Showing posts with label Ted Cruz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ted Cruz. Show all posts

Monday, January 20, 2020

Why Trump Ought To Be Impeached



I would like to leave the nuances of Ukraine to the elected politicians on Capitol Hill -- they get paid well enough -- and at some level I recognize that the Kentuckian McConnell -- and to think I spent five and a half years in Kentucky -- will manage to repeat the partisanship exhibited by his party in the lower chamber where Nancy Pelosi single-handedly architected the process, but I still harbor the fantasy that Trump might get impeached for reasons bigger than Ukraine, and even Russia.

The president should be elected democratically, which means one person one vote. He was never elected. In the majority of countries, if you can collect three million votes, you can become president. He was way short.

The low unemployment numbers widely advertised are a sham. The actual numbers are at least twice as large. Post-2008 America has seen an epidemic of lower-paying jobs.

The stock markets are another sham. Companies are buying their own stocks. That is company money paying for the rise in share price to the benefit of the top share-owning executives. Productive investments are not being made. Buying your own stocks is eating potato chips.

Donald Trump rightly pointed out the massive loss of manufacturing jobs, but he did not have a solution then, he does not have a solution now. The losses are structural. This is more like the loss of agricultural jobs at the onset of the first and second industrial revolutions powered by steam and electricity. Universal health, universal education, and universal basic income will build the foundation for real solutions to create the knowledge and service jobs of tomorrow. Here is looking at you Bernie and Andrew Yang.

The guy is everything you feared old white men were: racist and sexist. And he lies like nobody in the public sphere. He is a post-truther who needs to be ditched.

But the number one reason in the climate. The clock is ticking. Four more years of the leading villain country behind climate change doing nothing is 12 years minus four years left to fight climate catastrophe. There is a cliff ahead. Send him to Australia for some education. He is fit to study abroad.

There is also World War III. We don't want World War III.

His getting impeached will open up the possibility of someone like Ted Cruz grabbing the Republican nomination. I have plenty of policy disagreements with Ted Cruz. But at least he is not foul-mouthed. He has basic decency. He is textbook conservative. Legitimate disagreements become possible. Genuine conservatives are not fact-free. And when you face facts, you move from climate denial to offering conservative solutions to climate change, which might rely more on tech entrepreneurs delivering faster on cleantech advances. I can live with that.

And America does not need more dynasties. America does not need to get triggered.

US Impeachment Sausage Drama: Quantum Politics?
The Dollar, Weaponized
Taiwan's Medicare For All
Trade War Temporary Truce: Phase 1
Africa's Moment To Shine
The Impeachment Slog
Trump's Iran Speech
Trump: Morally Lost And Confused?
Impeachment Maneuvers Expose America

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

When Ted Cruz Met Donald Trump

When Ted Cruz met Donald Trump
He asked, "How are you doing, Donald?"
"I've been better, " The Donald replied
When Cruz met Trump in Hell
The Donald said.

Thursday, April 07, 2016

Bernie II?

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Is Bernie making a comeback? At this point it is true the super delegates don't count. If Bernie ends up leading among the contested delegates, it will be hard for the supers to not respect that. But I have not been following closely. What are the numbers at this point? This is the second time Bernie has surprised me, the first time was in January.
Not only has Sanders defeated Clinton in six straight contests, but he’s raised more money in three consecutive months...... Clinton’s email fiasco is the epitome of white privilege. Ultimately, Wisconsin just elected Bernie Sanders president, and the momentum from this win will lead to further landmark victories. While Bernie is raising more money than anyone, Clinton is facing potential FBI and DOJ indictment. Clinton’s excuses regarding retroactive classification won’t impress the FBI and very soon, Bernie Sanders will be the official Democratic front-runner. Wisconsin continued the momentum at a critical point and helped elect President Bernie Sanders.
Sanders ready to burn the house down? Five reasons Bernie says Hillary isn’t “qualified” to be President
Sanders swings back hard after he claimed Clinton argued he was "not qualified." Only problem - she never said that VIDEO
Paul Krugman: For wonks like me, Bernie Sanders is frankly horrifying
Sanders is just as delusional when it comes to the economics as those vying for a spot on the GOP ticket
Varieties of Voodoo
Republicans routinely engage in deep voodoo, making outlandish claims about the positive effects of tax cuts for the rich. Democrats tend to be cautious and careful about promising too much, as illustrated most recently by the way Obamacare, which conservatives insisted would be a budget-buster, actually ended up being significantly cheaper than projected. ...... On Wednesday four former Democratic chairmen and chairwomen of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers — three who served under Barack Obama, one who served under Bill Clinton — released a stinging open letter to Bernie Sanders and Gerald Friedman, a University of Massachusetts professor who has been a major source of the Sanders campaign’s numbers. The economists called out the campaign for citing “extreme claims” by Mr. Friedman that “exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans” and could “undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda.” ...... Mr. Friedman outdoes the G.O.P. by claiming that the Sanders plan would produce 5.3 percent growth a year over the next decade. ......

fuzzy math from the left would make it impossible to effectively criticize conservative voodoo

Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders can’t save America
The famed linguist-philosopher talks neoliberalism, the future of fossil fuels and our broken political culture
Throughout his illustrious career, one of Noam Chomsky’s chief preoccupations has been questioning — and urging us to question — the assumptions and norms that govern our society. ..... For radicals, progress requires puncturing the bubble of inevitability: austerity, for instance, “is a policy decision undertaken by the designers for their own purposes.” It is not implemented, Chomsky says, “because of any economic laws.” American capitalism also benefits from ideological obfuscation: despite its association with free markets, capitalism is shot through with subsidies for some of the most powerful private actors. This bubble needs popping too. ....... “Over time there’s a kind of a general trajectory towards a more just society, with regressions and reversals of course.” ..... by now, practically the only persistent institutions are the churches. .... And not because of any economic laws. These are policies. Just as austerity in Europe is not an economic necessity — in fact, it’s economic nonsense. But it’s a policy decision undertaken by the designers for their own purposes. I think basically it’s a kind of class war, and it can be resisted, but it’s not easy. History doesn’t go in a straight line. ..... there was a recent study by the IMF which tried to estimate the subsidy that energy corporations get from governments. The total was colossal. I think it was around $5 trillion annually. That’s got nothing to do with markets and capitalism. ....... Financial institutions in the US had about 40 percent of corporate profits on the eve of the 2008 collapse, for which they had a large share of responsibility. ..... will this system of state capitalism, which is what it is, survive the continued use of fossil fuels? And the answer to that is, of course, no.
They created this nightmare for themselves: The clueless GOP establishment is fueling hurricane Donald Trump
What aloof GOP leaders don't get is that rank-and-file, working-class voters feel betrayed by them
today’s Republican establishment now finds that it is so out of touch with regular voters that it now faces a howling, Category-5 hurricane that’s threatening to implode the Grand Old Party. ..... None of the elites saw Hurricane Donnie coming ....... They’ve single-mindedly pushed a plutocratic agenda of trade scams, tax cuts for the rich, and subsidies for runaway corporations, while constantly slashing at Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that their own non-affluent voters need. ....... Trying to knock-off Trump for Ryan is a sign of the GOP’s irreversible decline into cluelessness and political irrelevance.
“Talking out of his ass”: Stephen Colbert loses patience with Donald Trump’s ignorance
Colbert also takes down Cruz's Wisconsin win. "Even if you voted for Ted Cruz, you're still pretty upset about it"
Voters still bearish on Trump, Colbert noted, express concern over the GOP frontrunner’s lack of concrete policy proposals. ...... a clip of Trump during his Fox News town hall Monday saying he would eliminate the “Department of Environmental,” or as Trump believes the acronym to be, “the D.E.P.” ..... “We looked it up,” Colbert said. “And the Department of Environmental does not exist, meaning Trump is either talking out of his ass or he’s already eliminated it.”
It was a blowout: Bernie Sanders won a whopping 99 percent of counties in the Wisconsin primary
Sanders got more votes in 71 out of Wisconsin's 72 counties. Clinton beat him in just one, and only by 3.7 percent
The winner of the primary in Wisconsin has gone on to become the party’s nominee in nearly 94 percent of past elections. The state has been described as the “best in the nations at picking presidential nominees.” ..... Americans, who polls say are overwhelmingly sick of the political status quo, are clearly excited about the prospect of a Sanders presidency. .... Sanders says that, if he wins the New York primary, he would likely be the next president.


Donald Trump’s “days of rage”: As the GOP primary reaches its tipping point, Trump prepares for all-out war
Ted Cruz won big last night, dramatically increasing chances of a brokered convention. This is about to get ugly
,br> His most terrifying interview yet: Why Trump’s sit down with Bob Woodward should have America petrified
In a conversation with the Washington Post, Trump demonstrated exactly why he's so dangerous in 2016
he seems to have decided very early in life on a set of simple beliefs about the way the world works and has never questioned them. ..... Last week he stunned the country with his comments about punishing women for having abortions, a position he meandered into by failing to understand that the right has its own kind of political correctness. ...... But what he has been saying about nuclear policy is so reckless that President Obama was moved to comment on it, saying “the person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world generally.” ..... Unfortunately, Trump didn’t get the message and continued to insist that Japan and South Korea either hand over more money to the United States or build their own nuclear weapons. ..... The Woodward/Costa interview spent more time trying to get him to talk about economics and, as usual, he meandered around talking about himself and his business, repeating all his stock lines. But he did say a few things that made some headlines, particularly his belief that the country is currently in a “bubble” that’s going to burst soon and throw the country into a terrible recession. ...... So he is determined to slash taxes to the bone and also pay off the 19 trillion in 8 years. Needless to say the economy will be roaring because he will have made America great again. ...... We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.” How long would that take? “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.” ....... it’s downright surreal that he’s very close to winning the Republican nomination for president. How is it possible that a man with such overwhelming solipsism and titanic ego can have so little knowledge to show for it?

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

The Obamas And Austin

Rumor is the Obamas might move to Austin after they are done with the White House. If they announce anything to that effect, Texas goes blue in November, there is a strong chance, which would be tectonic.


One Person, One Vote, One Voice Democracy And America And The Democratic Party

English: Ballot Box showing preferential voting
English: Ballot Box showing preferential voting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am not a Democrat. I am not a card carrying member of any political party on earth. But I do believe in the onward march of human progress. The democratic process, the political process is key to that. The most important thing the democratic process perhaps does is it moves the conversation. The work primarily gets done in the private sector, although government work is also very important. 

The Republican side has been so irrational, so far away from what might be called the basics of the scientific process, I think the White House part of the race is over, the Senate part is also over, and now we are moving to the Republicans possibly even losing the House, and the Democrats don't even have a nominee yet. Hillary is perhaps to benefit immensely from this amazing act of self destruction on the part of the Republicans. 

But the political benefit will not be lasting. Currently the American political system is designed to swing like a pendulum. The Dems and Hillary might sweep in 2016 but two years later the pendulum will swing even if the basic political landscape has not changed and the Republicans are still as irrational as ever. Why would that happen? It's in the design itself. 

America is a one person one vote democracy, but only half so. It is not a system designed to try to get as many people as possible to vote. And it is not a one person, one vote, one voice democracy. What has most boggled my mind in this race is, not only Hillary has not replicated the grassroots organizational structures of an Obama 2008, she has not made it 10 times better, because now that is an option due to advances in technology. She has had the option to make it 10 times better and make that structure integral to governance itself beyond victory. An attempt at one person, one vote, one voice democracy might bring lasting benefits to the Democratic Party. Instead of being a 52-48 slide between the two parties, the Republicans would keep losing ground and stay at lost ground unless they do what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to apply their core conservative principles to new set of data to come up with new policies and programs. As to what that might mean I don't know. But an utter unwillingness to face the data is something that is not the scientific process. The ideological masturbation is in full view. 

One person, one vote, one voice 24/7 democracy taken to its logical local to global conclusions: that is the goal. That also means structural reforms. For example, why is there only one day when you can vote? Why not an entire week? Why do you have to go to a voting booth? Why can't you vote from your phone? You press your thumb and you vote. Why do you have to register to vote? Does not the American state know you exist? They seem to know when you have to pay taxes. Every citizen should be automatically registered, for all elections ever after. Congressional district boundaries should be decided by a federal non partisan commission. Kill gerrymandering if you want a healthy, robust democracy in America. Voters are supposed to choose politicians, not the other way round. In the current system there is no end to gridlock. So you end up with a small government for the price of a huge government. A paralyzed government is a small government, which means those who want a small government want it so bad, they don't want even the people's approval for the idea, they don't want to have to make a case. They don't want a mandate, they just want to impose the idea. Last of all, every town where non citizens are more than 10% of the population should allow all residents to vote at least in the city elections. Ideally you would want not all citizens but all residents everywhere in the country to be able to vote at all levels. A country that wants to spread democracy should bring in people from all over the world, and get them to vote, so they know what it feels like. You do that and you don't have to invade countries. Democracy spreads itself. It is like fragrance. 

Talking about immigrants, not only America needs to legalize the 12 million who are already here, America needs to actively bring in 20 million more. How else are you going to pay for your ageing population's retirement? The social security thing is kind of like the blockchain. On the blockchain you can do business with people you don't even trust. The social security thing is so beautifully designed that young immigrants pay for the retirement of people who are not even their blood relatives. It is a good system. 

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

A Super Narrow Iowa Victory For Hillary

The margin is not even a full percentage point, and they might even end up snatching an equal number of delegates in the state, but it is a victory nonetheless. Suddenly things are topsy turvy. It was Donald Trump who was supposed to be the clear Republican nominee. Hillary was supposed to be in the doldrums. Now Trump looks like he might not even make it. And Hillary might end up narrowing Bernie's lead in New Hampshire.

The nomination is not Hillary's yet. The fight will go on all the way. But right now Hillary has the edge. Bernie will not stop. He will not quit. But the thing about fighting hard but clean is, they might even end up on the same ticket. Hillary and Bernie on the same ticket would give a decisive blow to Cruz. It might also considerably narrow a Bloomberg possibility. An Iowa loss for Hillary would have made clear room for Bloomberg.

Right now The Donald is probably licking his wounds. I thought I was rich and successful.

Cruz would be super easy to beat. The guy is so far out. He simply gives away all the middle ground on a platter. The Donald would be a circus. Also easy to beat, but more comical.

But this is still a close contest. Hillary can not rest. There will be drama.

No one on either side has been assured a nomination yet, but this was a rather interesting night.

Fierce competition inside both parties makes room for a Bloomberg. One way to look at Iowa is, we thought only the Democratic nomination was fiercely contested, now we know also the Republican nomination is.



Iowa’s many self-proclaimed winners
Hillary Clinton, who strode out with her family in tow to claim victory over Bernie Sanders without actually uttering the words “I won.” The closest she came was saying that “I stand here tonight, breathing a big sigh of relief.” At the time, however, her razor-thin lead was shrinking to mere tenths of a percent. There it remained. ......

Clinton was finally declared the apparent winner, 49.8 percent to 49.6 percent — not exactly what anyone would call a mandate.

...... Donald Trump gave brief remarks in which he graciously congratulated Cruz, thanked the people of Iowa and

said he liked the Hawkeye State so much, he might someday buy a farm there.

I’m trying to picture Trump in a pair of overalls. ...... Trump is a numbers guy; he looked at the results, saw that Cruz had more votes and conceded. But other candidates and commentators preferred to focus instead on expectations — what “they” said would happen versus what did happen. Hence the surfeit of self-proclaimed winners. ..... three months ago polls showed her 20 points ahead. And Sanders said he had fought the powerful Clinton political machine to a draw, which of course beat expectations. ....... the Sanders rebellion is certainly not halted and perhaps not even slowed. A party in which such a familiar and experienced figure as Clinton can be fought to a tie by a self-proclaimed democratic socialist is a party divided. ...... About 180,000 Iowans participated in the Republican caucuses, an all-time record. Meanwhile, just about 170,000 caucused on the Democratic side, far fewer than the record of nearly 240,000 in 2008.
Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders were the real winners in Iowa
Judging the victor by differences of tenths of a percentage point is a ridiculous enterprise when what’s being measured are delegate numbers, not tens of thousands of individual votes. ......

The real winners were Marco Rubio, with his remarkably strong third-place showing, and Bernie Sanders, with his virtual tie.

..... In the short term, Donald Trump was the biggest loser — true of any front-runner but even truer of a candidate whose campaign raison d’etre is that he is a winner. ..... The elaborate network of evangelical support and intensive voter contact and analytics he constructed outdid

the swaggering hold-a-rally-and-they-will-caucus approach of Donald Trump.

..... They were torn — except when it came to Trump. He had been crossed off almost all their lists, as too big a blow-hard, too politically inexperienced, too ideologically untrustworthy. ........ That Rubio came within a percentage point of passing Trump — the candidate leading in most polls leading up to the caucuses — is the most significant number of the night. ....

New Hampshire is not obviously fertile territory for Cruz; it is better suited to Rubio.

...... I left the Rubio events I attended here with a revived sense that Clinton should be very nervous about the prospect of facing him in a general election campaign. ...... Between Sanders and Clinton, tie goes to the underdog. If you have any question about this, ask yourself: Which campaign was celebrating Monday night, and which was trying to figure out what went wrong? ..... In short, Sanders is not disappearing any time soon. Trump is not running away with the nomination. For both parties, the Iowa results reinforce the likelihood that both nomination battles will stretch well into the spring, if not beyond.
The two numbers that explain Iowa caucus vote
"I am so thrilled that I am coming to New Hampshire after winning Iowa,” she said, fresh off a red-eye from Iowa, at a campaign rally in Nashua. “I've won and I lost there. And it's a lot better to win." ...... her tight win in Iowa speaks to the success of Sanders. ..... Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called Clinton’s performance in Iowa an “unmitigated disaster.” ...... “Hillary Clinton once again finds herself running neck and neck with an upstart challenger in a race that never should have been this close to begin with,” Priebus said in a statement. The committee also released a video titled, “Déjà Vu,” recalling Clinton’s troubles in the 2008 Democratic race. ...... “Nine months ago we had no political organization, we had no money, we had no name recognition and we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the country,” the Vermont senator told a cheering crowd in Des Moines on Monday night. “Tonight, while the results are still not known, it looks like we are in a virtual tie.” ...... With her slim win in Iowa, and a potential loss in New Hampshire on the horizon, Clinton’s path to the nomination may have gotten a bit rockier.
The two numbers that explain Iowa caucus vote
64. That’s the percentage of Hawkeye State GOP caucus goers who were Evangelicals ..... That’s much higher than anticipated ...... Cruz outperformed his poll numbers and pulled off a surprising win because Evangelicals turned out in big numbers ....

Among non-evangelical voters, he lost to Trump, 22 to 29 percent. That’s close to how final polls had predicted the caucuses would end up.

...... Mr. Trump may have upended the race, but he hasn’t destroyed the effectiveness of old-style retail campaigning. ......

84. That’s the percentage of voters age 18 to 29 won by Bernie Sanders

.... 58 percent of voters age 30 to 44. ..... Look at it this way: Sanders did better with young voters than did Barack Obama in his hope-and-change campaign of 2008. Obama won 57 percent of the under-29 crowd in that year’s Iowa Democratic caucus.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Donald Trump Has A Massive Debt Problem

English: Celebrity Apprentice star Dennis Rodm...
English: Celebrity Apprentice star Dennis Rodman and Donald Trump (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Nobody knows he doesn't. Maybe even he is refusing to open up the Excel files with all the numbers. But I am guessing. If you have managed to offend everyone, up to and including the British, especially the British, I mean the British want to ban this guy from their island, chances are, yes, you are a racist, and a sexist, but chances are, that means you have a massive debt problem. It's not just China. It's also Donald Trump.

Donald Trump Is Global Warming
Donald Trump: Marxist? Hitlerian?
Trump Inc. Is East China Company

Trump claims his net worth is 11 billion dollars. Magazines claim it is more like four billion. Maybe he is confusing the numbers. His net worth is four billion, and his debt is 11 billion. He has been learning the casino business. There are various forms of capitalism. One is casino capitalism.


Saturday, December 12, 2015

डोनाल्ड का विग उतारो



इस चुतिये की तो जम के पिटाई होने वाली है। ये हरामी का पिल्ला, हिटलर का नाजायज औलाद। ..... और एम्बुलेंस तैयार रखो। हम अपना कम्पैशन नहीं खो बैठे हैं। .... समझने वाले समझ जाएंगे ये भी रियल एस्टेट का ही लफड़ा है। पोलिटिकल रियल एस्टेट। ...... जब हम न्यु यॉर्क में आ गए हैं तो इसे चाहिए कहीं दुर चले जाए, अलाबामा या ऐसा ही कोई जगह।

Bobby Jindal 2024
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Donald Trump: Marxist? Hitlerian?
Republicans Asked For Unlimited Money In Politics
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