Trump wants more bollard fence (National Emergency), and more legal immigrants than ever before (SOTU address)

Two main themes of every Trump rally in 2015-2016: More Bollard Fence! More Legal Immigrants!

Yeah, that's the way it was.

Kamala Harris wants us all in jail, also ran Amy Klobuchar just wants to throw stuff at us

Crime-ridden 2nd city can't get no respect, only makes national news for a fake crime

Trump and Republicans make total public debt soar

We've gone from $19.8 trillion in the hole on Nov 8, 2016 to $22 trillion on Feb 14, 2019.

Up $2.2 trillion!

Up 11%!

Up $81.5 billion per month!

Up $2.7 billion per day!

MAGA! MAGA! MAGA!

Rush Limbaugh puts in relief pitcher Ken Matthews so no one has to talk about the immigration debacle

Smollett! Smollett! Smollett! Amazon! The Weather! Talk about anything but immigration, please!

Campaign finance reform for the people

Under an expanded US House of Representatives, wouldn't current campaign finance laws still be a problem?

Well, duh.

But there is a simple solution.

Your man or woman in Congress should represent YOU, not Freedom Works, The Club for Growth, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood or any other national organization, including his or her own political party. It is not right that the RNC collects contributions for Kevin Yoder in Kansas-3 and spends them on the US House race of Maria Elvira Salazar in Florida-27.

Your representative should represent YOU, and the money that elects him or her should represent you, too, and therefore all campaign contributions must come from his or her congressional district, from people and businesses actually domiciled within district boundaries. That's it. No other limits.

Nancy Pelosi can raise all the money she wants from tuna companies domiciled in her district who exploit workers on Pacific islands. Let the actual residents of her (much reduced in size) district decide if they're still OK with that. And Fred Upton of Whirlpool fortune fame in Michigan can find out for himself if his much reduced number of constituents are OK with making their lightbulbs more expensive or unobtainable.

Power to the people.

Democrat pollster Pat Caddell found the feeling of lack of representation drove Election 2016

The solution, as I've been saying for years now, is to expand representation. America has become a pressure cooker without a relief valve and is about to explode from a lack of representation.

We will not get "better" representation from the same old, same old limited number of Democrats and Republicans where the Speaker of the House gathers a majority of 218 votes to shove a shit sandwich down the throats of the American people. One man or one woman cannot adequately represent the interests of 750,000 people in a Congressional District. Neither can one man or one woman chief executive sitting in the White House adequately represent the interests of 329 million people. Senators elected by the people only complicate matters. They are supposed to represent their States, and their popular election only subverts the representation provided by Representatives to the US House.

The same old, same old stands in the way of expanding representation.

Americans should make more representation in Congress their number one objective and put the elites on notice that unless they expand representation in Congress, they are history. They can keep their seats in an expanded Congress with far less individual political power and influence for themselves, or they can have no power at all.

It's their choice. Give it up, or it's the guillotine.

Patrick Caddell: The real election surprise? The uprising of the American people

1.  The power of ordinary people to control our country is getting weaker every day, as political leaders on both sides, fight to protect their own power and privilege, at the expense of the nation’s well-being. We need to restore what we really believe in – real democracy by the people and real free-enterprise. AGREE = 87%; DISAGREE = 10%

2.  The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists and other powerful money interests for their own gain at the expense of the American people. AGREE = 87%; DISAGREE = 10%

3.  Most politicians really care about people like me. AGREE = 25%; DISAGREE = 69%

4.  Powerful interests from Wall Street banks to corporations, unions and political interest groups have used campaign and lobbying money to rig the system for them. They are looting the national treasury of billions of dollars at the expense of every man, woman and child. AGREE = 81%; DISAGREE = 13%

5.  The U.S. has a two-track economy where most Americans struggle every day, where good jobs are hard to find, where huge corporations get all the rewards. We need fundamental changes to fix the inequity in our economic system. AGREE = 81%; DISAGREE = 15%

6.  Political leaders are more interested in protecting their power and privilege than doing what is right for the American people. AGREE = 86%; DISAGREE = 11%

7.  The two main political parties are too beholden to special and corporate interest to create any meaningful change. AGREE = 76%; DISAGREE = 19%

8.  The real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but between mainstream American and the ruling political elites. AGREE = 67%; DISAGREE = 24%

For years, the political elites have governed America for their own benefit and to the detriment of the American people – this election is the best chance in our lives to take back our government. AGREE = 63% (with 46% strongly agreeing); DISAGREE = 31%

Voters were then asked the same two questions of each candidate: Which is closer to your opinion if (Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump) wins: the political elites and special interests win; the political elite and special interests lose.

By 65 percent to 35 percent voters said that if Hillary Clinton wins the political elites WIN.  And by an opposite margin, the majority of voters said that by 57 percent to 43 percent the elites LOSE if Trump wins.

Significant numbers of Clinton’s own voters believe that her win is a victory for the unpopular elites and special political interests.

Did Billy Cunningham discuss Trump's immigration cave last night?

If he did I must have missed it. It wasn't in the first hour.

Expect nothing but spin from conservative talk radio on this, if they talk about it at all.

Everywhere I turn it's the bleating sheeple of MAGA, even as the Trumpster has been completely co-opted by the Swamp, on Obamacare, taxes and spending, and now immigration, his so-called priority issue.

Simply voting Republican will not do under these circumstances. Elected Republican officials either go along to get along, or they do the right thing and stop spending us blind. You can only vote for individuals who do the latter and call yourself a true born son of liberty.

The direct result of spending money we do not have is an exploding debt which must be serviced. To get away with this they must continue to suppress the natural rate of interest to keep the payments on the debt from exploding and tying our hands on the annual budget, crowding out spending on legitimate items. That's already happening, as interest payments soared to $523 billion in fiscal 2018, up 14% from 2017. The consequence of that reverberates throughout the economy, making it unattractive for anyone to lend, and that means poor economic growth with the knock-on effect of the fixed income side in every portfolio returning less and less to retirement portfolios, pension funds, insurance companies, lotteries, you name it.

In other words, more of the same shitty Obama economy we elected Trump to fix. It ain't happening.

You can put lipstick on this pig all you want. I ain't askin' her to dance. 

George W. Bush abandoned free market principles to save banks and companies the free market was about to destroy, but hey, we can't have that! That's capitalism!

"I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system" - George W. Bush

Meanwhile, millions of homeowners were destroyed, along with their jobs, their savings, and their hoped-for futures, never to return.

Updated link:

Peggy Noonan is blind about conservatism

Republicans Need to Save Capitalism:

I’ll go whole hog here. We need a cleaned-up capitalism, not a weary, sighing, acceptance-of-man’s-fallen-nature capitalism.

Weary sighing acceptance? Try the eager jubilant over being given free reign to exploit man's fallen nature capitalism.

Reagan "conservatives" preached that the Reagan tax cuts and free-trade would usher in a period of investment at home, in a word, that if you just let people have more of their own money they'd know what to do with it and they would do the right thing.

They didn't.

"Conservatives" exported our jobs and invested abroad, creating middle classes in poor countries where there were none before, at the expense of the middle class at home. They drove the opening to China, enriched it and created a monster which now robs us blind and threatens world peace. The libertarians have sold China the rope the communists hope to hang us with.

If Republicans and conservatives had properly understood human nature they wouldn't have made this mistake. The doctrinaire among them showed themselves to be liberals, not conservatives, possessed of a foolish optimism based on the idea that people are basically good. They are not. People do what's best for number one, as they always have. Screw thy neighbor, and thy country if necessary. Are we not a nation of immigrants?

Only conservatism with its roots in the transcendent moral order has been able to curb this false individualism and mistaken enthusiasm. Both were routinely attacked in church in former days, but nobody seems to go there anymore, and when they do go the preacher turns out to have joined the wrong side.

The "conservative" rubes out there still believe this stupid myth of libertarianism, while the billionaire class of both parties which got rich off it only hopes they continue to do so.

They care about nothing but themselves and their right to privacy, the penumbra of our collective deviancy.

People who rushed to judgment on the Smollett "hate crime" shouldn't have access to the nuclear codes

Here Are All The Politicians Who Rushed To Judgement On The Smollett ‘Hate Crime’

Cory Booker

Kamala Harris

Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House becomes president if president and vice president cannot)

Remember "legitimate rape"? Only the left gets to speak of "legitimate attacks"

Joe Biden Gaffe Machine: Tells Germany we're embarrassed by kids in cages, too bad it was under his watch

Yep, we're embarrassed alright, by Joe Biden. Not getting off to a good start there, Joe, if you really want to win the White House. Be yourself, not Obama. And please refrain from the skinny dipping, and no more groping, either. Sheesh.

Biden cages children:

Trump admits to "a little disappointment" for the first 1.5 years, but for the remaining 2.5 we're getting A LOT

He promised over and over again, "I will never disappoint you". Should have been a red flag that he would major in it.

If the Angel Moms story of the last few days is true, it's more evidence Trump is fenced in (!) and manipulated

It only takes a spark to get a gaslight glowing ...

Or does he just not know what he has signed into law?

He signs two major pieces of legislation which do the opposite of what he wants?

And then there's the case of the Angel Moms . . ..

Tim Burchett, TN-2, voted no for the border deal and its orgy of foreign spending

One of the good guys.

Yesterday showed us that Trump is in fact 25th Amendment material

He didn't remember he let the drug dealers out of prison by just recently signing the criminal justice reform bill when he was riffing on executing them in the Rose Garden yesterday.

That means even if he read what was in the border deal, it didn't penetrate, didn't register, and didn't matter to him. Nothing was going to get in the way of signing the bill.

This denial of reality is religious fanaticism level stuff, courtesy of Norman Vincent Peale but grown especially virulent in this unique DNA combination known as Donald Trump.

What he needs is deprogramming, but the best thing we can do is depend on the sturdiness of our institutions, the separation of powers and the ensuing gridlock to sequester him until the voters do the intervention in 2020.  This is the gift of the founders and we should embrace it and thank them for it.

Unfortunately, expect Democrats to have no mercy, but to press their advantage against crazy King Ludwig. If Republicans know what's good for them, they'll refrain from any more big compromises, but they should work with Democrats to give Trump some nice shiny objects to stroke his vanity in the meantime and keep him distracted.  

This is a reversal from earlier: Still possible Trump did not know even if White House did

Fact of the matter is the contents of the spending bill are counterproductive of stated Trump goals. If no one told him that directly he wouldn't know it otherwise. He didn't read the bill, neither did the Representatives who voted on it. It was too long and there wasn't enough time. But it does suggest Trump doesn't really care enough about the issue to warrant it being his signature issue.

No way to run a country, except that's how it always is with these giant bills.

Regular order ought to involve funding one department only, every month on a schedule, but fat chance.

No one wants the responsibility of the hard work required. Everyone in Washington shoves it off on whomever they can and then blames whomever they can. Same in Michigan, where all controversial issues go to referendum.

Smoking pot isn't healthy, but now it's decriminalized here.

 

Trump 2020 is toast: He's screwed the immigration agenda pooch and has no icky Hillary to run against

Hillary doesn't register on any of the polls, where its Biden, Sanders and Harris in the top three with Biden in front by 18 points and Harris trailing Sanders by 6 at Real Clear Politics.

Recent California poll by Change Research has Biden tied with Harris in her own state and Sanders in third.

Joe can be the affable, non-threatening candidate of a return to "normalcy" if he works at it. But it will take work, especially by refraining from taking Trump's non-stop baiting while eschewing an extreme agenda.

So far though Democrats can't seem to help themselves in the extremes department.