more accurate.

A few thoughts on what the mid-term elections today might be about ...

It is about whether “the deplorables” have been brainwashed by the Establishment’s media whores and fail to support Trump in the House and Senate elections. If the Democrats, whose politics is Identity Politics, get the House and/or Senate, Trump will be completely impotent. The Establishment hopes to drive the lesson home to every future presidential candidate to never again appeal to the people over the vested interests of the Establishment.

In America democracy is a scam. The oligarchy rules, and the people, no matter how they suffer under the oligarch’s rule, must submit and accept. No more presidential candidates, please, who represent the people. This is the lesson that the Establishment hopes to teach the rabble in the midterm elections.

What should this election be about? If America had an independent media, the election would be about the dangerous situation created by Washington that has caused two militarily powerful countries to prepare for war with the US. This is the most serious development of my lifetime. Everything President Reagan worked for has been overthrown for the material interests of the power and profit of the military/security complex.

If America had an independent media, the election would be about the American police state that, based on the 9/11 lie, the weapons of mass destruction lie, the use of chemical weapons lie, the Iranian nukes lie, the Russian invasion of Ukraine lie, was accepted by the insouciant Americans. Those responsible for these lies, which have caused massive war crimes, for which US administrations should be indicted, are feted and rich. The rest of us have experienced the loss of civil liberty and privacy. Any individual in the way of the police state is mowed down.

Excerpts from https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/11/05/what-this-election-is-about/

@C_M_ said:
Paulcraigroberts piece is "deplorable”. America may not like your description of her. It's too Trumpish. CM

???? Did you mean to write "I do not like your description ...."?? Or are you now "America"? Did you even read the passages I quoted? or did you just stop after noticing the author was P.C. Roberts and then let your "hatred" get the better of you?

@Wolfgang said:
I can't but laugh at such a statement .... Trump's "fearmongering" ?? From even before his inauguration, the Democrats spread fear and sowed discord in hopes "to revise" the outcome of the 2016 election. The ones who are using fear as main tactic and part of their strategy are accusing the other of being the fear mongering party ...

Why can't Trump learn from your leader in dealing with immigrants?

Well, the only thing he would have learned from her in the migration matter would be how to break the law and how to violate the constitution ...

He makes America like a baby. CM

@reformed said:
Oh brother Bill. Feckless GOP? Right....

List for me three investigations of alleged Administration misconduct that either house of Congress has held during these first 21+ months of its term.

Minority contingent? Seriously?

1) Donald Trump received fewer votes in the 2016 election than did Hillary Clinton. A minority.
2) The president's approval rating in the Real Clear politics average of approval rating polls has never been above 50%, and currently stands at 43.6 (disapproval = 53.2%). A minority.

Embarassment? How so?

Too many examples to cite all of them, so I'll point to this one: Would you be embarrassed by and/or for a family member who publicly - for the consumption of many - made 20-30 false and misleading statements a day? It's hard to imagine that any politician, let alone any president, has ever lied as much and as consistently as Donald Trump. To me, such pathological mendacity is embarrassing to the nation.

We are better off than under Obama by far.

I think we are better off today... because the economy has continued its upward trend begun under the Obama administration. If you hop onto a wagon headed downhill, you should not be surprised that the wagon keeps going downhill.

One note: Job growth has been good under the Trump Administration. Amen! But the total number of jobs created in the last 21 months of the Obama administration was GREATER than has been the total number of jobs created during the first 21 months of the Trump Administration.

Corrupt administration? How do you figure that? We booted them out in 2016.

Again, the list really long, so I will limit it to these:

• Tom Price resigned as HHS secretary after spending $400,000 on private planes.
• Brenda Fitzgerald resigned as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after purchasing stock in companies her agency controls.
• Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary, lied to ethics officials about a company of whose misfortune he had advance notice.
• Paul Manafort used his campaign position to give private briefings to a Russain oligarch to whom he owed millions.
• Ryan Zinke, at Interior, chartered a $12,000 flight out of Las Vegas after 12 minute speech to hockey team owned by businessman who had donated to Zinke’s campaign. He also spent $139,000 on new office doors.
• David Shulkin, former head at the VA, charged taxpayers for a trip to Europe that included Wimbledon, Westminster Abbey, and a river cruise for his wife.
• Scott Pruitt, former head of EPA, was a real prince: He chartered questionable flights and pushed for Delta as the carrier so as to get frequent flyer miles. He flew first class and stated in hotels more expensive than allowed by regulations. Lobbyists helped arrange some of his foreign trips. He ordered a $43,000 cone of silence phone booth for his office without notice to Congress.
• Brock Long, FEMA director, was ordered to repay the government the $151,000 he spent on government vehicles without authorization, including trips to his North Carolina home.
• Steve Mnuchin, Treasury secretary, looked into using military plane for his honeymoon, and spent $800,000 on the military planes he did use for his trips.
• Ben Carson, HUD secretary, spent $31,000 on a dining room set, then blamed his wife for the purchase.
• Then there's Trump Hotel’s role in the administration's repeated violations of the emoluments clause, the government's repeated use of Trump-owned facilities for government business (Mar-a-Lago, for example) and that country club's coincidental doubling of its membership fee from $100,000 to $200,000 just days after Trump's inauguration.
• And finally, there's whatever indictments of post-election/inauguration conduct that are still to come from the Mueller probe.

In my view, that's corruption.

You didn't say. Do you stand by your August 9 prediction that the GOP will hold the House today?

@C_M_ said:
You're too hard on your leader. How could you like Trump over her, I know not. CM

I tell you ... as of now, she has put Germany, the country where I grew up and live, on the path of wreck and ruin, Trump (at least until now) has not.

@reformed said:
Exactly

As I post this, the first poll closings are 90 minutes away, so I'll ask again the question to which you have yet to respond: Do you stand by your August 9 prediction that the GOP will hold on to the House in today's midterm elections?