Republicans in Congress will get more conservative

When the congressional elections are held later this year, which Republican House members will lose?  It won’t be the very conservative ones, safely shielded in red districts.  It will be the moderate/conservative ones in moderate districts.  Thus, the remaining House Republicans will be even more conservative as a group.  This is only an issue for liberals if the Republicans maintain control of the House.

Didn’t we learn from the recession?

Republicans, with the assistance of 16 Democratic senators, voted to roll back part of the banking restrictions put in place after the 2008 recession.

I recommend the film The Big Short for anyone who would like an entertaining and accessible way to understand the issues in the 2008 financial crisis.

Here’s the incredible amount of money banks have been fined since the financial crisis.  It’s $243 billion!  To be fair, the new looser rules do not affect the biggest banks, which were the ones listed here in the fine totals.  Still, we need to learn from the last crisis to avoid the next one.  Sad!

Stormy

I’m sending out the hit song “Stormy” from 1968 to Stormy Daniels.

The Trump camp’s story just gets more and more implausible.  Are we really supposed to believe Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels on his own?  Are we supposed to believe Trump knew nothing about this when one of his organization’s lawyers was involved the arbitration case against Daniels?  The truth will eventually get out and I expect it to be: Trump had an affair with Daniels and paid her to keep quiet.

Here’s a good analysis by Chris Cillizza of CNN including commentary by Jeffrey Toobin.

There are two reasons why the Trump camp isn’t admitting everything:

  1. There are other women who could file cases against Trump.  You really didn’t think this was an isolated situation, did you?
  2. This may be a violation of election laws.

Sad!

How can you have a discussion with people like this?

Rick Saccone, who was the Republican candidate in the PA special election, said his opponents hated Trump (probably right on that), many of them hated the country (wrong) and hated God (wrong).

How can we have discussions on issues with people like this?  I don’t agree with conservatives on most things but I don’t think they hate the country or God.  This is just over the top and unhelpful to any idea of having a dialogue on issues.  Sad!

Americans are concerned about Russian meddling in the 2018 election

The majority of Americans are concerned about Russian interference in the 2018 elections but of course Republicans aren’t.

The 2018 elections have the potential to be a fiasco – Russian meddling, gerrymandering, election fraud, restricted access to voting and other charges will be leveled by one side or the other.  Do you really think the losing party will accept the House of Representative results?  Sad!