I am always reluctant to prognosticate on US electoral politics. When posted overseas, I was pretty good at analyzing and predicting political events in foreign countries, but US politics? Not so good. Too many variables, too much volatility, and, of course, unreliable vote counting make it very tough. We also have one of the sloppiest vote collection and tabulation systems in the world. We have no clear idea of just who is voting, and how the votes are counted. It's a disgrace.
In much of the country, we have voting systems and regulations designed when we were a much more homogeneous and even rural, small town, country where we all knew each other. Ain't that way now. We need a complete election system overhaul, e.g., voter ids, clear laws on only citizens voting, and simple counting measures that do not involve inserting a ballot into a mysterious machine that then "counts" the votes. Go back to paper and pencil with government and political party monitors keeping a close eye to avert the sort of electoral travesty we saw in 2020. As I have said on many occasions in this little blog, I served as an international election monitor in several countries; I can tell you that I would never have certified US elections as free and fair: Guatemala, yes; Illinois, no.
That said, it seems the Republicans will have a good electoral result in November. It appears that the GOP will take both houses of Congress, augment its presence in state assemblies and other local offices, including increasing the number of states with Republican governors. The apparent growing public antipathy towards the Dems misrule might just overwhelm even that party's vaunted ability to rig elections.It seems that way, anyhow, but . . . chickens before they hatch, etc.
OK, let's assume the GOP takes both houses of Congress, then what? Will we get that Paul Ryan/Lyndsey Graham blah-blah inaction we saw during the first two years of Trump's administration? Look, I know it's tough bordering on impossible to govern from Congress, but the least we can expect from the GOP is no-nonsense and quick investigations into major Democratic scandals which are just hanging out there: e.g., Biden laptop, Biden relations with Ukraine and China, the politicization of the FBI, ATF, IRS, CIA, etc., failure to enforce our immigration laws, "defund" the police disaster, and, of course, holding accountable the hoaxers who perpetuated the damaging Trump-Putin collusion story, and the COVID shutdown of the economy. I am not sure if the Congress can reverse the Biden anti-oil production edicts, but it should certainly apply incessant political heat on the ZOMBUS to revoke them. The GOP needs to block the insane spending by the USG and push for tax cuts.
In addition, the GOP needs to take a hard look at the leftist grifters who run our national education institutions, and cut the money to them. Speaking of money, the GOP can use the power of the purse to force a "purification"of, say, the FBI. With majority control of the Senate, the GOP could block the ludicrous Biden nominees for key positions. We could also have impeachment proceedings launched against Biden, Harris, Wray, Mayorkas and any number of other destructive morons in positions of power.
Oh yes, let's also stop the march to war with Russia, the kow-towing to China, and chasing after the Iranian creeps.
Some have suggested--perhaps in jest--that the House of Representatives make Trump Speaker. There is no requirement that the Speaker be an elected member of Congress. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Certainly popcorn sales would go through the roof. Not sure what it would do to Trump's 2024 plans. Trump burn out? Anyhow, your views are welcome.
Trump as speaker of the house is brilliant. Hadn't even conceived of that. But then... impeach biden and harris? Would that put Trump back in the whitehouse?
ReplyDeleteEven with all the oil and gas Russia can produce, it's economy is only 1/10th that of the PRC, Europe, or the US. Putin attacked Ukraine after the Beijing Olympics on *Xi*'s timing. This is the kind of "no limits" partnership where Putin does precisely what Xi says.
Could Putin throw a nuclear tantrum? Possibly. It would be unfortunate to see the world completely annihilated, but maybe we've been on borrowed time since the fall of the USSR?
- reader #1482
G'day Dip,
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that those of us outside the US who regard the health of your democracy as important to the wellbeing of the "civilized" world will be watching the results of your elections with great interest.
I think Jim Jordan or sone other Freedom Caucus member would be a more likely pick. Trump would be awesome but I think he will stay more strategic and position for the next election.
ReplyDeletePWG
DeleteI agree about Jordan. McCarthy is another Ryan. Maybe not quite so bad.
Delete"...McCarthy is another Ryan..."
DeleteOr maybe worse MK, last I heard
he was shacking up with a male 'rat
in DC, and calling that progress~~~
OW~~~
"Let's Roll"
I hold no high hopes for November. The Republican Party has snatched Defeat from the Jaws of Victory far too many times in the past for me to hold much hope for the future.
ReplyDelete"I hold no high hopes
Deletefor November..."
Oh Ye o' little faith~~~
Tis sad to see your
dragon dragging,
Dragoon 45~~~
Buck-Up~~~
OW~~~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYtERHX2JS8
"Let's Roll"
Honestly, after some additional thought, Trump might be just the guy to be speaker of the house. The speaker sets the overall legislative agenda, and what Trump did quite well was set agendas. If Trump wanted the media to talk about something, he made certain they'd be talking about it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not as hopeful about investigations. They tend to not come up with much or produce anything of value. Even the Clinton investigations resulted in very little action. Investigating the decisions to lie to FISA courts in order to tap the Trump campaign also aren't likely to achieve anything that can be prosecuted. The difference between criminality, negligence, and incompetence is just really hard to prove.
imo, a GOP congress should complete the removal of Obamacare and pass border-wall-reform *with* Ukraine aid and force Biden to take the whole dose. Biden won't get what he wants, but he won't shut down the government with a veto over it.
And yes absolutely on going back to reliable voting. I don't agree with everybody here on 2020, but it's clear to me that there was enough fishy business that skepticism is merited. To be rid of that skepticism requires a return to manual ballot counting and reporting. Poll workers and counters can use phones to relay counts. Of all the things in the country.... *this* one needs to be done right. Don't send a bunch of crap-ass insecure computers and networks from who-knows-where to do the job of actual citizens.
- reader #1482
We can't vote our way out of this
ReplyDeleteI have reached that conclusion as well. There is no way out being 'conservative'.
DeleteAs in the old bit of political wisdom:
Delete"You can vote your way into socialism / totalitarianism.
Unfortunately, yo usually have to shoot your way out of it"
And the US is still meeting with the Taliban and making one-sided promises to them about not dealing with any other armed groups in Afghanistan. Why? What makes the Taliban so special, considering that they're *not* recognized as a government? It's like France negotiating with a drug cartel based in the US?
ReplyDeleteThough I guess what I *can* read into this, is that the Taliban not only knew about Zawahiri, but leaked his presence to the US. That is the only way by which any sanity can be recovered from this situation.
- reader #1482
If you get lots of the right people you can vote your way out but the Swamp will fight you every step.
ReplyDeleteIt by all indicators the biggest Red Wave their only hope is fraud and lots of it
Trump would be a delicious SOTH pick but should Kamala be elevated and proven incompetent, in no way would she be impeached and Trump be elevated back to POTUS. That will only pave the way for the Democrats to do the same in the future. Just like Clinton's impeachment lead us down the road to Trumps impeachment.
ReplyDeleteI think the corruption that exists prevents change at the voting booth. The Deep State will not allow reforms to threaten them. They now control the DOJ, FBI, the expanding IRS, Big Tech to spy one citizens and a media that will hide everything wrong with this country. I have little hope unless things completely collapse. Only then will they let reforms take place as a way to preserve their place above a vengeful and armed populace. Hollywood has been promoting dystopian stories for two decades in an effort to condition the public that this is where we are going so just accept it. We just finished the COVID pandemic and Boston University is still performing gain of function research with Faucci's group denying that it is happening. I fear they are going to release it so they can reduce the population to install their green new deal world.
For the life of me, I cannot find specific allegations of ethnic cleansing in the donbas region prior to russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine (against either Ukraine or Russia, for that matter). I also don't see such prior to the 2014 invasion.
ReplyDeleteI do see that there was plenty of military action between 2014 and 2022 with Kiev attempting to regain donbas and crimea regions. And I am certain there were many civilian casualties. It was an active conflict.
I just read Berlusconi's account, but I don't see where he gets his information from.... from... Putin? I don't see how anybody can have an opinion of Putin other than 'petty tyrant'. 20 years ago I considered him a russian patriot/nationalist. That was about the time he should have retired from command.
- reader #1482
For the life of you you can’t find … That’s pretty sad. You comment on Dip’s blog but you are completely unaware of the recent past?
Delete"I don't see how anybody can have an
Deleteopinion of Putin other than 'petty tyrant'."
Well maybe tis that droopy brow
o' yours, thats obtructing your
vision n' point of view again?
I do hope that you will~~~
someday recover from
your recurring bout of
short-sightedness~~~
beore its too late,
Numero,
#1482,
or so...
OW~~~
"Let's Roll"
P.s,
Best to the kids,
yours, mine, n' thiers,
Sincerely~~~
I don't quite understand this schism either. I've watched this theater closely since the late 1990s. Ukraine is not some pristine paradise. It certainly has corruption within its governmental ranks. But none of that excuses Russia sending its soldiers into the established and acknowledged borders of Ukraine.
DeleteI'm just not sure I understand the views of people here sympathetic to Putin's actions, particularly in the conservative ranks within the US who clearly understand the lessons of appeasement leading to WWII.
I'm not angry, I'm just trying to understand.
My kids are well, and they're being brought up at home and in church, so I expect they will continue to be well.
- reader #1482
While a fun thought about having Trump as SOTH. He would be stymied for sure in that position. The Congress is full of process that allows either party to impede the other. Even with large majorities. Trump would still have to deal with the RINO’s and the politics of the Congress. The best selection of SOTH would be someone who knows how the game is played there, and how to work the system. Kevin McCarthy is the most likely pick. But I don’t trust him. He has deep RINO connections. Fun Fact: Members wishing to hold either ranking member or chairman positions have to buy those positions with Campaign money donated to the parties Congress reelection slush fund.
ReplyDeleteThere's still 3 weeks (+/-) to go. Plenty of time for the Dems to organize some sort of October surprise. Will it be domestic, or international? Who knows?
ReplyDeleteWe can't vote our way out. God promised to use fire to cleanse the world a second time. Not sure if that meant nuclear fire or sun spots, but that will fix things.
ReplyDeleteA key required election reform is to bring the US up to Iraqi standards -- voting only on the day, with a purple finger to stop multiple voting. But that is not going to happen. The Republicrats could not stand the heat from the media.
ReplyDeleteA demonstration of how worthless the Republicrats are is their failure to repeat the success of Gingrich's "Contract With America". The situation today would be ripe for a commitment to cut FedGov spending, stop the proxy war in the Ukraine, roll back regulations, transfer part of the tax burden from income tax to tariffs to stimulate jobs in the US. But the Republicrats won't touch that with a bargepole -- it would offend their big (Leftie) donors.
Sadly, the only hope is rebuilding after the coming economic collapse or (if we continue with current stupidity) after a global thermonuclear war.
Honestly, we really should be putting the US economy on a war footing. This isn't something the US has chosen, it's a response to China's broken economic model leading to world history's largest ponzi scheme. As that pops, the CCP will find it necessary to attack various countries near and far in order to maintain domestic dominance. I believe this is why Xi effectively ordered Putin to invade Ukraine in their Olympics meetup.
ReplyDeleteThe trade deficit with China is much too large, and China's influence in our government is far too high. Our entire military procurement apparatus needs a top-to-bottom audit, as we're almost certainly sourcing far too many critical components from China. It's been too financially advantageous for too many decades to expect that defense contractors are on-the-level with their component sourcing.
It's a *huge* boon to US military leadership that we're getting first-hand experience in Ukraine with large-scale war operations. (I am presuming that we have monitors/advisers embedded with Ukrainian forces observing and taking notes.)
Fortunately China is having a far less helpful experience in Ukraine, only being able to watch as Russian hardware upon which all Chinese hardware is models are built get blown up.
From a US security perspective, Ukraine has been a real bonanza. There's no amount of money that the DoD could pay to get real-world feedback on the performance of the hardware in large scale operations. Afghanistan and Iraq count in very different ways because air superiority was never challenged and there was never a full contest, but rather a cat-and-mouse game of small units and terror attacks.
The loss of life in Ukraine is horrific, but their conflict is not just making the US secure by reducing the threat to strategic partners in Europe, but also in shaking out the current battle reality.
Still up-in-the-air.... do the F-22 and F-35 still matter? Or is their radar-evasion obsoleted by visual-spectrum scanning? Or are they obsoleted by the growth of air superiority drones? So far, they might still matter, where the su-35 and su-57 obviously..... don't.
- reader #1482
Georgia is still using the easily corrupted Dominion ballot counting machines in all but one south Ga county. My prediction is that there will be more Republican votes cast but once counted the Dems will have higher numbers. Our system is broken here in GA.
ReplyDelete"...Our system is broken here in GA."
DeleteSorry to hear it |tsqua'd|, altho believe
you're exactly right. I do hope, that the
anti~America 'rats, thieves, n' cheats get
exposed, tried, locked up, and banned for
life, from the sanctity of our polling booths.
On Watch~~~
Glory Glory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59YAaaBF_ig
"Let's Roll"