Mike's blog

The Senate is the upper house of Congress. Each state has two senators that serve six year terms with 1/3 of them up every 2 years. No more than one seat per state can be up for election in any given election and no fewer than 33 total nor more than 34 total. The Vice President has the tie breaking vote as the head of Congress. The senate has the power to approve or block most presidential nominees even for the Supreme Court and the Cabinet. They can block any bill that passes the house. They can pass laws subject to approval to the house except for the spending bills and taxes. They can approve or reject the houses spending bill and tax bill and can also amend the bills. The most senior member of the majority party by tradition gets elected the president pro temper of the senate. He along with the vice president co-chairs the senate and he picks the chairman when neither are presiding. He is the 3rd most ranking member of congress after the Vice president and the Speaker of the Ho...

If the Republicans keep the house then they will be able to push Trumps agenda through for the next 2 years. They will be able to stop any indictments on the president and control the budget proposal process. The president and the house propose the budget and the senate can only amend the budget and tax bills. The Republicans will be able to elect the next house Speaker and control key committees. If the Democrats take the house they will be able to take control over the investigation of the president and can even indict him if there is probable cause and start the impeachment process. They will pick the next speaker and control the house committees. They will be able to block any bill that passes the Senate and counter the Presidents budget and tax proposal with one of there own. They will have a say in anything that passes the federal government and it will give them a platform to run on in 2020 for they will have say in every new federal law. The congressional election will b...

In 1998 there was a very contested midterm election. It came out that the President had cheated on his wife and stretched the law to the breaking point to cover it up. The opposition party had the majority in both the house and the senate. They called a special council investigating the President. The special council was originally investigating a different matter. The House of Representatives started the impeachment process right before the midterm elections by indicting the president. The president's minority party said that it was a "witch hunt" and unjust. Many of the leaders in congress today were in congress or running for office during this critical election.  That party lost the popular vote and almost lost control over both the house and the senate. The President said that the people vindicated him in the election but the other party said that it was not the case because they had kept the majority by a few seats even though they lost the popular vote and m...

There are now 70 days to go until the midterm elections. That means that in 10 weeks America will vote. Next week after the Labor day holiday the election will kick into high gear and both parties will be trying to win votes. What happens in August will matter little what happens in September and October will decide who wins the election. Right now the Republicans control everything. They control the House, Senate, Supreme Court, Presidency, and a majority of state, county, and local governments nationwide. The Democrats only control large cities and a few counties and big states like New York. The Republicans will not have as much power as they have now after the midterms unless they win in November like they did in both 2014 and 2016. After next week what happens will be under intense media scrutiny as the election season kicks off. If they lose the election the house, senate, and state officials would be lame ducks. This could lead to a week of controversial decisions for the presid...

3rd Party Candidate Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party is surging in the New Mexico senate race. He is now in 2nd place and ahead of the Republican candidate. If he wins the race then it could prevent either party form getting a majority. Who knows what will happen then. That is unlikely though because he does have some strange views. For example he wants to allow the crashing of red lights so long as no other car is around. Basically he wants straight on red and left on red and to turn red lights into just stop signs.

Today instead of talking about politics I will talk about something more serious. A Category 4 Hurricane called Lane  is heading right towards the state of Hawaii. It looks like it might make landfall with they eye hitting Honolulu or Maui. Hopefully the eye does not make landfall but even if that does not happen there will still be damage as can be seen by the photo. What is going on with the weather lately?

Incumbents almost always win re-election in congress. They win win over 80% of the time. This is true for both the primary and general election. The seats that see the biggest change is open seats. Open seats are races where there are no incumbents running for office. These are the races to watch out for in 2018.

Today there was a lot of news. First the presidents former campaign head Paul Manafort was found guilty of multiple felony charges. Second the presidents former lawyer Michael Cohen plead guilty to multiple felony charges and as testified under oath that the president was involved. By American law the president cannot be tried criminally until he is out of office. For a president to be removed from office lawfully he has to be impeached. The first step of impeachment is for a majority of congress to indict the president. For the house to investigate they need reasonable suspicion and for an indictment they need probable cause.  The second step is for a trial with the Supreme Court Chief Justice as the Judge as the Senate as the Jury. For a convent 2/3 of the senate must vote guilty beyond a reasonable doubt otherwise he is found not guilty. Currently the president has only been under investigation but has not been charged with anything. There have been other presidents who h...

There are now only 77 days until the midterm elections. Most of the polls think that the Democrats will win just like two years ago. The election ended up with a Republican victory when it was all said and done. If anything it looks like the Republicans could win another election while losing the popular vote. In the 2000 presidential election the republicans won the election while the democrats won the popular vote. in 2004 they won both the popular vote and the election. In 2008 and 2012 the democrats won both the electoral college and the popular vote. In 2016 the republicans won the election wile the democrats won the popular vote. In the past 5 elections the republicans have won the election 2 times without winning the popular vote. In 1996 the Republicans won the congressional election while losing the popular vote. In 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 they both won the election outright and the popular vote. In 2006 and 2008 the Democrats won both the house and the popular vote. In 2010...

I think that extremism is bad on both the left and the right side of the political spectrum. Just like you can fall off a boat in either direction you can have bad ideas in both the left and the right of the political spectrum. Moderation is needed more than anything in politics today. If this continues then america will get more and more divided and a "house divided against itself cannot stand". Some people on the far left like extreme forms of communism and some of the worst tyrants of the past: Stalin, Mau Sa Tung, Poll Pot and other murderous leaders. Some on the far right like anarchy, slavery, racism, fascism, nazism and tyrants like: Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. It is not me labeling the far right or the far left as such they say so themselves. I do not say that they believe in these ideology they do themselves. Some of them are so bold as to march right down downtown Washington DC on the Federal Triangle by the Capital, White House, and Supreme Court. I will not ling s...

One thing that I do not like about politics is hypocrisy. That is when someone says one thing and does another thing. An example is how people treat Presidents Clinton and Presidents Trump. No reasonable person would dispute that both men are were immoral in there past life  and cheated on there wives. No reasonable person would say that they are husband or father of the year. Many Republicans attack Clinton for his actions but defend Trump for his actions. Many Democrats attack Trump for his actions but do not attack Clinton for his actions. That is an inconstant believe. When a party controls all three branches they defend the power of the federal government but when out of power they defend states rights. When they censor views they say its in there rights as private property but when the other side does it they say it violates civil rights. I think that politicians need to be more philosophically constant in there views. I can see them criticizing the other side and using count...

A good website to find is political information is 538 politics by Nate Silver. The website says the Presidents approval rating is currently 52.4% and his disapproval rating is 42.2%. The website has a graph that show that the Democrats are currently ahead of the Republicans 47.1-39.1 in the generic Congressional ballot poll. The website also gives ratings of polls grading polls from an A+ to an F so to see how accurate the poll is. The website also lets you look at polls by how recent they are. The website ranks Congressman, Senators and Representatives in at table by how often they vote both for or against the President on issues in Congress. The website has commentary on contemporary political views at are mostly centrist but might slightly favor the Democratic party. This website provides useful information but remember that polling can still be off when election day comes. No matter who is ahead of the polls get out and vote.  https://fivethirtyeight.com/politics/

A good website to go on is called The Green Papers. It is an in depth website that has in-depth information about the election laws, races and results. It is very good for doing research. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/

It appears after the initial vote count that the Republican Troy Balderson has beaten the Democrat Danny O'Conner by a few hundred votes. It also appears that the 3rd party Candidate Joe Manchik who thinks he is the child of aliens born in Hell, Michigan has spoiled the race for the Democrats. The Republicans won the race by 11 points in 2016. Some say that since the Republicans did not meet expectations then that means the Democrats will win for sure in November. Others say that since the Republicans won that means they will win in November. In reality special elections are special. They are held only locally. The November Congressional Election will be held nationwide. The Senate and governship race will be held in most of the states. The Ohio General Assembly race will be Statewide. The State Senate race will be held in half of the state. They will be more than one issue on the ballot. The winner of the special election will only serve in congress starting in September. He wi...

On august 6th and 9th the allied forces won a decisive victory that ended world war two. The Germans and Italians were already defeated with the deaths if the evil Hitler and Mussolini but Japan was still fighting the world. America, England, France and Russia would accept nothing but a unconditional surrender from Japan. Japan said they would fight to the end. President Truman then decided to make the fateful decision: Nuke Japan. First Hiroshima was Nuked. Japan would only surrender if the emperor would stay in power. Then Nagasaki was Nuked. America let Japan keep the Emperor as a ceremonial leader only in a mostly unconditional surrender to end the war. Even Japan knew that to fight on would be suicide. Many thousands of civilians died in this incident and two cities were annihilated and radiated only to be rebuilt year latter. This did save many allied troops lives. This was a difficult choice for the president to make. No nukes have been used since then in war but there have be...

There is a fun website to go to called 270 to win. It can be used to help predict election results. With it you can go through all the different midterm election scenarios. That is what I use often. Links: https://www.270towin.com/whats_new/ https://www.270towin.com/ https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-election/ https://www.270towin.com/2018-house-election/ https://www.270towin.com/2018-governor-election/ https://www.270towin.com/states/ https://www.270towin.com/closing.php