June 18-23, 2017: Everybody Hates Congress - Trumpcare Going Nowhere

 

6/18/17: A poll shows that Congress has an approval rating of 12%. In other words, Trump isn’t the least popular denizen of the swamp. In no poll during the two-and-a-half years since the GOP took control of both houses of Congress has that esteemed body had an approval rating above 23%.

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6/19/17: Trump enjoys tweeting so much he decides to tweet the same message twice. He’s excited about the special election in Georgia for Tom Price’s old seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. At 3:29 p.m. he gets his thumbs limbered up with: “Karen Handle’s opponent in #GA06 can’t even vote in the district he wants to represent....” and “On Tuesday, #VoteKarenHandel.” 

God, what fun! At 3:34 he goes with “Karen Handle’s opponent in #GA06 can’t even vote in the district he wants to represent....” again. 

At 3:35 Trump clinches the deal: “....because he doesn’t live there! He wants to raise taxes & kill healthcare. On Tuesday, #VoteKarenHandel.” 

Handel does win the special election by a margin of 52% to 48%. Handel issues a special thanks to President Trump. 

Trump then brags about his great victory – ignoring the fact that the same district went for Price in November 2016 by a margin of 62% to 38%. Still, for Democrats, a loss is a loss.

 

BLOBBER’S NOTE: When Handel runs for reelection in 2018, she goes down in a narrow defeat with 49.5% of the vote to her opponent’s 50.5%. 

Trump decides to brag about something else.

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6/20/17: Trump hogs credit for bringing Otto Warmbier home from North Korea. He says Obama failed for eighteen months. The young man “should have been brought home that same day” he was arrested. 

Trump works his magic and brings Warmbier back, whereupon the unfortunate young man dies. No one on the right notices that North Korea still holds three other Americans – and Trump can’t pry them loose. Normally, we would give a president a pass regarding complex foreign policy. 

Trump, however, never misses a chance to attack Obama or simplify daunting challenges. (See: 6/3/18.)

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6/21/17: Ford Motors announces plans to build its popular Focus model in China, not Michigan.  

 

Cheap labor = more money for CEO’s. 

Meanwhile, the top five executives at Ford pull down $50 million combined in just one year. 

The New York Times also notes that “veteran union workers in the United States” earn $28 per hour building cars for Ford. Most Chinese workers earn around $270 a month. 

Cheap labor = more money for CEO’s. 

In related news, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner continue to profit from their far-flung business empire. This includes shoe factories in China where Ivanka-brand shoes are made. Ivanka and Jared’s income for 2016: $195 million.

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6/22/17: Clearly, the man in the Oval Office is cogitating. On the first day of summer, the president realizes he can build the Great Wall of Trump and turn a profit! This is the kind of brilliance that made him such a success in the casino business. 

Fox News reports on his plan to include solar panels. “Think of it,” Trump tells amazed fans at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “The higher it goes, the more valuable it is. Pretty good imagination, right? This way, Mexico will have to pay much less money, and that’s good. A solar wall. Makes sense.” 

(No telling why Sean Hannity doesn’t accuse the president of turning traitor and joining the “War on Coal.”)

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6/23/17: The latest iteration of the GOP Senate healthcare plan allows insurance companies to offer plans that drop coverage for maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment. 

The Association of Medical Colleges warns that the plan “will leave millions of people without health coverage, and others with only bare-bones plans that will be insufficient to properly address their needs.” 

Senator Rand Paul still believes the plan is too generous. If he had his way, he’d cut coverage for bandages, splints, and blood transfusions. Who needs nurses? Give yourself your own damn shots!

January Fools: Part VI - Will America Be Fooled Again in 2024?

  

PART VI – TRUMP IS STILL DANGEROUS 

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"America's democracy was almost stolen from her." 

Judge J. Michael Luttig, speaking of events on January 6.

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This part of the story of our country remains to be written, and the blogger will continue to gather evidence as time and motivation allow. The key question being: Could Ex-President Blubber rise again from the political grave? 

It seems he could. 

Don't do it Donald! Don't grab her....

We know Mike Lindell, the MyPillow dope, and the QAnon tribe still believe in the Orange God of Mar-a-Lago. 

In June 2022, we know Mr. Blubber is still claiming he won the last election, even though his closest advisors now admit they knew he never did.

 

Still, he could return in 2024. On June 15, this blogger checks recent polls. President Biden’s approval ratings are in the tank. (Unlike Lindell or Trump, this blogger has no problem facing unpleasant truths.) 

If the election were held today, polls show Trump would probably win a rematch against Joe Biden. 

For only the second time in American history, then, we’d have a maniac plunked down behind the Resolute Desk. 

A check of recent polls (May and June) shows Mr. Biden’s average approval rating at 38.7 percent, his disapproval rating at 54.4 percent. 

Small favors, really, but at least he has been mature enough not to howl about “rigged polls,” or blame his low numbers on “Enemies of the People,” working for the free press. You know. Like Trump. 

Biden's approval numbers are terrible.

What else is worth noting today? This blogger believes in polls, generally, and when averaged, they have rarely been wrong. In the race for an open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, Fetterman, the Democrat, vs. Oz, the Republican, the Democrat holds a 9-point lead. 

In the battle for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina, Beasley vs Budd, Beasley, the Democrat is up by four points. 

Or down 2; it depends on the poll. 

Interestingly enough, polls in Utah show that Evan McMullin, former Republican (famous for ratting out current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, when, in 2016, McCarthy said he believed there were two people Putin paid – one of them being Donald J. Trump), now an independent running for U.S. Senate, might have a shot at ousting the incumbent – which would be kind of fun. 

In Ohio, where the blogger resides, J.D. Vance leads Tim Ryan, the Democrat, by 3 points in the only poll taken so far. Both men seem to understand the average American worker better than most, which this blogger considers good. Vance, of course, once said he’d have to think twice about voting for Hillary Clinton, because he didn’t like Trump. In fact, in 2016, he voted for McMullin, running as an independent, instead.

 

Five different polls show Gretchen Whitmer, the current Democratic governor of Michigan (once labeled “Half-Whitmer” by then-President Trump) with at least a 34-point lead vs. assorted challengers on the right. Ryan Kelly, thought to have perhaps the “best” chance of beating her in November, was recently arrested for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill. 

In Georgia, polls show that Trump could take the state (for real this time), as he sports a 7-point lead in a hypothetical matchup with the current President of the United States. Joe Biden, I mean. 

You have to remind the QAnon bunch occasionally who the actual president really is. 

In generic ballot polls (where voters are asked which party they would like to control Congress after the next election), Republican have an average 3.8-point lead. 

As for Congress itself, on June 15, 2022, that august body has an average approval rating of 21.6 percent. For a brief period earlier this year (March-August) our lawmakers managed to boost their approval ratings into the 30s, peaking at 36.3 percent on May 8. Previous to that, the last time Congress scored as high as the 30s, was 30.4 percent…on August 29, 2009.