This stuff shouldn't be happening in Iowa.

Couple doused with gasoline, zip-tied in Iowa home invasion, court docs say

NEWS

by: Sam Sanderson, Nexstar Media Wire

Posted: May 22, 2021 / 11:40 AM CDT / Updated: May 22, 2021 / 11:40 AM CDT

(Woodbury County Jail)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — A man was arrested on multiple charges after he and an accomplice allegedly entered an Iowa home, poured gas over a couple and ransacked the residence in December.

According to court documents, Richard Polak, 41, and an unknown accomplice went to a Sioux City home, where a man and his girlfriend lived, on Dec. 16, 2020.

Polak and the accomplice assaulted the man with a pipe, leaving several injuries to his head, documents say. They then allegedly bound the couple using zip ties and poured gasoline on them. Polak and the other subject ransacked the house, stealing the man’s wallet containing his debit card. They also tried to steal a truck but were unsuccessful. Polak allegedly used the man’s debit card and made withdrawals between $1,500 and $10,000.

DNA evidence linked Polak to these crimes, according to court documents.

Polak was arrested on a warrant Thursday and is charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree arson, assault while participating in a felony, second-degree theft, unauthorized use of a credit card, and aggravated assault.

He was booked in the Woodbury County Jail and held on a $75,000 bond.

I used to eat pork steaks but these days I prefer chicken thighs. I never met a chicken thigh I didn't like.

Texas Pork Producers Association

History of Pork

The pig dates back 40 million years to fossils, which indicates that wild pig-like animals roamed forests and swamps in Europe and Asia. By 4900 B.C., pigs were domesticated in China, and by 1500 B.C., they were being raised in Europe.

On the insistence of Queen Isabella, Christopher Columbus took eight pigs on his voyage to Cuba in 1493. However, it is Hernando de Soto who could be dubbed “the father of the American pork industry.” The explorer landed with America’s first 13 pigs at Tampa Bay, Fla., in 1539.

Native Americans reportedly became very fond of the taste of pork, resulting in some of the worst attacks on the de Soto expedition. By the time of de Soto’s death three years later, his pig herd had grown to 700 head, not including the ones his troops had consumed, those that ran away and became wild pigs (the ancestors of today’s feral pigs or razorbacks) and those given to the Native Americans to help keep peace.

America’s Pork Industry Had Begun

Pig production spread throughout the new colonies. Hernando Cortez introduced hogs to New Mexico in 1600, and Sir Walter Raleigh brought sows to Jamestown Colony, now in Virginia, in 1607.

Semi-wild pigs conducted such rampages in the grain fields of New York that colonists who owned a pig 14 or more inches high had to put a ring in the pig’s nose. On Manhattan Island, a long solid wall was constructed on the northern edge of the colony to control roaming herds of pigs, as well as to protect the colonists from native Americans. This area is now known as Wall Street.

The pig population in the Pennsylvania colony num­bered in the thousands by 1660. As the 17th century closed, the typical farmer owned four or five pigs, supply­ing salt pork and bacon for his table, with surpluses sold as barreled pork. Following a practice that had become common in Pennsylvania, pigs were fed a diet of native American corn.

After the Revolutionary War, pioneers began head­ing west, taking their indispensable pigs with them. A wooden crate filled with young pigs often was hung from the axles of prairie schooners.

As western herds grew, so did the need for pork pro­cessing facilities. Packing plants began to spring up in major cities. Pigs were first commercially harvested in Cincinnati, which became known as Porkopolis. More pork was packed there than any other place in the mid- 1800s.

“Drovers” Herd Pigs to Market

Moving pigs to market in the 1850s was no small undertaking. “Drovers” herded their pigs along trails, which later developed into railroad routes. Between 40,000 and 70,000 pigs were driven from Ohio to eastern markets in any one year. Drivers, the drovers’ hired hands, each managed up to 100 hogs, and the herds moved five to eight miles a day, covering distances up to 700 miles.

The refrigerated railroad car transformed the meat industry when it was introduced shortly after the Civil War. It enabled packing plants to be centralized near points of production instead of near points of con­sumption. Large “terminal markets” with railroad access developed in major cities, such as Chicago, Kansas City, St. Joseph, Mo.; and Sioux City, Iowa. Large packing plants were located adjacent to these stockyards. Live pigs were shipped via railroad to the markets, and pork was shipped, again mainly by rail, to consumers nationwide.

As a result of these transportation developments, the pork industry relocated to the upper Midwest, where ample amounts of feedgrains were produced, and the “Corn Belt” also became known as the “Hog Belt.” In fact, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana and Missouri held the top six spots in state rankings for pork production for many years. Iowa is still No. 1.

The 1980s and 1990s brought major technological developments in the pork industry, some of which allowed production to grow dramatically in states not known for pig production. The most notable growth occurred in North Carolina, which is now the second largest pork- producing state.

Despite inherently more expensive feed, North Carolina producers became cost competitive by using pigs with the genetic capability for higher reproductive efficiency and enhanced lean muscle growth, resulting in better feed efficiency. They also captured economies of size and developed pig-raising methods that controlled disease, and improved productive efficiency. Many producers in other areas have now adopted these same methods.

Today the United States is one of the world’s lead­ing pork-producing countries. Also, the U.S. became the largest pork exporter in 2005 and remains so today. U.S. production accounted for 10 percent of total world supply in 2012.

You can find more information about today’s U.S. pork industry at the Pork Checkoff’s Web site at pork.org.

Northern California is having a bad day.

New York Times

Wildfires are tearing through Northern California.

More than 367 new fires were caused by an extraordinary number of lightening strikes, about 10,849 over the past 72 hours, a fire official said. More than 300,000 acres are ablaze.

Firefighters are battling three groups of fires that have forced thousands of people to flee. The LNU Lightening Complex, above, covers 46,225 acres in Napa, Sonoma and Solano Counties — an area larger than Washington, D.C. See what photographers are capturing on the ground.

Separately, thousands of people in Cedar Rapids are unable to return to their homes after devastating winds tore through Iowa.

Democrats who have a brain: They know if a socialist moron like Bernie Sanders wins the nomination, then they will be stuck with Trump another 4 years.

What I wrote at the Wall Street Journal: If Mike Bloomberg wins the nomination, he might defeat Trump. If anyone else wins the Democratic nomination, Trump wins.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

This is from the front page of the February 13 Wall Street Journal:

POLITICS
ELECTION 2020

Moderate Democrats Stress Over Crowded Center Lane

There is no single centrist rival to front-runner Bernie Sanders, and party leaders are bracing for a protracted nomination fight.

By Ken Thomas and Natalie Andrews

February 12, 2020

NASHUA, New Hampshire—Democrats in search of a centrist nominee to challenge President Trump are increasingly worried after contests in Iowa and New Hampshire consolidated liberal support behind Bernie Sanders and divided the larger moderate vote among multiple candidates.

The party’s center lane is crowded with the rising former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Vice President Joe Biden. Looming in the March 3 Super Tuesday states and beyond is former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, buoyed by campaign spending that dwarfs all his opponents combined.

With no clear centrist front-runner, vulnerable freshman Democrats in Congress are texting each other anxiously, a Biden-allied fundraiser warns of a “doomsday scenario” and party strategists fret about what mixed early-state turnout means for November.

Predictions about which candidates are the most electable and which will prevail through a long primary season have proven unreliable in the past, particularly at this early stage of the process, before voting in the diverse states of South Carolina and Nevada. Barack Obama faced intraparty doubts in 2008, as did Mr. Trump in 2016.

With multiple contenders vowing to stay in the race, party leaders are yet again bracing for the likelihood of a protracted fight for the nomination that may not be settled by the time of the July convention in Milwaukee.

Adding to some Democrats’ worries is the president’s acquittal from impeachment and his strength among his most fervent supporters, as evidenced by the more than 11,000 who turned out for his Monday night rally in Manchester, N.H., a larger crowd than any assembled by a Democrat campaigning in the state.

“There is one thing that’s universal, and that is anxiety,” said Rufus Gifford, who served as finance director for President Obama’s re-election campaign and has contributed to several campaigns.

The fear among some Democrats is predicated on the idea that Mr. Sanders, the Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist, would struggle to defeat Mr. Trump in November. Mr. Sanders and his supporters believe the party could unite around him if he is the nominee and that he could energize young voters and those in crucial Rust Belt states who swung to the GOP in 2016.

The Sanders campaign disputed the notion he would hurt Democrats in swing districts, noting that candidates in states that will be crucial in 2020 had requested his help during 2018 midterms.

Mr. Sanders and Mr. Buttigieg, a 38-year-old newcomer to the national scene, essentially tied in Iowa and finished one-two in New Hampshire. Ms. Warren has faded in the first two contests but is pressing forward, while Ms. Klobuchar, the No. 3 finisher in New Hampshire, is eyeing delegates when her home state of Minnesota votes on March 3.

If Mr. Biden has a strong showing in South Carolina and Nevada, he could regain lost momentum and potentially persuade wavering Democrats to stick with him through subsequent states.

Mr. Bloomberg meanwhile has poured more than $350 million of his fortune into a series of March states, including California, Texas and North Carolina.

Philip Levine, a former mayor of Miami Beach, Fla., who supports Mr. Bloomberg, said in an interview he received “an avalanche” of phone calls and emails Wednesday from donors asking how they could help, and from elected officials, whom he didn’t name, asking his advice on “how to tactfully retract” their endorsements of Mr. Biden and shift their support to Mr. Bloomberg.

Some Democratic donors say privately there will be a lot of pressure for Mr. Biden to get out after South Carolina if he performs poorly there.

“We are going to compete in Super Tuesday states,” said Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a Biden campaign co-chairman. “Bloomberg is spending an awful lot of money, but he’s also not had his turn in the barrel. He has not been on the debate stage. He’s untested.”

Larry Rasky, who leads a pro-Biden super PAC called Unite the Country, sought to rally Biden donors in a fundraising memo Sunday by telling them that if they hedge their bets on Mr. Biden because of Mr. Bloomberg, they could be creating a “doomsday scenario.”

“The Sanders-Warren wing of the Party is ready for the Bloomberg fight. Democrats cannot afford a split Convention. Do you really think the Sanders voters wing will support Mike Bloomberg? Do you think all the camps who have busted their butts and played by the rules will happily sign on” to Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign, he wrote.

The party’s attempt to present itself as a steady, competent alternative to Mr. Trump has been marred by the chaotic Iowa caucuses, where more than a week later Mr. Sanders narrowly trails Mr. Buttigieg in state delegates, but Mr. Sanders leads in the popular vote. Both candidates have requested a recanvassing of certain precincts.

Party strategists are watching early-state turnout closely for clues about whether Democrats are energized to vote.

More than 176,000 people participated in the Iowa Democratic caucuses this year, a slight increase from four years ago but well behind the nearly 240,000 who caucused in 2008. New Hampshire was a brighter spot for Democrats: Turnout reached about 297,000 voters in the Democratic primary, compared with about 255,000 in 2016 and nearly 290,000 in 2008.

“Everything is splintered,” said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. “And it just shows that voters aren’t falling in love with any of these candidates, and that’s a problem.”

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has conducted focus groups in early-voting states and general-election battlegrounds, said she has been struck by “the duality of who you like and who you think can beat Trump. And they’re not necessarily the same thing.”

In a sign of Democrats’ interest in finding an alternative to Mr. Biden, some moderate House Democrats have embraced Mr. Bloomberg, including Reps. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, Haley Stevens of Michigan and Scott Peters of California. On Wednesday, two African-American members of Congress, Reps. Lucy McBath (D., Ga.) and Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.) said they were backing Mr. Bloomberg. All are members of the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy, the chairwoman of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition caucus, said Mr. Sanders wouldn’t be able to win over swing voters, and if he becomes the party’s nominee, he could put the new House majority at risk. “For many moderate districts and Trump-won districts, Bernie Sanders at the top of the ticket would create headwinds for house members running for re-election,” she said.

Former Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, said in a tweet Tuesday that “Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he’ll ruin our economy.” Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager tweeted back: “This is what panic from the Wall Street elite looks and sounds like.”

For most of the campaign, Mr. Biden has presented himself as the candidate best able to win states narrowly carried by Mr. Trump, including his boyhood state of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“He did not have a shot to win Iowa or do well in Iowa,” said Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio), who endorsed Mr. Biden after his own candidacy failed. “His two strongest groups are communities of color and older voters, and both are pretty much excluded from the caucus process.”

Mr. Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, joined a conference call with the campaign’s top financial donors on Wednesday afternoon, according to three participants, and noted the campaign’s strength in Nevada and South Carolina among Latinos and African-Americans.

Polls indicate that Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar both have struggled to appeal to African-American voters. Mr. Bloomberg apologized for a second time Tuesday amid a fresh round of criticism for his support of stop-and-frisk policing in New York City.

Mr. Sanders has argued that Democrats must nominate someone who can generate enthusiasm and mobilize young people and infrequent voters who were turned off by their choices in the 2016 election. The senator has arguably the best ability to command large crowds, evidenced by more than 7,500 people who showed up for a primary eve rally and concert at the University of New Hampshire.

In the last week, Mr. Sanders has taken the lead in the RealClearPolitics average of national Democratic primary polls, after Mr. Biden had led for months.

While Mr. Biden’s candidacy has foundered, Mr. Bloomberg has courted members of Congress. In January, Mr. Bloomberg flew to Salt Lake City where Rep. Ben McAdams (D., Utah) hosted the former mayor at his home with local Democrats and Republicans. Mr. Bloomberg talked about his hope for a pragmatic government and answered questions on climate change and fiscal responsibility.

Mr. McAdams said he was looking for someone he could support, but also said he was looking for someone who understood a congressional district like his own, which the president carried by 7 percentage points in 2016.

About a week later, he endorsed Mr. Bloomberg.

—Tarini Parti contributed to this article.

New York Times - Some more stuff about Mike Bloomberg.

New York Times

Alarmed by Sanders, Moderate Democrats Can’t Agree on an Alternative

Unless a centrist favorite soon emerges, party leaders may increasingly look to Michael R. Bloomberg as a potential savior.

By Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin

February 12, 2020

MANCHESTER, N.H. — The Democratic presidential primary is entering an intensely tumultuous phase, after two early contests that have left former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. reeling and elevated Senator Bernie Sanders but failed to make any candidate a dominant force in the battle for the party’s nomination.

Within the Democratic establishment, the results have deepened a mood of anxiety and frustration: The collapse of Mr. Biden’s support in the first two states, and the fragmentation of moderate voters among several other candidates, allowed Mr. Sanders, a Vermont progressive, to claim a victory in New Hampshire and a split decision in Iowa with former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind.

In both states, a majority of voters supported candidates closer to the political center and named defeating President Trump as their top priority, but there was no overwhelming favorite among those voters as to which moderate was the best alternative to Mr. Sanders. Unless such a favorite soon emerges, party leaders may increasingly look to Michael R. Bloomberg as a potential savior.

In an unmistakable sign of Mr. Bloomberg’s growing strength and Mr. Biden’s decline, three black members of Congress endorsed the former mayor of New York City on Wednesday, including Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia, a high-profile lawmaker and gun-control champion in her first term — and a senior adviser to Mr. Bloomberg told campaign staff that internal polling showed the former mayor now tied with Mr. Biden among African-Americans in March primary states.

The turmoil in the party has the potential to extend the primary season, exacerbating internal divisions and putting off the headache of uniting for the general election for months.

The Democrats’ proportional system of allocating delegates could make it all but impossible to avert such an outcome. With no winner-take-all contests, and no indication yet that Mr. Sanders can broaden his appeal or that a moderate can coalesce support, the candidates are poised to keep splitting delegates three or four ways, as they did in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“We are obviously going to have a longer battle here,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who directed an anti-Sanders ad campaign in Iowa.

The leading candidates are plainly worried about the party’s divisions, and signaled as much in their speeches in New Hampshire on primary night: Mr. Sanders, blamed by much of the party for his slashing approach to the 2016 primaries, stressed in his victory speech that the most important task was defeating Mr. Trump, while Mr. Buttigieg urged his supporters to “vote blue, no matter who” in November.

In a particularly urgent plea, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who slumped to a fourth-place finish on Tuesday, warned that no candidate should be “willing to burn down the rest of the party in order to be the last man standing.”

At the moment, no one is close to being the last candidate standing. But unless another Democrat rapidly consolidates support, Mr. Sanders could continue to win primaries and caucuses without broadening his political appeal, purely on the strength of his rock-solid base on the left — a prospect that alarms Democratic Party leaders who view Mr. Sanders and his slogan of democratic socialism as wildly risky bets in a general election.

The Biden team stoked that sense of alarm on Wednesday: Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a chairman of Mr. Biden’s national campaign and a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, warned on a conference call with reporters that Democrats would risk “down-ballot carnage” if they selected Mr. Sanders.

“If Bernie Sanders was at the top of the ticket, we would be in jeopardy of losing the House,” Mr. Richmond said. “We would not get the Senate back.”

Yet in a reflection of the multidimensional melee that allowed Mr. Sanders to claim victory in New Hampshire with the smallest plurality of any winner in decades, Mr. Richmond also criticized two other candidates, Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Buttigieg, lumping them into the same risky group and arguing that Democrats should not “take a chance with a self-defined socialist, a mayor of a very small city, a billionaire who all of a sudden is a Democrat.”

Mr. Mellman said Mr. Sanders would continue to benefit as long as there was a relative abundance of moderate candidates in the race. “The longer more of those people stay in,” he said, “the easier it is for Sanders to skate through.”

There is no sign that any of the half-dozen major candidates left in the race are headed for the exits: Mr. Buttigieg and Mr. Biden will have to contend in the Nevada caucuses against Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who finished a strong third in New Hampshire, while on the left Mr. Sanders still faces a dogged competitor in Ms. Warren. Unless one candidate comes out of Nevada and South Carolina with a powerful upper hand, it is quite likely that the same atomized delegate count could continue into Super Tuesday, when 15 states and territories, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all delegates in the Democratic race, cast ballots on March 3.

Indeed, with early voting already taking place in California and other Super Tuesday states, and no dominant front-runner, the fragmentation may already be well underway.

In Arkansas, a Super Tuesday state where early voting starts next week, a poll taken after Iowa illustrated the Democrats’ dilemma: Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Biden, Mr. Sanders and Mr. Buttigieg were each winning 16 to 20 percent of the vote.

All of those candidates are increasingly confronting Mr. Bloomberg’s presence as a rival in the March primaries. Mr. Bloomberg skipped all four February contests but has climbed into double digits in national polls on the strength of an enormous and sustained advertising campaign, funded from his personal fortune.

On a conference call with campaign staff members on Wednesday afternoon, Howard Wolfson, Mr. Bloomberg’s senior adviser, said that internal tracking data showed that the former mayor had pulled “very narrowly” into first place across the March primary states, inching ahead of Mr. Sanders over all and tying Mr. Biden among African-American voters.

Though Mr. Wolfson did not provide specific numbers, he said Mr. Biden had “rather precipitously fallen” in the larger array of states voting next month, according to Bloomberg polling.

But Mr. Bloomberg is facing new tests as a candidate: For the first time, he may qualify for a televised debate, next week in Las Vegas, and he has come under newly direct criticism from other Democrats for his record on policing and much else.

Mr. Wolfson acknowledged as much on the conference call, telling staff members that Mr. Bloomberg would have a “bigger target on his back” as his numbers rose. He said Mr. Bloomberg would address scrutiny of his support for stop-and-frisk policing by calling it “the biggest regret of his 12 years as mayor,” and saying that the language he had used in the past to defend it did not “reflect who he is or what is in his heart.”

But the recently circulated audio recording of Mr. Bloomberg in 2015 matter-of-factly stating that “the real crime is” almost always committed by young “male minorities” quickly ricocheted across the tight-knit community of black political leaders.

J. Todd Rutherford, the minority leader of the South Carolina House, said many African-Americans had increasingly recognized that Mr. Biden did not have “what it takes” and had been ready to bolt to the former New York mayor.

“A lot of people would’ve said Bloomberg last week, but now I don’t know,” said Mr. Rutherford, alluding to the recording and declaring that the gnawing uncertainty hanging over the Democratic race was “really scary.”

Mr. Biden and other candidates have indicated that they intend to challenge Mr. Bloomberg on race in the coming days, and his resiliency, or lack thereof, on the subject could shape the primary campaign.

Yet even supporters of Mr. Biden acknowledge that if one of the moderates doesn’t take a clear lead with that faction of the party after Nevada, the eyes of many establishment-aligned Democrats will turn to Manhattan.

“The longer the waters are muddy, the better off Bloomberg is,” said former Gov. Jim Hodges of South Carolina, who recently backed Mr. Biden.

The campaign in Nevada is as disordered as anything else in the Democratic race, according to people closely watching the contest there. But as in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden long held a considerable advantage as the candidate perceived as the safe and electable choice, while Mr. Sanders entered the race with a strong bloc carried over from his last run for the presidency. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Biden will bleed support there as rapidly as he did in New Hampshire, or whether any other candidate will be able to take advantage of his fall.

Tick Segerblom, a prominent Sanders backer in the state who is a member of the Clark County Commission, said Mr. Biden’s national plunge would upend the campaign in Nevada. He said that Mr. Sanders could count his “25 percent,” but that his ability to expand his coalition was an open question.

“Bernie is still alive and Biden is definitely a disaster,” Mr. Segerblom said. “I think Pete is going to do very well — he’ll be able to pick up the Biden people.”

Representative Dina Titus, perhaps the most prominent Biden supporter in the state, said the campaign needed to send in the political cavalry to stave off defeat.

“He could certainly use more hands — and they’re supposedly coming now,” she said.

She added that she would spend her time helping Mr. Biden with senior groups and labor unions. But the former vice president’s hope that the most influential union in the state, the Culinary Workers, would endorse him in an effort to halt Mr. Sanders has been dimmed after his poor performance in the first two states.

In South Carolina, even moderate Democrats who are sympathetic to Mr. Biden believe he’s in grave danger of losing the state.

“He’s wounded,” Tyler Jones, a Charleston-based Democratic strategist, said of the former vice president. Like other political professionals in the state, Mr. Jones is increasingly less concerned about Mr. Biden’s weakness than about the billionaire Tom Steyer’s strength — and what it means for the nominating process.

Mr. Steyer has been pouring money into South Carolina, cutting into Mr. Biden’s lead with black voters and raising the specter of Mr. Sanders’s winning another state with a plurality thanks to a divided electorate.

“A vote for Steyer is a vote for Bernie, which is a vote for Trump,” said Mr. Jones, who believes Mr. Sanders cannot win the general election and wants to stop his campaign “dead in its tracks.” But he acknowledged that urging voters to act strategically and reject Mr. Steyer was easier in theory than in execution.

Other Democrats are turning to what they believe is a more simple solution.

In early January, Representative Gregory Meeks of New York offered an off-the-cuff assessment of the Democratic race: Should Mr. Biden wheeze in the early states, many in the party would turn to Mr. Bloomberg as a Plan B.

“If Mr. Biden can’t get out of New Hampshire and Iowa, then Bloomberg has Super Tuesday,” Mr. Meeks said at the time.

On Wednesday, he was one of the three black lawmakers who endorsed Mr. Bloomberg.

The uneducated moron, Fucktard Trump, is having a good day.

The Washington Post

Trump revels in Iowa caucuses’ upheaval, blames Democratic Party

President Trump, on the morning of his State of the Union address, tweeted and retweeted commentary deriding the failures of the Iowa Democratic caucuses as indicative of a larger problem with the Democratic Party.

“The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster,” Trump tweeted. “Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is ‘Trump’.”

Then the president went on a retweeting tear, including a GIF posted by his White House social media director Dan Scavino of a dumpster fire washing away in a flood.

In subsequent tweets, Trump defended Iowa as the first voting state in presidential nominating contests, blaming the Democrats for botching the caucuses. In 2016, Trump came in second in the Iowa caucuses behind Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.).

“It is not the fault of Iowa, it is the Do Nothing Democrats fault. As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition!” Trump tweeted.

Trump then taunted the Democrats, writing facetiously: “When will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?”

Trump also celebrated his share of the GOP caucus vote, in which he secured 97 percent of Iowa Republicans’ support. His primary opponents, former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld each won a little more than 1 percent.

“The Democrat Party in Iowa really messed up, but the Republican Party did not,” Trump tweeted. “I had the largest re-election vote in the history of that great state, by far, beating President Obama’s previous record by a lot. Also, 97% Plus of the vote! Thank you Iowa!”

Here is another reason the Democrats have to nominate Mike Bloomberg if they want to get rid of Fucktard Trump.

Dow Futures Skyrocket as Iowa Disaster Gifts Trump Another Victory

As the Democrat campaign descends into chaos, Trump emerges united and victorious. Stock markets rallied on hopes that Trump will secure the White House for a second term.

The complete voting shambles at the Iowa caucus is a Democratic meltdown gift-wrapped and hand-delivered to Donald Trump.

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures jumped 300 points higher on Tuesday.

Stock market gets another “Trump bump” as the president takes a step closer to re-election.

The Democrat campaign descends into embarrassment in Iowa as no winner announced.

Stock market futures just got a huge “Trump bump” as the president looks increasingly likely to secure re-election in 2020. Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures are up 300 points after a chaotic and embarrassing night for the Democrats in Iowa.

An “inconsistency” in Iowa’s caucus voting system leaves the Democrats without a clear winner on Tuesday [CNN]. The debacle all-but hands Trump the momentum going into the 2020 presidential election and the stock markets are rejoicing [Jim Cramer on Twitter].

“I think the complete disarray of the Iowa Democratic Caucus and the acknowledgment that in 48 hours impeachment is over is playing a big role in the strength of the market” – Jim Cramer, CNBC.

Dow Futures Rocket 300 Points Higher

Dow futures contracts [Yahoo charts] skyrocketed almost 300 points higher on Tuesday, making it two-straight days in the green.

Democrat Disaster In Iowa

The Democrat embarrassment in Iowa leaves Trump and the Republicans reveling in victory. The Republicans emerge united while the Democrats missed a huge opportunity to drive momentum.

Trump supporters will use the Iowa disaster to mock the Democrat campaign and discredit whichever candidate does emerge as the winner. Members of the Trump campaign are already suggesting it was “rigged” [Twitter] and rallying Trump supporters to question the whole system [Fox News].

“Democrat party meltdown. They can’t even run a caucus and they want to run the government. No thank you” – Brad Parscale, campaign manager. In a later statement, he added, “It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process.”

It’s a tried-and-tested Trump technique that strengthens his base. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign appeared to admit as much.

“With every passing minute that there is a delay, we worry that the process will lose credibility.”

Dow Jones Gets A Trump Bump

Trump’s momentum coming out of the Iowa caucus is crucial for the Dow Jones.

It’s no secret the stock market favours a Trump presidency. Wall Street players have fallen over themselves to predict disaster under the Democrats while Trump uses the Dow Jones as a proxy for his own success.

The events in Iowa gift Trump the momentum going into 2020 and the stock market is riding the wave.

We Won’t Know Anything Until Later Tuesday

At the time of writing, the Democrats still haven’t announced a winner from the Iowa caucuses. We’re expecting an announcement later in the day on Tuesday.

Sanders, Warren, Biden, and Klobuchar all took the opportunity to boast about the strength of their internal numbers. While former mayor South Bend, Ind. Pete Buttigieg pretty much declared victory [Telegraph].

“By all indications, we are going to on New Hampshire victorious.”

No matter who emerges victorious, the winner has already missed the window of opportunity. The crucial Iowa momentum that once helped propel Obama to the White House has gone and the Democrats are on the back foot.