Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

I oppose Trump’s commutation of Blagojevich sentence

Posted: February 23, 2020 by John Ruberry in News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

“I didn’t cross any lines I didn’t break any laws,” disgraced former Illinois governor told Rod Blagojevich Fox Chicago’s Larry Yellen in his first interview after his 14-year prison sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump.

Blago did both, which is why I oppose Trump’s commutation. I’m also on the other side of the opinions of my conservative friends and relatives here in the Land of Lincoln. Two of them are lawyers who have tried cases in front of now-retired federal judge James Zagel, a Ronald Reagan appointee. One of those attorneys remarked to me that he was “a hardass with a tin ear.” When I pointed out that one of the counts that the Chicago Democrat was convicted was for was attempting to extort a children’s hospital, he conceded, “Yeah, that was a bad one.”

So is trying to sell a US Senate seat to the highest bidder. As is lying to federal agents.

“I will govern as a reformer,” is what Blagojevich declared in his first inaugural address. His idea of reform was replacing the crooks and ward heelers surrounding his predecessor, Republican George H. Ryan, with his own crew of corruption. Blago’s friend and top aide Christopher Kelly was one of them. Shortly before he was to begin his five-year prison sentence, Kelly committed suicide. Two of Blagojevich’s chiefs of staff served time. Tony Rezko, his political fixer and fundraiser, served several years in federal prison. While they may have willingly been on board Blago’s corruption express, the former governor aided in ruining several lives.

Rezko of course was a key fundraiser in the early years of Barack Obama’s political career. The fixer and his wife played a role in the purchase of the Obamas’ Chicago mansion, the transaction has never been completely explained.

“He honestly believes he did nothing wrong,” Yellen told Mike Flannery this weekend about Blago on Flannery Fired Up. 

On my own blog I explained my opposition to the commutation with one caveat. If Blago spills the beans on what he knows about his political adversary, longtime state House speaker and Democratic Party chairman Michael Madigan, I’ll give Trump’s move a second thought. There is a current federal investigation of Illinois corruption and Boss Madigan’s name keeps coming up. True, whatever Blagojevich knows probably falls outside of the statute of limitations, but it can’t hurt either. Illinois needs to be power-scrubbed and sand-blasted. Illinois needs much more transparency. 

And as I’ve said many times, one way to finally clean up Illinois is to have judges like James Zagel impose maximum sentences on crooked pols and public workers. Fear is a powerful motivator. The 28-year sentence that former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick received–he had his hands in a lot more pots than Blagojevich–is a good example.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Voting Communist and the Right to Be Wrong

Posted: February 23, 2020 by datechguy in elections, politics, primaries

As of this writing Bernie Sanders has been declared the winner in Nevada. Most of the state has not yet reported but his lead is apparently big enough that it won’t matter (although the auto-reporting on Hotair.com is suddenly showing Warren with hundreds of thousands of votes that she didn’t have before which is a tad odd to say the least).

Now it’s worth noting that Bernie Sanders is a communist, he’s not only a Communist but a communist who was willing to Honeymoon in the Soviet Union DURING the cold war. To me that’s no different than Honeymooning in Berlin in 1938. He’s never met an enemy of America that he didn’t like and would if elected compete with Barack Obama and Jefferson Davis for the title of American Democrat president who did the most damage to the country.

This is recognized by folks like Chris Matthews who rightly suggest that there will be more than a few Democrats who believe that the re-election of Donald Trump would be better for their party and country than the election of Bernie Sanders.

That the election of a communist would be a horrible thing goes without saying but there is only one thing that would be worse for the country than the Democrat party nominating a communist to head their ticket.

That would be stealing the nomination from said communist if he won it according to the rules.

There are plenty of people who in my opinion have no business being in government. Great examples are Maxine Waters, Ilan Omar, Barbara Lee and frankly Bernie Sanders.

However while I believe this to be the case in a country of 330 you are going to get plenty of people, literally millions of folks with fringe insane believes and furthermore with 435 reps and 50 states you are bound to end up with at least a couple of such districts and even a state or two where enough of such people congregate to allow them to get elected.

While I think this is a bad idea it is the right of these folks to choose their own representatives on the local, state and federal level, that a basic freedom.

So if for example California decides to elect people who allow a city like San Francisco to be infested with feces and needles that’s on them, if the people of California choose to send a legislature to the statehouse that help promote these things while chasing business out of the state, that’s on them. If they vote for a Governor to keep this decline going and then send representatives to DC to help enable these disasters, again that is all on them because they are the people who are going to have to live with it.

It’s the same thing with Bernie.

If enough Democrat voters decide to vote Bernie Sanders to give him the nomination, even with him communist beliefs and sympathies with dictators then they have the right to be stuck with him, and with the consequences of that choice.

And the Democrat party will get the beating they richly deserve.

And if I’m wrong and somehow the voters of this nation take leave of their senses and trade the peace and prosperity and optimism of Donald Trump for Bernie Sanders brand of socialism on the grounds that for the first time in history it will not bring destruction and misery then just as they did when they choose Barack Obama they’ill have the right to be wrong, and will reap the reward of a socialist disaster so bad that generations will pass before we recover from it.

I sincerely doubt that we as a nation are that foolish, but if we are, then we will richly deserve all we get.

Why Donald Trump Courts Black Americans

Posted: February 22, 2020 by julietteochieng in Always look at the bright side of Trump, American Success Stories, crime, culture, elections
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Setting the captives free

by baldilocks

A guy I follow on Twitter pointed out something that has been in the back of my mind ever since 2016 when Donald Trump asked black Americans what we had to lose by supporting him in his presidential bid.

Over 90% of black voters voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but so what? Black people are only 13% of the US population.

(By the way, over 92 million eligible voters did not vote in the 2016 presidential election! I bet that number will be smaller this year.)

The point is that Donald Trump did not need black voters to win in 2016 and does not need us this year. So why does he help and support black Americans? Why does he want us on the Trump Train?

There was a lot of predictable race-baiting last week when President Trump pardoned Bernard Kerik, Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. and granted clemency to Rod Blagojevich. All three are white men and as their stories on were all the talk on Twitter, Chelsea Handler said this.

When people have a caricature formed in their minds, they are unable to see solid reality right in front of their faces. Social Media exacerbates this phenomenon because people want to be part of that which seems popular. Conversely, people hate to be contradicted and hate being wrong – although both happen all the time.  I remember the first time someone tried to explicitly shame me for predicting something that didn’t pan out.

“I was wrong.”
“YOU WERE WRONG! Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Why should I be ashamed of being wrong? I’m not God; therefore, I make mistakes.”

Yes, it really happened like that.

Anyway, the reality is that President Trump pardoned and granted clemency to many others. And many of these others are black.

Here’s a sample.

Angela Stanton-King

When best-selling author and BET reality TV star Angela Stanton-King received word on Tuesday that President Trump had just granted her a full pardon, she was literally overcome.

“I just started hyperventilating right at the airport,” she told Newsmax. “I was just crying like a baby. People thought someone had died.” (…)

For Stanton-King, the pardon represented another amazing chapter in her life’s extraordinary  journey. After surviving a troubled childhood involving abuse, she got caught up in a stolen vehicle ring, and received a prison sentence. She was released in 2005.

“When I was released from prison 15 years ago,” she told Newsmax in an exclusive interview, “I was given a $25 check and a bus ticket and told to start my life over.

“I came home to four children, and I came home to two tombstones,” she said. “My mother was in one and my grandmother was in the other. (…)

Stanton-King defied the odds. She went on to write a best-selling book about her journey, Life of a Real Housewife. The book launched her career as a publishing entrepreneur, and that led to a big role in a BET reality TV show. She also founded the American King Foundation, a nonprofit focused on criminal-justice reform and reuniting families that have been separated by mass incarceration.

In the comments to Handler’s Tweet, many others point to the error in her implication, but it’s a safe bet that she will block it all out and pretend that it didn’t happen all the way up to the next time she decides to point the racism finger at the president or at conservatives in general. She is what she is. Like-minded politicos and media professionals will do the same.

President Trump knows this, but he still keeps reaching out to fellow Americans who are black. Why? I think I have an answer.

What do all of these newly-freed former prisoners – white, black, brown, etc. – have in common besides being mostly non-violent offenders? It’s this: they all hit bottom and are determined to climb back up; they are intent on becoming better people than the persons they were. More often than not, someone saw their efforts and gave them a hand up.

They are all looking to improve themselves the right way.

That’s a very American trait which President Trump appreciates. If you ask me, he doesn’t care whether or not any of these people vote for him – many of them probably won’t be able to anyway.

What he is doing: using his power and authority to make it easier for the repentant to keep walking in the right direction instead of reverting to their old selves and old lives.

He’s inviting all of them – great and small — to be a part of the American Dream, their birthright. He’s inviting them to rebuild their lives and do their small part in making America great again.

Black, white, brown, red, yellow, they already lost the most precious thing they had to lose: freedom. Now they have it back and the president is just trying to help them hold onto it.

Do I think that the percentage of black American voters who vote for Donald Trump in 2020 will be larger than in 2016? Probably, but not by much.

Then again, I could be wrong.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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It’s Not Wednesday’s Debate but How Bloomberg Reacts the NEXT Debate that Matters

Posted: February 21, 2020 by datechguy in elections, politics, primaries
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One of the few disadvantages of being back to work is that I no longer am free to watch the various debates that I was free to watch when my shoulder was newly busted so I was shocked when I got home and DaWife was hot to talk about how Elizabeth Warren (who she can’t stand, DaWife is all in on Trump) beat his living ass off and cheered the questions she asked him.

I checked online and the only story everywhere was how bad Mike Bloomberg had been massacred by Elizabeth Warren.

Everyone is hitting him hard but there are three things to note.

  1. The election isn’t tomorrow
  2. The people who are going to decide this primary are 1000 times more likely to have seen a Bloomberg Ad then this debate
  3. His money hasn’t gone anywhere.

Cheers from an audience of Democrat activists not withstanding and media hits not withstanding Bloomberg isn’t going anywhere but more than that there is now increased interest in the NEXT debate.

That’s when it will matter because people love a spectacle and a lot of people who likely didn’t care about that last debate will turn into the next one to see what happens.

That is Bloomberg’s opening.

If Bloomberg puts on a good show in the next debate when voters are paying attention than the egg he laid yesterday will be quickly forgotten.

Furthermore the reality is that while Communism & Socialism is pretty popular among Democrat activists I suspect it’s not as popular among a lot of Democrats in swing states that they need for a shot at Potus.

Now if Bloomberg lays a 2nd egg at a time when people are more likely to be watching then it might be time to cut bait although literally 1000’s of consultants making great money will implore him not to.

But until that happens anyone who counts Bloomberg out is a fool.

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