First Salvos Fired in Blue Dot Battle

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Check with Chip, brought to you by Operation
Blue Dot Red, turning the Second District Blue dot Red,
one podcast at a time. I have Cavanaugh on the
brain this week. I notice the Omaha World Herald has
given Democratic congressional candidate John Cavanaugh two op ed columns
in the last two months their campaign stump speeches, both

(00:22):
concluding with rally to me final paragraphs. The other congressional candidates,
including Republican City council member Brinker Harding, should demand equal space. Clearly,
the World Herald has decided that Cavanaugh is the paper's
candidate in the race to succeed Don Bacon and Congress
for good reason. Cavanaugh has the hard left voting record

(00:45):
and anti Trump posture the World Herald wants. But he
also has a family legacy that hearkens to a previous age,
a tip O'Neil Ronald Reagan attitude of willingness to work
with political adversaries in a live and let live spirit.
Put bluntly, Kavanaugh is more electable than Tony Vargas or

(01:05):
Kara Eastman, preceding Democratic nominees for the Second District congressional seat,
and he's probably more electable than anyone else in the
current field of Democrats. The more recent of the two
op ed columns criticized the attack on Iran. Kavanaugh said,
the regime of recently assassinated Ayatola Komine is evil. For

(01:28):
many years, they've oppressed and murdered their own people, sponsored
terrorism around the globe, and have been trying to develop
nuclear weapons. But we are being led into war by
a president and defense secretary who are motivated by chaos
and corruption and led by gut instincts. Pete Hegseith is

(01:49):
the Secretary of War rather than Defense. But as to substance,
Kavanaugh laid out the case for attacking Iran, but then
I guess is arguing that the Trump administration is doing
the right thing for the wrong reasons. Kavanaugh did not
define the chaos and corruption allegedly motivating the attack, nor

(02:11):
did he explain how a war based on chaos and
corruption benefit a president and his war secretary. Kavanaugh rightly
pointed out that gas prices have been driven higher. President
Trump says it's a short term cost that will pay
a huge dividend in improved American national security. Improved national

(02:32):
security for our main ally in the Middle East, Israel,
and a new lease on life for the Middle East
and the world if Iran can be converted from an
extremist Islamic terror state into a friendly and prosperous member
of the Family of Nations. I did a podcast on
this recently, the Case for War in Iran. Go there

(02:53):
if you want more detail. My concern is the civil
war likely to erupt in Iran and who comes out
on top. The other Kavanaugh column accused Trump of corrupt
exploitation of tariffs for personal gain. Kavanaugh said Trump was
working tariff policy like a yogyo. Tariff rates were going

(03:14):
up and down depending on whether countries would do deals
benefiting trump business and financial interests. If that's true, then
Trump should be prosecuted for it. But I'm skeptical unless
there is specific evidence of specific misdeeds. The left launched
a bogused lawfare campaign against Trump during the twenty twenty

(03:37):
four election. Lawfare is a term that combines law and warfare.
It means attacking a person or institution with legal actions
to damage the target's credibility, drain the target's financial resources,
and prevent the target from doing normal activities. Because of
the demands of preparing a defense and appearing in court.

(04:00):
You can find details on those garbage cases in my
book with the Constitution on the cover. For now, I
want to focus on a few statements by Cavanaugh about
alleged Trump corruption. Cavanaugh said tech and media companies have
paid Trump more than ninety million dollars in settlements since
the last election. Yes, because of libel and slander and

(04:24):
other malfeasance against Trump in connection with the twenty twenty
four election. George Stephanopolis cost ABC seventy million dollars because
he wrongly called Trump a convicted rapist on Sunday TV.
I can't wait to see what the BBC has to
cough up for doctoring Trump's January sixth, twenty twenty one

(04:47):
speech to make it look and sound like a direct
call for storming the capitol. Cavanaugh also said of Trump,
he is suing the irs for ten billion dollars. If
he wins, he will be taking ten billion and taxpayer
dollars and putting it directly into his own bank account. Yes,

(05:07):
and that's exactly where the money should go if it
was wrongly taken from the taxpayer. I don't care if
it was ten dollars or ten million or ten billion.
I don't care who the taxpayer is. If the money
was wrongly confiscated by the government, it should be returned
with interest. Kavanaugh also blamed Trump and Congress for quote

(05:31):
legislation that is causing healthcare premiums to double for the
average Nebraska family that buys marketplace coverage end quote. No, no, no.
Democrats do not get to blame Republicans for the out
of control cost of Obamacare. Notice how they don't use

(05:52):
the term Obamacare anymore. The price hikes Republicans warned what
happen are now happening. So the left wants to protect
the Obama legacy. The Democrats want to make affordability the
number one issue in the twenty twenty sixth election. They
don't want to admit that Obamacare is the arch enemy

(06:14):
of affordability. My wife and I are on Obamacare. The
way my employer works it, employees purchase coverage in the marketplace,
as Kavanaugh called it, and then the employer subsidizes the
cost fifty to fifty. But just for my wife and
I in good health in our early sixties, we paid
fifteen thousand dollars a year for a thirty thousand dollars

(06:38):
policy that is not great when it comes to coverage.
As my wife keeps reminding me with examples, she's right.
Is Kavanagh ready to endorse a truly market based approach
to health insurance with transparent costs and incentives to minimize
dependence on the healthcare system. I imagine he's more likely

(07:01):
to go the other direction and demand medicare for all
and universal government run health insurance and healthcare. The second
District congressional race is at the heart of Operation Blue
dot Red. The contours of the debate are starting to
take shape. We'll see how it all plays out. Fix
it now chip dot com. That's where you go to

(07:23):
get my book explaining why the law fare cases against
Trump are garbage. It's the book with the Constitution on
the cover. At fixitnow chip dot com. That's check with Chip.
I'm Chip Maxwell. Thank you for listening.