Trump has been impeached. He is dead meat walking. Republicans and others who continue to support him will join him in the dead meat dump. Trump was pushing the Putin idea that the Ukraine interfered in the US election rather than Russia. That has been shown to be completely off base. Biden was pushing to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor. Replacing him with an honest prosecutor might have been more likely to investigate the oil company. The idea that Trump gave a tinker's damn about actual Ukrainian corruption is indicated by his previous support of aid to Ukraine without conditions of funding hold ups. The whole impeachment is not a farce no matter how many times you or Trump's hired guns say it. He has been impeached. Hopefully it is a message to him, but he seems immune to learning which is the reason for pushing for his immediate removal rather than waiting for the GOP to go down the drain with him in the next election. The impeachment is hopefully a message to all future Presidents, Republicans, Democrats, or others that pressuring or bribing a foreign power to provide you with an emolument in the form of election interference or campaign funding is not a good idea and is fundamentally un-American and unconstitutional.
***** Stay tuned for more pro-Constitution posts----- Doug Wiken
We have been digging through some old boxes and envelopes. One box had some political papers from the days I worked for the SD Democratic Party as a fundraiser. In the box were some SD state maps with greetings from Gov. Richard Kneip and also one with greetings from Gov. Bill Janklow. But perhaps more interesting was the campaign poster for Jim Abourezk's US Senate campaign in perhaps 1972, Guess that makes it about 45 years old. Does not seem like it should be that long ago, but image of it is below.
Well, that is tonight's stroll back through history. I found color slides I took something like 10 years earlier, but have not had time to convert them to digital images yet. I also found an old doll stroller that my wife had at age three. I suspect I best not say how long ago that was. Unlike toys of today, it is all metal and steel wheels are well worn.
The US Senate could use a few Jim Abourezks these days.
*** Stay tuned for less old and more new....maybe--- Doug Wiken
Too many times in the past years, the first blossoms of spring have ended up barely sticking out of snow or frosted with ice. Same seems to have been true for Pamida..now Shopko..getting in a bunch of cold-sensitive plants. I am hoping that the tulips in the photo below are true harbingers of nice spring weather and not omens of wet cold blizzard.
Very nice day in Winner, SD today. Not much wind and 66F degrees or so. Reliance weather radio is predicting rain and possible thunderstorms coming soon however. In any case, grass is growing and will soon have to be mowed.
It is a Sunday and sabbath gas bags are in full wind mode of course. Mostly what I am hearing is dispair over Trump and Trump Administration demonstrating dangerous ignorance and bravado in foreign affairs and promotion of truly idiotic economic policy which if enacted will greatly harm the very people who most strongly supported Trump in the last election. But, nothing much new in that. Some awareness from Democrats that they truly fowled up the last election....which has been obvious to many of us in the boondocks for months. Those on the coasts and flying the friendly skies have been a bit slower or more reluctant in that direction.
*** Stay tuned for whichever way the wind blows and how fast and how hot or cold---- Doug Wiken
The Trump upset resulted from a very misleading campaign by Trump and an incompetent nearly irrelevant campaign by Hillary Clinton. In effect Trump turned the November 8, 2016 election day into November Fool's Day.
Many laborers voted for a man who stiffed laborers and contractors and who has employed alien labor.
Many Evangelicals voted for an apparent atheist who was divorced more than once and who has bragged about "grabbing pussy" and how women like to be so abused...especially if by somebody famous like Trump.
Rural residents voted for a man who wants to kill ethanol production and who knows nothing about agriculture or real rural America.
Some White and Black women voted for a man who has referred to women as pigs and often demonstrated contempt for them in general.
People convinced they were downtrodden and ignored voted for a man only accustomed to Luxury estates and expensive penthouse apartments. They voted for a real estate baron who listens to nobody and ignores the down-trodden and anybody else who disagrees with him and never apologizes even for the most egregious statements.
Trump did better at fooling people than any April Fool's Day joke or gag that I have ever heard. April Fool's day jokes last for a day, November Fool's Day will last for four years. Certainly, we can have a little more belief in the "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time."
Trump proved to be a master fooler of the electorate, and a master baiter of the press.
Bloomberg News Nov 14- Nov 20, 2016 has a story titled "Trump's Path to Victory". It discusses how Trump's nearly unhinged campaign appealed to voters his pollsters decided was a different electorate composed of mostly older, whiter, more rural, and much angrier at being ignored by the upper class elites than the Clinton pollsters realized or perhaps even considered. Trump's hyperbole and crassness and antipathy fed those voters resolve. Trump's pollsters detected these changes even before FBI director Comey made his statement. They also found the big health insurance company premium increases fed more resolve. Hillary and Democrats failed to correctly label this as not a fault of Obamacare, but just plain old insurance company greed.
"Trump's election represents a jarring realignment of American politics." Trump's pollsters picked up a rural vote spiking up for Trump. The spike was actually 10 points higher than they predicted. "Trump's election map represents a powerful largely rural backlash against a country where wealth and power have increasingly accrued to the cities."
Bloomberg article is worth reading in whole because more info is there and you should be sure I did not misinterpret the article. Like the TIME magazine, I think this Bloomberg issue should be kept to see how it matches reality in the future. The article concluded with a note that Republican politics will be more populist and more rural in character. and oriented to a class of Americans "whose concerns weren't addressed by the Democratic and Republican parties that both crumbled on November 8, 2016".
Another article worth reading suggests that bringing this class of Americans of frustrated and disillusioned condition into a larger conversation of the future may be very difficult.
***Stay tuned and take a look at what pollsters and pundits are now saying to see if it makes any more sense than they made in the past months-- Doug Wiken
We got a pile of mail today after yesterday's Veteran's Day holiday. Included was Time and Bloomberg News. I slogged through as much as I could stand while recovering from " stomach flu". Below are a few excerpts from TIME. Take time to find the actual magazines and read the whole stories. I will dig through Bloomberg again and take some notes for another post.
Nancy Gibbs, TIME editor, wrote about covering this election: What challenged reporters in the field who were dealing with a race "that had as its substance 'efforts to undermine the democratic norms and institutions of our country--from the Republican nominee, who prided himself on breaking rules, to a Democratic nominee who often campaigned from a distant cocoon. This forced us to rethink how we do things.....". She also noted that both Democratic and Republican parties are fragmented. The Republicans appear to have a party which is fed up with its rank and file and vice versa. The Democratic Party is badly in need of new ideas, new messengers, and new messages.
A column by Eddie B. Glaude, Jr. concludes that despite the Trump victory, the US is in the death throes of the idea of a White America and what happened in the November 8 election was that White America made its last stand, and it is not going to be an easy death.
TIME also quotes Elise Jordon of NBC News MSNBC. "Republican elites attempted to shove former Florida Governor Jeb Bush down the primary voters' throats, but Trump prevailed. Democratic elites actually succeeded in forcing Clinton on their electorate, and that is why she ultimately lost."
A Frank Luntz column suggests that the pollsters were wrong because millions of Americans felt looked down upon and left behind. Their vote was their voice. These voters weren't lying to pollsters, They refused to be polled because they viewed polls as rigged against them. He also noted the wide spread between Democrats and Independents with Republicans on the fixing of government-- by either compromise or support for bold leaders even if ideas may be dangerous. The results were almost opposite with Democrats and Independents supporting compromise by about 69% to 31% for "bold". Republicans preferred boldness 65% to 35%. Nearly 70% of voters believe that when government increases spending, generally more is wasted. 72% believe they pay more for government than they receive. He concludes, "voters have made it clear, they want a shakeup."
I think we should save these post election magazines and look at them a year from now and see which were on the right track and which were de-railed.
*** Stay tuned. We are doomed to interesting times---especially if our political parties can't figure out good compromise.--- Doug Wiken
Last night was kind of a roller coaster. I started off thinking Hillary Clinton was nearly a sure winner even if I was less that enthused about her as a candidate and was and am not at all certain a win by her would cause her election promises to disappear in a flash. A Republican who did not support Trump was part of the PBS-TV discussion last night. When the results started coming in showing that Republicans, men and women, were voting for Trump at usual GOP levels, he said that with all Trump's personal follies and egregious political positions, the GOP voters went tribal and voted for Trump simply because he had an (R) after his name. See my post about "Lame, Blind, deaf, castrated yellow dog on life support below."
Pollsters and other pundit "experts", missed the Trump express from start to finish. Months ago, I said Trump should not be underestimated. His positions on building a wall against Mexico and deporting illegal aliens had and would get a lot of support. I think pollsters did not get honest answers about this in a politically correct world and did not consider how it might over-ride many other issues and problems with Trump.
And there was just plain disgust with ineffective government. But, how some voters could go after that GOP-caused problem by voting for Republican Trump and Republican Senators and Representatives leaves me scratching my head. This Trump and GOP support is a bit like trying to put out a fire by pouring on more gasoline.
And then there is the screwed up Hillary campaign. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary and think he would have been a better candidate, but I voted for Hillary in the election. The campaign idea of appealing to aliens, browns, reds, blacks, et al did not gain her as much support as Obama had gotten in the previous election. I think every time she gained a minority voter with her appeal, she lost a dozen white voters. Talking about the wonders of diversity and more immigration cost her a lot of votes. And toss in gleeful commentary that Whites are only 72% of the US population and that mixture is political nitro-glycerin. Telling men and women they should vote for her because she is a woman also may have gained her a few votes, but cost her dozens because women who worked for women did not view that as a legitimate reason to vote for a woman candidate and it also irritated a lot of males. Hillary's preference for secrecy also caused her to dilly-dally on responding to charges which then kept dangling around her neck. This was evidence of another problem, at least from my perspective, she does not seem to learn from mistakes or consequences of even innocent actions which blow up. After all the harassment she and Bill got with White Water, etc. she surely should have realized that her actions regarding e-mail server of her own might cost her dearly. She has also seemed to me to often have an initial position on many issues that is just plain wrong or wrong-headed which she only changes to a more rational position after getting her tits in a wringer.
Also, by now it should be obvious that relying on Harvard and Yale graduates and New Yorkers who have never been more than 2 blocks in any direction to run a national campaign from the center of New York City is not a good way to get a feeling for what is going on in those great spaces between the east and west coasts and the large coastal cities. Ignoring the greater midwest cost her the election.
But, as wildly off has been all the blather about the campaigns and almost all the polls have missed the mark this election, my comments here may be just as completely wrong.
I hope Trump does not lead us into a deadly dead-end abyss which leaves millions of us (even the loons who voted for Trump) without jobs, homes, and healthcare.
***Stay tuned. We will be living in interesting times--- Doug Wiken
I voted a week or so ago at Tripp County Auditor's office. Nobody but me in the line that day at that time. Used my cheat sheet as indicated in a previous post, and I was done in no time. That did not stop me from visiting the Tripp County 4-H center where most people around here vote. There are other voter locations in the county since it is about 50 miles from north to south. I heard this morning a voter wondering why his location to vote had been changed with no notification. A township clerk said that the voter lists had been analyzed by a computer program and addresses were probably used to determine "correct" voting place. I don't know, but I do know that city and town addresses don't necessarily mean anybody lives in them. I don't know if this is a significant or nearly irrelevant problem however. My son voted this morning in Rapid City and found out that his voting district or precinct (not sure) had been changed.
Below are three images concerning voting here this morning. The street was lined with cars on both sides and an obvious sign was outside the 4-H center.
A little chilly, but sunny and now 40 mph wind or snowstorm as has been the case in some past elections.
A clerk at table for our vote said that about 20 people out of 100 or so had already voted at 9AM and she did not know how many people had already voted absentee.
I hope (probably certainly vainly) that South Dakota voters won't cast votes for Donald Trump just because he has an (R) after his name. I am not thrilled about Hillary Clinton and was initially interested in Trump, but he has demonstrated he does not have the temperament to be a good President. He and his supporters have just plain lied about Hillary and Democrats. He has whined about voting fraud that most likely hasn't existed and won't exist in this election either. When a candidate starts whining about rigged elections, I think it is fair to ask if his own attempts to rig elections is the reason he suspects others of attempting to rig elections. Hillary Clinton has more ethics in her little finger than trump has in his bigly hands.
Well however you voted, thanks for supporting democracy with your time and patience. And, no matter who you support, if you haven't voted yet, get your butt in gear. The weather is not a good excuse this year. Also even if both Presidential candidates turn you off, there are other important SD candidates and election issues which should not be ignored.
** Stay tuned and I guess we will likely know in a few hours how this long journey to an election has turned out--- Doug Wiken
This is a test of true blue Republican blood and credentials. If you see TRUMP on a ballot it is actually an acronym for Castrated, blind, lame yellowdog on life support (R). (I am not sure about that acronym, but have started reading a Dave Berry book and from that, I can see it is no problem. There must be a language somewhere in the universe where the acronym is correct). But back to the test.
If you are a certifiable true believer Republican, all you will see in the above is the (R) and you will know what to do even if TRUMP himself is claiming your vote will be stolen or dumped into a Ronald Reagan toxic waste dump. The TRUMP poll watchers will absolutely KNOW who you voted for and you will be awarded within days by mail a CCRTBCM (Certificate of Certifiable Republican True Believer of Candidates and Mythology). This and $10 will get you a couple loaves of bread, but more importantly, presenting it to a mental health facility will gain you instant permanent admission to a new living space with lots of agreeable company (if you live in South Dakota).
And, as you gnaw your way through two loaves of bread, you must remember that you have absolutely no excuse or reason to ever vote for any Democratic candidate even if their positions completely represent your best interests and mirror your actual thinking when that happens. Your Republican God will never forgive you and you will be listed on the permanently damned and banned from state work (If you live in South Dakota).
*** Stay tuned even if you are partisanly deaf--- Doug Wiken
As most South Dakotans know by now, there are 10 issues on the ballot this year as constitutional amendments, initiated measures, and referred laws. Printed in regular newspaper type rather than the micro mini type that usually fills legal notices filled seven full pages in the Rapid City Journal. That included full text of the issues. Several examples with abbreviated explanations are available. The three Democrats running for the state legislature in our District 21 put together such an abbreviated information folder and had it included in local papers and shoppers. They included a kind of cheat sheet about 3x4 inches with yes/no check boxes. Billie H. Sutton, Gary Burrus and Julie Bartling provided a very useful brief for voters in this district.
They did not show their preferences for voting on the issues, but I have filled in one of the sheets with my preferences (which match those of Cory Heidelberger and Bernie Hunhoff and others) and also included a blank form as a PDF file you can save and print at a correct size. Ballot Measures Templates PDF
Add your own preferences to the blank template or take the easy way and use mine. Whatever, don't try to vote without having such a template or cheat sheet. Estimates are it might take 10 or 15 minutes to wade through everything unless you have your cheat sheet with you and ready to go. The truly sad thing about all of this is that much of these ballot measures would not be needed if our state legislature was more responsible and less retrograde partisan.
Below is a jpg copy of completed and blank templates you can view right here.
It can probably printed as well, but may be larger or smaller when printed as a jpg file. Your mileage may vary. Some of my yeses above are a bit tentative. They will be better than existing situation, but probably not the best options anyway. The "No" options are mostly egregious legislation or amendments which should not be in the SD Constitution, codified laws, or any other place for that matter. If you still haven't seen the Sec of State's explanations, you can check them at Ballot Measures Text and AG Opinion at SD Sec of State Site.
*** Stay tuned and wait for blessed relief. Election will be over in only a few more days--- Doug Wiken
Residents of South Dakota. Check your broadband speed with the SD Speedtest. Your test will both let you know how speedy is your ISP and also help get us better service in South Dakota.
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