Friday, January 29, 2016

Exactly who died and made Iowans our 'King Makers?"

No, I did not watch the fifty-second Republican debate.  Why bother?  The positions and proposals of most of those candidates on that stage last night will be irrelevant here in Illinois, when we hold our Republican primary in March: Iowans will have determined which candidates that I can vote for, since mostly likely half of those guys on stage will be gone next week, and most of the rest of the pack will have been considered to be non-viable by our "King Makers" in Iowa.

And exactly why should Iowans have such power?  These rubes and hicks in Fly-Over Iowa would starve to death if it were not for Uncle Sam rigging the system so that all of their damn corn ends up in all of our gas tanks.  It's perhaps time that Iowans looked for honest work, rather than depend on government handouts to put bread on their tables.

These damn Iowans are the people that determine who I get to vote for.  They will have winnowed the field down to perhaps two guys by the time I see a primary ballot here in Illinois in March.  And maybe even one guy: Donald Trump.

Who died and made these Iowan socialists our "King Makers?"  Even the most hard core conservative in Iowa will caucus for the guy that promises to keep the pedal to the metal on ethanol subsidies.  Hardly the stuff of rock ribbed conservatives, if you ask me.  Let the market decide if ethanol is a viable form of energy (it isn't), rather than jam it down all of our throats via the ham fisted power of the U.S. federal government.

I am getting awfully tired of my western neighbors telling me who I am allowed to vote for as president.  They can't even get out of bed in the morning without government money thrown at them, the damn lazy socialist rubes.  To hell with those hayseed Iowan hicks, if you ask me.

We should hold our primaries nationwide on the same day, rather than allow a pack of commie pinkos in ethanol subsidy-addicted Iowa to decide our fates.




14 comments:

LL said...

I commented back on my blog, but Iowa and ethanol subsidies are emblematic of what is wrong with America. WAAAAAaaaay back when, there was a fear that we would run out of oil in the USA. It was bullshit, of course, and time has proven that we have more oil under the soil than the Saudis have left. The Saudis have capacity, etc. and we don't (yet) but that can be fixed if we can send men to the moon and build stealth aircraft. "Burn ethanol", the mandarins advised, because we produced far more corn than we could eat and our production created so much corn that the price of same dropped.

The oil crisis is over. We are poised to be an exporter -- even while oil is in the $30/barrel range and the world is awash in it. But America is still subsidizing ethanol. Before the election and the people in Iowa whining about it, I thought that we'd stopped this arcane practice.

The only reason that the government subsidizes sugar is because of the same foolish system. And we can't have sugar as a sweetener when there is corn-syrup. Sugar on the international market is much cheeper and better than corn sweetener, but US protectionism doesn't allow us to buy it at market prices. Research that crony, moronic, practice.

Government is a racket.
War is a racket.

Why do we only have two political labor unions (Rep/Dem)? Because they've fixed the system. Part of me doesn't blame them. If I could rig the political system to favor myself, I might do the same thing. Big media supports the arcane elephant and donkey -- which is why they are so concerned about Trump.

Ok, my rant here is finished.

Adrienne said...

your primary is even later than our caucus in Idaho. I understand the concept of state's rights and all that, but I agree with you that everyone should vote on the same day.

Gorges Smythe said...

The nose of nearly every sheep follows the butt of the one in front of it

Fredd said...

LL: I, too, remember the doom and gloom predictions of running out of oil. Turns out in the long run that we have more oil under the ground than we can use at our current rate in 300 years. That's a lot of oil, LL.

And its about time we ended these stupid subsidies: sugar, ethanol, solar, wind, anything green. Any and all farm subsidies need to end right now, nobody benefits from them except these tiny special interests.

Don't get me started, LL.....

Fredd said...

Gorges: I'm not sure what sheep butts have to do with Iowans and their damn subsidies ruling the land. Call me obtuse.

Fredd said...

Adrienne: and Idaho is lousy with conservatives. They are getting watered down with a lot of Californians coming in and buying up the beautiful scenery out there, happens to every state.

We spend a week last summer with some Idahoan friends who live in Donnely, ID. We went and looked at the debacle of a ski lodge venture, Tamarack. Whoa, what a mess! The place had millions of dollars pumped into the infrastructure, with Steffi Graff and Andre Agassi still living there. Then the French scumbag developer took the money and left the country.

It seemed like an ideal spot to build a ski lodge: except that its three hours or more from the middle of nowhere. Boise is the nearest 'big town.' Boise. Not the best business plan ever. That, and they kicked off construction just before the real estate bust. Rotten luck.

Linda said...

I agree that every primary, or caucus, should be held on the same day. It think we should have a primary, but I guess they cost too much money. Ours is in March, too. I know from previous ones, that they don't get near the turnout of primary's. The ethanol is a ripoff!

Ed Bonderenka said...

I refuse to buy E85 for ethical and practical reasons.
A lot of vehicles certified so, are not E85 resistant.
And you pay less, but get less energy per gallon. Lower mileage.
And you encourage the production.

Fredd said...

Ed: completely agree on both ethical and practical arguments. Ethanol is just flat out a Rube Goldberg way of getting energy out of the ground. I listen to scientists who swear that we are net positive on all the effort we put in per gallon of the stuff, and I am more convinced with scientists who say that we are spinning our wheels and get net negative value for our efforts per gallon.

One of them is right, and one of them is wrong. The ethanol loving folks are greenies, and greenies have almost always been wrong and put forward arguments that are more political than scientific.

Kid said...

"We should hold our primaries nationwide on the same day, rather than allow a pack of commie pinkos in ethanol subsidy-addicted Iowa to decide our fates."

Exactly. Thanks for saying it so I could just cut and paste it.
The reason for the current system has to be based on something generated in Hell.

Brig said...

Ah subsidies. I come from farming/ranching and have seen what others have done via subsidies. County records of subsidy payments can be interesting reading...

Fredd said...

Brighid: subsidies and taxes, both are used by politicians to transfer wealth from those who make it to those who don't in order to gain favor from the takers.

A rotten system at best. An evil system more likely.

Euripides said...

Well, in Iowa, the people still meet up and duke it out like they did back in the 1800s. You're right. It's time to modernize the election process. We'd be able to do it, except for two things: Republicans and Democrats.

Z said...

"We should hold our primaries nationwide on the same day"

And hold elections on a Saturday so few would need absentee ballots and have an ID which, when one votes, is swiped and that person literally can't vote again, as they do in Germany.
But, no.......got to make it so complicated we can't find the fraud.