February 3rd, 2016.
The Iowa vote.
After months of nonsense, numerous debates and endless speculation the primary race to become the next US President has finally started in Iowa with a victory for Senator Ted Cruz and a near tie in the Democrat race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders separated by less than half a percent.
Historically victory in Iowa is a very poor indicator of a successful nominee campaign. Iowa and New Hampshire are the places where those who have failed to win popular support discover this and withdraw from the race and/or become irrelevant. After Iowa the race begins to take shape as a two or three way contest where it is far easier to assess the results than in a multi-pronged race such as the initial Republican caucuses.
It is now clear that the campaigns of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ben Carson, and all the dozen or so Republican candidates other than Trump, Cruz and Rubio are not going to win the nomination and as the lesser candidates withdraw the race takes shape and the outcome becomes predictable.
Donald Trump’s bubble burst by Ted Cruz’s Iowa win – The Guardian
The Important Thing.
The important thing to understand before observing the details of some of the recent US political events is this:
The United States is a plutocracy with a voting system rather than a genuine democracy.
The United States is ruled by “entities” that sit largely beyond the public eye and who dedicate themselves to maintaining the fiction of democracy in the US.
There is no big mystery as to the cause of the decline of the US and the living conditions of the US people, it is a consequence of the aggregation of power in the hands of a very small group of people who act in their own interests, have no allegiance to any nation and have harvested the minds of the American people via the mass media over decades for their own benefit but to the immense detriment of humanity.
Democracy is a Sham: We are a Plutocracy
Princeton makes it official — USA Has Become Oligarchy, No Democracy
How America Became an Oligarchy
The Circus.
The unhappy fact that the US is an oligarchy is masked by many things and one of these is the political circus.
This appears to be the reason for the fact that the Republican candidate debates started six months before the first Primary voting and more than a year before the Presidential election.
In lieu of influence it seems Americans are treated to a long, elaborate and frequently entertaining “democracy show.” of the jumbo size, or at least jumbo length variety, like comfort food.
The Pendulum of Discontent.
Beginning at 1952 with the exception of the single term of Jimmy Carter and the triple Reagan/Bush term, the parties have exchanged the Presidency after eight years for the past 64 years.
In 1952 Republican Eisenhower won the White House and remained for two terms.
Following the 1960 elections were the two terms occupied by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Richard Nixon won the White House for the Republicans at the 1968 election and along with Gerry Ford the republican party remained in the White House until 1976.
In 1976 Democrat Jimmy Carter came to power and at this point the pattern is broken somewhat with the single carter term followed by the three term Reagan/Bush administration lasting until the 1992 election.
After that the pattern resumes and has continued through the eight Clinton Democrat years, followed by the eight George W. Bush republican years and the eight years for Obama back on the Democrat side.
None of that has any material impact on this years election of course but the pattern is not random and seems to be a function of the pendulum swing away from the party in power due to the decline in the conditions in the USA. One standout is that the only third consecutive term achieved by either party was the George H. Bush term won in the 1988 election.
It was the sitting Vice President who achieved the feat.
This pattern combined with the widespread discontent within the US means that there is an overwhelming likelihood that the next President will be from the Republican side.
The Republican Race.
Trump.
There is no doubt that there have been many entertaining and even a few illuminating moments during the Trump show, along with the poisonous trash, but given his total dominance of the race up to this point in the media and in the public imagination the truth is that the Trump campaign has probably peaked, the substance required to sustain the campaign has not appeared and despite months of domination of the US political scene, Trump has only the outright support of around 10% of the US population (30% of Republican voters 35% =10.5%) and unless some substance is achieved in the near future, the reality television star and construction magnate has already peaked, his campaign was essentially chaff, he made the circus watchable and deserves credit for at least stating that there is a problem but the Trump campaign has been more theatre than reality, he has played his role to perfection, he provided a lot of false hope and made the circus entertaining through the off season.
Often Trump has appeared to be engaged in self-sabotage and has seemed more saboteur than candidate.
A classic case was the unnecessary ridicule directed against Hispanics in general that sabotaged what was at it’s core a very sound policy regarding the US regaining control of her borders.
Hispanics are a key group of swing voters the Republicans need to target.
No substance.
The substantive policies never appeared, if you look at Trump’s Mexican wall plan in detail, it is absolute nonsense. Trump claims that he will build a wall at the US southern border using the money the US Government seizes from remissions sent to Mexico by illegal immigrant workers, yet Trump also claimed that he planned to deport all the same people whose wages were going to be used to build the wall. It is impossibe to fulfill both promises.
Mexico Shuts Down Trump’s Fantasy About Them Paying for Border Wall | Mediaite
The other obvious flaw is that once these people discovered that the Government planned to seize the remittances they sent home, they would simply find a way to do so within the black market thus providing a fresh stream of income to powerful drug cartels and achieve absolutely nothing.
I was listening to an internet radio show recently and someone very respectable stated that as far as they knew there was no dirt on Trump. Dirt is in the eye of the beholder of course but Trump was a decades long friend of notorious child procurer and convicted abuser Jeffrey Epstein .
Take a Look at Convicted Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Black Book
Jeffrey Epstein’s predilection for underage girls was well known prior to his arrest and conviction in the late 2000s so the Trump quote from 2002 where he apparently laughs about this very serious matter is especially galling.
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”(Source)
CLINTON & TRUMP BOTH INVOLVED IN PEDOPHILE SEX RING! CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH!
The Republican candidate and likely next President will presumably then be either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. Both are completely fake, multiple lobby “projects” it is the “moderate” huckster Rubio against the fake Conservative huckster Cruz.
Cruz.
Ted Cruz is a transparent amoral huckster who poses as a Christian and a Constitutionalist when in fact he is a lifelong lobby lackey who will say anything for money on behalf of power and his ludicrous remarks regarding Israel that saw him booed by a Christian crowd make it clear where his loyalties lie-with his career and the people who can give him the money he needs to sustain it.He talks about the constitution and supports blanket surveillance in breach of the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. That is who he is. A low hypocrite and all around three dollar note.
Cruz claimed that Christians “have no better friend than Israel.” In reality the Christian population suffer the same oppression, land theft and disenfranchisement of their Muslim brethren. All non-Jews of mandate Palestine are second class citizens and for Cruz to pose as a Christian while reading Israeli lobby talking points and ignoring the predicament of the Christians of Palestine is especially disgusting and roves his complete moral and political bankruptcy at a stroke.
Sen. Cruz booed at In Defense of Christians Dinner
Israeli television express their support for Christianity at Easter.
Mocking Jesus on Israeli Zionist TV – צליבת ישו – The Crucifixion of Yeshu
Rubio.
The most popular of the establishment candidates, correctly described by Ted Cruz as the Republican Obama remains the front-runner for the presidency and if the establishment Republican field is pared down significantly in the next several weeks with the obvious also-rans such as Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush dropping out the real pattern of the race will emerge and Rubio who almost matched Trump on unfriendly ground in Iowa will emerge as the logical candidate in the coming months as the establishment presumably intended all along.
Rubio is simply a stuffed shirt, a classic, very competent and obedient puppet.
During the last debate Rubio said the US military need more money to fight ISIL. They currently receive 760 billion dollars a year at a minimum and they cannot blow up a couple of thousand guys with AKs without more?
I predict that Rubio will win the Republican nomination and become the next President because Cruz’s social conservatism, fake as it is, kills him in the mainstream media and more importantly because Rubio is more likeable and looks better on television. I never considered the Trump campaign a serious attempt to win either the nomination or the Presidency and nothing that has happened has shifted this.
The Democrat Race.
By contrast with the mess that is the Republican race, the Democrat race is very simple, the career criminal and proven Neo-conservative sociopath Hillary Clinton is up against the (by US standards) leftist outsider Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders, along with Trump is the only candidate to have caused any enthusiasm whatsoever for the obvious reason that all of the supposed mainstream candidates are pretending that there is no deep or long term problem with the way the US is run. The Republican candidates pretend that the problems within the US are all the result of the Obama presidency whilst Hillary Clinton is actually recommending more of the same.
Based on this assessment there is literally no hope for positive change coming from the Democrat candidates and it is highly likely that the pendulum of discontent will swing again and the next President will be a Republican.
Bernie Sanders.
In the case of Sanders, and this is (embarrassingly) a talking point raised by Anderson Cooper of CNN, Sanders description of himself as a Socialist makes victory impossible for him and his unwillingness to distance himself from the s word and it’s poisonous implications prove that he is just playing.
The fact that Sanders takes the time to explain that he is a Democratic Socialist (rather than a Communist Revolutionary!) only compounds the problem.
(Democratic Debate) Bernie Sanders explains Democratic Socialism
Remember the USSSR? The Evil Empire? The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
The USSR was the enemy Americans were brainwashed to hate any and all Socialists and Communists as well for decades. By calling himself a Socialist Sanders is declaring himself an enemy to many people in swing states such as Ohio and especially Florida along with the entire South West. Sanders is a classic “Coast only” candidate with zero chance in a Presidential election against a viable candidate.
Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton remains a genuine contender for the Presidency and the likely Democratic candidate. At this point Hillary Clinton is widely disliked and all around there is simply too much baggage there. It is not impossible that she will face indictment for actions she took as Secretary as State, there seems no doubt that Hillary Clinton behaved unlawfully in the E mail matter as more than twenty of the E-mails she sent via her private server have now been classified forever.
“The Obama administration confirmed for the first time on Friday that Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained some of the US government’s most closely guarded secrets, censoring 22 emails with material demanding one of the highest levels of classification.”
US government finds ‘top secret’ information in Clinton emails The Guardian
There is much despair within the ranks of the Democrat hierarchy as they know that Hillary is deeply unpopular and almost certain to lose a general election but she is the least worst applicant.
There are still rumours that another Democrat candidate could enter the race. Whether this actually happens the rumours are a sure sign that the Democrats know that the current nominees are doomed to fail.
Anyone who considers the sociopath description an unfair ad hominem attack should listen to Hillary Clinton cackle and guffaw as she reminisces about the time she helped a child rapist evade justice.
The Hillary Clinton Tapes
Twin Illusions-The False Left and Right Hope Presented by Sanders and Trump.
Twin illusions enable the process to persuade people it is relevant, there is a real choice, if only the right candidate won they might make the required reforms to the US.
The first illusion is that candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are opposed to the establishment, these people are all members of the establishment and all serve their purpose.
The second illusion is that the likes of Trump or Sanders ever had a chance of becoming President. Each of the candidates that has spoken at least some truth (along with Rand Paul) have seemingly deliberately sabotaged their candidacy with statements guaranteed to make them impossible to elect.
Three Acceptable Candidates.
There were and remain three candidates acceptable to the establishment. Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. All the other candidates are decoys, foils or vandals and all are working towards the goal of victory for one of the three acceptable candidates whether they know it or not.
The Real Problem.
At any rate the real problem in the USA is not wealth inequality, it is power inequality leveraged by wealth. The current structure of US media and politics are designed by the plutocrats to serve their interests, hence the Supreme Court Citizens United judgement regarding electoral funding.
In all cases under all circumstances the aggregation of political power within any small group, whether they be called the Corporate elite in the West today, or a politburo in a Communist state, the problem is the same, the aggregation of power to any one narrow interest group is inherently evil regardless of ideology or program and the entire US political system has been subverted and compromised by the Oligarchs and the basis of this power, in the Federal Reserve and the media cartels and on Wall Street must be tackled before anything will change.
The US constitution, the US system has a great deal of merit on paper but the system has been subverted and a restoration of constitutional, lawful government and a restoration of the rule of law and national sovereignty are required and until underlying structural issues are addressed the Presidential race will remain an empty political pageant and the Presidency itself will be a middle management position to be filled with a stuffed shirt who looks good on television and always remains obedient to the “factions” who put them in power.