{"id":25678,"date":"2018-07-18T09:49:46","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T14:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=25678"},"modified":"2018-07-18T10:36:15","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T15:36:15","slug":"they-wouldnt-take-my-blood-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=25678","title":{"rendered":"They wouldn&#8217;t take my blood today  . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>. . . (My iron count was low) so I have an hour to put up a post. Here goes:<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve managed to continue my daily habit of French study today. I put in an hour early this morning for the 141st straight day. I have almost two months before I depart for France but while I will not be able to wander around a cocktail party gossiping in French I will be able to use the French language at some primitive level. I have learned just shy of 3,000 words since I began this unplanned course of study the day I turned 67 a little over seven months ago.<\/p>\n<p>If voters take note of anything in this seemingly non political information it could be that I am a dogged student just like I&#8217;ve been a dogged candidate. Or it could be that beginning a course of language study at age 67 I still have the youthful mental dexterity needed by a successful leader. Or it could be that I&#8217;m not a slave to political campaigning (notwithstanding my 40-year history of running for public office.)<\/p>\n<p>The point I mean to make is this. Just because my prospects of &#8220;catching lightning in a bottle&#8221; and getting elected to Congress in 2018 are vanishingly small I have not ruled out catching it. If Pete Stauber isn&#8217;t looking over his shoulder he is a fool. I know that he is timid man. That&#8217;s evident in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.duluthnewstribune.com\/news\/government-and-politics\/4473981-cd8-candidate-stauber-responds-trumps-russia-comments\">his milquetoast response<\/a> to our lying Commander and Chief:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;While no one knows the specific conversations that took place in private, the summit appears to have been a missed opportunity for the U.S. to hold Russia accountable,&#8221; said Stauber. &#8220;Russia is not our ally. We must continue to uphold the integrity of U.S. elections without any interference, and take swift action in response to any attacks on our democracy.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Bart Simpson has the perfect response for twaddle like this &#8220;Well Duh!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Had Barack Obama groveled at Putin&#8217;s feet like Donald Trump the Senate Republicans would have atomized themselves in a nuclear detonation. The New York Daily News got it right. (<a href=\"http:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=25676\">See the previous post<\/a>) Pete Stauber didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>I set out on this campaign with one small objective. I wanted to hit Commissioner Stauber&#8217;s naive, cheer-leading for an ignorant, unAmerican demogauge in the head with a two-by-four. So far so good, but what I&#8217;ve done pales compared to the damage Donald Trump has inflicted on every Republican this year. <\/p>\n<p>My forty dollar contribution (as yet unspent) and my blog and the interviews I&#8217;m accorded as a candidate more than make up for the $800,000 of &#8220;dark money&#8221; given to Pete Stauber in the name of &#8220;free speech.&#8221; And Trump&#8217;s IRS <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/2018\/07\/17\/us\/politics\/ap-us-irs-donor-disclosure.html\">just made it easier<\/a> for billionaires and corporations to hide even more of their free speech. I wonder when Republicans will give conspirators the right of free (and secret) speech too? Second Amendment fanatics are taking advantage of the First Amendment big time.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has just bent over backward to make America a sleazier, swampier more dangerous place. He&#8217;s become a gun pusher making it possible for terrorists to get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/07\/13\/business\/downloadable-gun-allowed-alarming-activists.html\">free internet plans to 3D print automatic weapons.<\/a> And its all being done in the name of &#8220;free speech&#8221;. Pretty soon we will be allowed to shout &#8220;fire&#8221; in a dark, crowded theater. I hope retired cop Pete Stauber is paying attention. And I wonder. Does candidate Stauber carry a concealed weapon? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>. . . (My iron count was low) so I have an hour to put up a post. Here goes: I&#8217;ve managed to continue&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,93,47,133,127],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25678"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25688,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25678\/revisions\/25688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}