Congress' New Role: Investigator In Chief?

You would think that after Democrats faced a demoralizing defeat this last week when they screwed up the Iowa Caucuses (is it over yet???), and then had their rear ends handed to them in impeachment, that they’d slink quietly back to their House chamber and ride out the storm in this election year. Nothing could be further from the truth!

And of course, what always happens in DC is that if one party makes a fool of themselves, the other has to follow…and that’s what seems to be happening on the Republican side.

Nancy Pelosi made a comment on Thursday that the investigations into Donald Trump will, indeed continue, and that they are willing to get a subpoena for John Bolton, and take it to court if needed to hear from him. Isn’t that what SHOULD have happened back in the fall? If the Democrats weren’t in such a yank to “get impeachment done by Christmas”, they would have done their homework, and maybe, just maybe they would have had something to actually hang on Trump. Instead, they were like the school kid that wanted to go outside an play rather than do his math homework. And, Democrats need to realize that the old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result does hold true in Congress as well as everywhere else.

Now, to add to this, the Republicans are going to be getting from the Treasury Department, classified data on Hunter Biden. Basically, the data will look into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and hand over highly sensitive financial records and “evidence’ of questionable origin. So, even though Joe Biden’s presidential campaign seems to be slipping away after the “gut punch” he took in Iowa, it may not be over for the Biden clan. Look at it as payback to the Democrats for impeachment.

What I’ve said all along is that BOTH sides need to get back to doing the country’s work. When are we going to get immigration reform? When are we going to get a total repeal of Obamacare, and let the insurance companies go back to working as they should? When can we expect the House and Senate to actually do something to fix our country’s crumbling infrastructure? And when is Congress going to let the President of the United States BE the President of the United States?

There are a bunch of people in New Hampshire right now, hoping to take Donald Trump’s job as president next year. How well do you think they are going to be treated if they do indeed upend Trump? Do you think Republicans are going to go back to “business as usual”? Or are they going to seek some sort of sandbox revenge for the actions taken by Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Jerry Nadler? When in the world is Congress going to get back to doing the people’s business and stop all this third grade nonsense that we’ve been treated to over the past four years?

It’s time our Representatives and Senators realize that yes, you have oversight. You also have a responsibility. And running one branch of Congress doesn’t mean you stop doing everything else. Start doing what you were elected to do, or I just bet we can all find someone who will be willing to be voted into your seat and do a MUCH better job than what you’re doing.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Democrats' Bad Week

If you relish in seeing your opposition in tears, frustrated, nothing going their way, upset to the point of depression, and you’re conservative, you’ve come to the right place! It seems that the past week has been about the worst week many Dems can remember.

It looked like it would be ok, with possibly four or five Republican Senators jumping ship and voting for witnesses in the impeachment trial. Alas…that didn’t come to fruition as only Susan Collins and Mitt (The Traitor) Romney waffled and the Democrats lost that vote 51-49. They immediately took to the microphones and cameras, declaring impeachment to be “a sham”. Of course they were right. It’s been a sham since the beginning!

Next up was the Iowa Caucuses. It was the Democrat’s turn to shine. They were going to whittle their dozen or so candidates still in the field down to maybe six or seven (including Steyer and Bloomberg). Alas…more misery as Iowa couldn’t get the votes counted. Well, that and the guy the mainstream Democrats hoped would do well finished a distant fourth and won’t be pulling any delegates out of that state. Frustration started to set in.

The very next day, the State of the Union speech took place. Donald J. Trump raised his game, giving one of the best speeches he’s ever given. He stayed on message, he never once mentioned impeachment, he even brought up several of his accomplishments that were actually strong Democrat programs that HE took credit for getting through Congress. In the end, the vision Americans will carry with them is a depressed Nancy Pelosi actually ripping up the State of the Union copy the president handed her at the beginning of the speech. It demonstrated absolutely no class in the Speaker. It showed the world how petty she was, and by association, how small the Democrats were. In the midst of the SOTU, Democrats learned that Iowa had only counted 62% of their votes in the last 24 hours and were still nowhere near declaring a winner.

Moving on to Wednesday, Democrats knew the obvious was coming. It was the day the Senate would vote on the articles of impeachment. Now, I don’t think there is a person in this country with an IQ over 50 that believed Donald Trump would be convicted on anything. And he wasn’t. In fact, Mitt (The Traitor) Romney was the only Senator to jump ship, showing he clearly doesn’t belong in the Republican party, and giving total justification that the correct person (and i HATE to say this) won the election in 2012. The “abuse of power” article went down to defeat 52-48 (needing 67 votes to pass). The “obstruction of Congress” article went down to defeat 53-47. As I said on a few other blog comments, Donald Trump and the free world cheered…Atlas Shrugged!

So, now Democrats everywhere are “depressed”. They haven’t had anything go their way this past week. They’ve shown what babies they can be when they don’t win, and it’s on display. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to be much better this week as they get back to normal in Washington, DC, and the presidential candidates try and winnow out a few votes from the folks in New Hampshire on Tuesday. The Democrats hope basically that Bernie Sanders doesn’t pull off a win, though early polls show him well ahead of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren in third, and Pete Buttigieg in fourth. Then it’s on to Nevada and South Carolina.

A few more losses, and Democrats may well have to decide it’s not worth it to run anyone in for president this year. Oh my!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

So…What Happens NOW?

In one of history’s most boring and predictable moments, the United States Senate voted to exonerate President Donald J. Trump on both charges against him. You knew it was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen. The Senate knew it was going to happen. Nancy Pelosi knew it was going to happen. I don’t think there was a person in this country that didn’t think it was going to happen. The Democrats in the House of Representatives have wasted over one hundred million dollars of yours and my money in this fiasco. And the end result is exactly what everyone said it would be when they started this mess.

What did it prove?

Absolutely nothing! It proved that Democrats were hell-bent on hanging an “impeachment” tag on Trump. It proved that they knew all along it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Other than that, it proved nothing. And there’s one question that remains that needs to be explored.

What happens now?

Well, we go back to “business as usual”, but is it really business as usual? I mean, the House is going to do one of two things…and I bet it’s the latter. Either they are going to forget this nonsense about impeaching a president when there is absolutely no chance of conviction. Or, they are going to resume their investigations into whatever mamby pamby snowflake laden rumors and innuendos that they can find, hoping to find something ELSE to impeach him on.

If I’m right, and the House continues down this path of hatred and divisive politics, the odds are better than 50/50 that the American public is at some point going to get fed up with them. At that point they will vote the Democrats out of power and it will return to the Republicans. It may be in 2020, It may be in 2022, but it will happen. That you can take to the bank.

As far as what COULD happen, well, the Democrats COULD rile their base to elect someone like a Bernie Sanders or a Sleepy Joe Biden to the presidency. They COULD take back the Senate, telling their party members that if they took back the Senate, at least they could have called witnesses in the impeachment. At least it COULD have been a “fair trial” in their eyes. And they COULD excite their base to the point they actually expand their control of the House. And of course, pigs could fly out of my butt.

What WILL happen? I think the country is going to eventually hold them accountable for what they did. I think that Donald Trump is going to use this as a campaign issue to get more Republicans elected to the House and hold the Senate. And it will help him, not hurt him in the upcoming election. I think everybody kinda, sorta realizes that he’s the odds on favorite to win re-election this year, which can be dangerous (just ask Hillary!). But still, I think the odds are very good. I think they are about 50/50 the GOP rides the Trump coattails and takes back the House, and a little better than 50/50 that they expand their lead by up to three seats in the Senate. At least that’s the way it looks now. It could change.

The one think following politics for 45 years has taught me. In February, it’s way to early to know what’s going to happen in November. If the GOP gets lax, and decides not to turn out, thinking that everything is going to go their way, they will lose. If they come out in force, and can convince enough independents that Democrats are off the rails, it will be a very nice place to live for the next few years. The choice is ours.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Trump's Night/Biden's Loss

Donald Trump will remember February 4, 2020 as a watershed moment in his presidency. Oh, it won’t be without controversy…but it was a watershed moment. Joe Biden, probably would remember it as the day he couldn’t leave Iowa fast enough.

Let’s examine what happened in the two biggest news stories yesterday.

First of all, in Iowa, we had to wait until very late in the day…5pm EST to find out that Pete Buttigieg was actually right when he said he was leaving Iowa victorious! Buttigieg did indeed surprise the nation by winning, at least so far, Iowa. When the first numbers came in with 62% of the vote verified and counted, he was just ahead of Bernie Sanders, who was in second, and Elizabeth Warren finished third. Those numbers held up overnight. Joe Biden meanwhile finished fourth, just ahead of Amy Klobuchar. That wasn’t a very good showing for the former VP, who had the state all to himself and Buttigieg while the Senators, Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar, and Bennett were locked away in the impeachment trial. And now, it’s on to New Hampshire, where you’d expect that Sanders from neighboring Vermont, and Warren from nearby Massachusetts will continue to do well. Biden is just hoping after New Hampshire, when they get to Nevada and South Carolina, he’ll hit his “blue wall” and do much better!

And then a couple of hours later, it was back at the Capitol for the second big news item of the day. And I won’t bore you with a blow by blow recap…I’m sure if you were interested you watched it. But there were two things in the speech, or should I say surrounding the speech that I found totally amazing. One was a snub, and the other a very classless move.

The snub happened at the beginning, as Donald Trump was handing Vice President, Mike Pence, and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi their copies of the speech. Pence took his, Pelosi took hers, and then held out her hand for Trump to shake it and he turned away. She chortled and gave a slight laugh. I’m not sure if Trump actually snubbed the Speaker or not, or if he was just turning away because he didn’t offer to shake Pence’s hand either.

The second act, which was totally classless and has made a mountain of comment all over the news channels, was at the end. As Trump was saying “Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America”, Pelosi and Pence stood up, and Pelosi ripped up a copy of the speech. Total classless move.

Look, I understand there’s bad blood between these two, and frankly, I don’t blame Trump for that. Pelosi went on a witch hunt that will culminate today with Trump’s acquittal and it will be from what I hear, a bi-partisan acquittal. Pelosi bought a bill of goods on that one and lost. For her to act like a two year old that didn’t get a cookie and tear up a speech is not only juvenile, it’s unprofessional and idiotic. It shows that the job is certainly too big for her to handle. She’s not worthy to be called “Speaker”. She needs to resign and do so immediately. If not, the Republicans should fight to take back the House and evict her from the body.

I will add one other thing. It was a very touching moment when Donald Trump introduced Rush Limbaugh and had Melania give him the Medal of Freedom for his years of tireless service to America. Rush deserves it, and to give it to him now, as he prepares to enter the fight of his life is certainly fitting and the right thing to do. Though I will say, everyone in the country knew Limbaugh was going to get the medal at the SOTU. He apparently missed the message because he acted like it was the first he knew of it. And I found that hard to believe since it was on every news channel in existence.

And with that, on to today’s impeachment vote!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

The Bolton Bombshell?

John Bolton, the guy that was a White House National Security Adviser for Donald Trump, has leaked a manuscript from his upcoming book. Actually, from a marketing prospective, it’s a brilliant move. But the leak includes a part that says that yes, Donald Trump explicitly felt that as long as the Ukrainians withheld their investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden, they shouldn’t be getting the $393 million in aid that was promised. Of course, Democrats are all excited to hear this! Donald Trump, on the other hand says it’s not true and that Bolton is out trying to sell books.

My take is a little bit different.

Let’s say that Bolton’s recall of the situation is 100% accurate. Let’s say that Trump really did explicitly say that we needed to withhold the aid unless and until the Bidens were investigated. So what? Didn’t Joe Biden, as Vice President of the United States, tell the Ukrainians that he was going to withhold money for them until they fired a prosecutor that was looking into Hunter Biden’s firm? And didn’t Sleepy Joe even brag about doing it in public? Let’s say Bolton’s account is true…what difference does that make? At the time it was done, there was no guarantee that Joe Biden was going to be the Democrat nominee for president. Hell, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren could beat him, and still could today!

The Democrats throw a LOT on this whole phone call. They insist that Trump was trying to have a potential candidate from the other side investigated for wrong-doing. Isn’t that what the DOJ and the FBI were actually doing in 2016 dealing with one Hillary Rodham Clinton? And couldn’t (and she’d say “didn’t”) that have had a major outcome in the election results?

This whole thing is bogus from the beginning. If Hunter and Joe Biden were engaged in illegal stuff, they should indeed be called on it…just like Hillary was called on it. And if being investigated because you were up to your neck in illegalities means you lose an election, I’d blame the party that nominated you. If they knew you were crooked, and still nominated you, you got what you deserved!

This is all just one more attempt by Democrats to try and prove that somehow, some way, Donald Trump is and always has been some sort of illegal president. They just can’t bring themselves to the fact that he’s beating them at their own game with absolutely zero experience in politics. And they can’t believe that he would defeat someone who was “supposed to win the White House”, by whomever is pulling Hillary Clinton’s strings.

No, I’m sorry. I’ve listened to the left’s argument on this one, and it comes up woefully short. If you’re going to nail Trump for what he did, you have to nail Biden for what he did as well. Then it’ll be a Pence versus Bernie race in November. I wonder how that one would turn out?

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Adios Michelle's Lunch!

Before we get going today, a quick reminder that The Lone Cactus now has a vlog as well as a blog! You can see the video of this, and all of my other blogs over on YouTube. Just go and search for “The Lone Cactus”, and look for the picture of the single cactus. You can subscribe, and ring the notification bell, so you get email every time a new video is posted. OK…on to today’s rant!

Michelle Obama’s big contribution to society was to “improve” the school lunch of our nation’s youngsters. She wanted to replace pizza and chicken nuggets with fruits and vegetables. It was met with absolute disgust among the nation’s school children, and parents across the country scrambled to do a work-around. If the school wasn’t going to give the kids something the kids thought was edible, the parents would step in and help.

I saw this first hand with my granddaughter when I visited them in the Houston area. Now, I’ll start off by saying, this is a very nice community, very upscale, the schools aren’t strapped for cash like a lot of public schools are these days. And what I saw was amazing. My daughter-in-law had to stop at McDonald’s on the way to dropping me off so I could have lunch with my granddaughter at her school. She got the ubiquitous chicken McNuggets, and fries and a soda pop for her, and over to the school we went.

This wasn’t the only kid in that school that had lunch delivered that day. In fact, there was no line to get food from the cafeteria. Parents were jammed in the parking lot delivering their kids their lunch. So, I strolled on over to the cafeteria lady working the line and asked her how her day was going. She shrugged, and said, “Same as always”. I asked if she had anyone come through the line for the school’s food and she said, “Not anymore!’

That told me a lot right there. She said they ended up throwing out most of the veggies and fruits that they buy because none of the kids would eat them. And they had a decent selection. There was salad, carrots, tomatoes, some pinto beans, a good selection of melons, apples, pears, and oranges, and no one in line.

So, it’s pretty safe to say that Michelle Obama’s attempt to get America’s kids to eat better failed. Well, then I read the article at “Impact 2020”. It said that kids increased their veggie consumption a whopping 16% because of Michelle. So, that means that actually had been eating veggies BEFORE the program! And as I continue to vent about this waste of taxpayer money, take a look at what some of the schools out there were actually serving.

Donald Trump has decided to roll back the Michelle Obama era food guidelines. And to make a point that he realizes what a fool she was for trying this, he’s doing it on her birthday! Schools raised their prices for lunch on average 55 cents after the initiative was instituted. That was basically the first increase that they had in over 6 years in most cases.

Sonny Purdue, the Agriculture Secretary, said that he knew the new guidelines were going to be better accepted, while still being nutritious. As he put it, “I’ve got 14 grandchildren, and there is no way that I would propose something if I didn’t think it was good, healthful, and the right thing to do.” Of course, Democrats are screaming left and right that yet another of Obama’s cherished legacy items has bitten the dust. And of course, the over-blown “using catsup as a vegetable” crap the Dems’ love to foist on the public, and “taking food out of the mouths of our children” can be heard through the halls of congress.

In the end…it won’t matter. Kids will eat, what kids will eat. At some point, they will find fruits and vegetables and will embrace them. You can’t legislate love, and you can’t legislate dinner!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

In Case You Missed It…

My hunch is that most people aren’t really concerned about presidential politics in January, unless of course, you’re living in either Iowa or New Hampshire and you have a primary coming up in less than a month. That said, there are a lot of things going on that I found to be rather interesting. Maybe not to everybody, granted, but to some…so in case you took the weekend off this past weekend…I was catching up on emails from being gone for a week… but I found these to be interesting.

Nancy Pelosi: The Speaker of the House is about to turn over to the Senate her articles of impeachment that she has held on to for the past three weeks. It’s got her allies stumped because she’s not going to gain any concessions out of Senate Republicans as far as what is or is not going to be allowed during the trial phase. And, it’s yet another chink in the armor.

Donald Trump: IF the Senate DOES allow some witnesses, it appears that one of them won’t be John Bolton. The former White House aide is going to be on the sidelines as Trump told Laura Ingraham that he will use his Executive Privilege to keep Bolton from testifying.

Michael Bloomberg: The former NYC Mayor and billionaire has moved ahead of Pete Buttigieg as far as the Real Clear Politics average is concerned when it comes to the odds of being the Dems’ nominee. Oh, Biden still leads, followed by Bernie, and Warren, but Bloomberg has shot to fourth place. Buttigieg slipped to fifth. Is it time to head back to South Bend?

Marianne Williamson: Speaking of heading back home, Marianne Williamson called it quits on her campaign to become president Saturday. Not that anyone really cared or noticed. She had been in single digits in the polls, and hadn’t been doing well in fund raising. Just one more of the many body bags on the side of the road.

Iowa: Yeah, the first in the nation voting will be taking place in less than a month, at least on the Democrats side. Most don’t expect Joe Biden to win in Iowa. But, Iowans are having a problem. They are very concerned about voting for the wrong person for president in their caucuses. They like people like Elizabeth Warren, or Pete Buttigieg, but they don’t know as if they can beat Donald Trump in the fall. They’re probably right to be a little afraid.

Elizabeth Warren: Has she gone off the deep end? Warren, is now using, “The survival of our planet depends on the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election!” as a campaign issue. That’s frankly a little bit overboard. And, it doesn’t mesh with her giving dating advice, like she did during a town hall meeting this past week. Too much baggage, too little time to correct it.

And those were just the big stories!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!