The Gags On US As Donald Trump Pretends To Pivot

Very few people seem to realize that we already built a wall on the southern
border, and its actually working fairly well. Until recent surges from growth
in the economy, more Mexican were leaving than coming in.

You young folks may not recall these days because of cell phones and Netflix, but we used to eagerly wait for the Harlem Globetrotters to come to town so we could rush to the convention center to take in the show, even though the show never really changed at all.

To this day, the Globetrotters are still somehow big time entertainment despite coming to town with essentially the exact same act every single time- for decades.

Of all the magical moments associated with a Harlem Globetrotter game, we all seemed to be on the edge of our seats while wondering, waiting and hoping for that old bucket of water trick that they still do.

You remember the one.  One mischievous teammate chases down another mischievous teammate with a bucket that appears to be water, but is usually just a bunch of paper confetti each time they throw the bucket. Until the very last time, of course, in which they actually throw water on some totally suspecting patron.

You may not suspect it will be you, but you always know someone would get all wet. Aside from the tricks the Globetrotters display on the court, this one is their Russian roulette of show gags, and we just can't get enough of blowing our brains out with anticipation.

This is the equivalent scenario I think about when I try to make sense of what were experiencing with Putin's friend Donald Trump and this stage of the presidential election. Donald Trump does too many interviews for this stage of fund raising, while Hillary does to much fundraising while the press keeps pressing her for interviews. They both seem to do more for the other side than to help themselves when they speak, however, Trump refuses to be gagged while pulling a gag on US.


 Assuming Jill Stein (Green Party) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian) actually get included in the presidential debate, four people debating on stage for one job will turn this basketball game into a circus show, with more dog and pony acts than we've ever seen on a single televised presidential debate stage. The circus is plenty fun, but kind of smelly and it's really risky to work with so many animals.

Neither the Democrats or the Republicans will take the circus risk of sharing their political market share with an outside party by sharing the stage with them and assisting them in the process of stealing the show.

So they won't.

They won't give stage room to their own external damage, even if the externals achieve the 15% threshold that is required by television networks, as both democrats and republicans fully collude on this ball game we are watching and will find a way to box out the other party's candidates one way or another. If Johnson and Stein are really hoping for a stage to perform, they'll both need to build their own.

From my perspective, whether Hillary is the Washington Generals and Trump is the Harlem Globetrotters, or vice versa, I 've long since believed that they are in this game together essentially playing on separate teams but working for the same measured result.

That result being Hillary gets quietly elected and Trump gets to keep yelling and selling a lot of hats and t-shirts. Rumor says that he is also in this thing most likely to make more money via a television network with his fired Fox friend Roger Ailes and  former Breitbart braniac Steve Bannon, not to take a 4-8 year pay cut of epic proportions by becoming our president.

Though we will never see his taxes to know if he is "that" rich or friends with Putin, $400,000 dollars a year is a good job for Obama the community organizer, not Trump. If the Clinton's are expected to dissolve their relationship with their own organization CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) to avoid conflicts of interest while in office, why doesn't Donald have to do the same thing? Wouldn't his presidential photo ops taken from his own golf course  or Trump towers represent a conflict of interest for him too?

It's All About Money

Donald is currently conducting this presidential election like a concert/speaking tour because it was just too damn lucrative to miss the economic opportunity presented to him. As Hillary runs a conventional presidential campaign in which you avoid media interviews until you step on the gas starting after Labor Day, Trump is running a conventional campaign in which you rent out convention halls, even in states that you have NO CHANCE AT WINNING, and milk the media for free marketing so you can sell hats t-shirts and raucous rhetoric.

This Globetrotter comparison explains why the Trumpians are continuing to rush to the convention halls across the nation, hoping to get their shirt and hat, and to have that bucket of confetti tossed all over them too. Mostly they are afraid that a country that was never only theirs, feels like it's slipping from their grip nonetheless.

Wayne Allyn Root for Foxnews.com wrote these words in response to Trump's immigration speech.

"As a conservative, I’ve waited a lifetime for this speech. Why? Because it was a speech that didn’t back down by even one inch. It was a speech aimed at Americans, for Americans, delivered by a proud American, who values American exceptionalism".  In other words, it was a speech for us...not them.

If you are curious why Trump can't, or won't pivot to the softer center, it's because that old bucket gag is what they came to see. It really doesn't matter how many times we've seen that same old gag, it never gets old. Even to this day it remains a mainstay of the Harlem Globetrotters routine, and is the secret, silent reason that people still can't get enough of this team or their act. If for some odd reason they were to eliminate that bucket gag from the act, I'm not sure that people would be as eager to watch the show, or forced to remain on the edge of their seats while doing it.

Build that wall, and make Mexico pay for it has become the bucket gag for Trumpians eager to feel like they are behind a president smart enough and tough enough to fix the problems besetting our land. When you peel back the layers on this mystery, you discover that these folks just want to be entertained. They don't care about a real wall or that the plentiful employers (the true criminals) in America are what generates the migration demand, they just love the comforting passion of a convention hall full of people screaming the same noise as the guy or gal next to him.

What they also probably don't already know is that we've got a wall on the southern border. Granted, all of the wall is actually fencing, and half of the fencing is actually fencing designed to stop vehicles while the other half is taller, barbed pedestrian fencing. But the wall is there and it is complete.

Apparently, the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was originally designated to be handled by the Department of Homeland Security who started the project but quickly went back to congress when the original double fencing requirement proved unreasonable across the entire 700 mile stretch of border.  As a result, they had the Fence Act amended allowing for reasonable adjustments (vehicle fencing) where Homeland Security deemed appropriate.

Before the amendment to the Fence Act, Homeland Security had only produced 36 miles of double fencing and then realized that is was simply overkill to double fence the entire border. Bush passed and amended his own law, yet the wall finally got finished (so to speak) under Obama. (politifact.com)

If and when Trump finally finishes his bigger and better version of a fence, he will need to build unto the existing fencing on our southern border, or build his behind the existing fencing since placing the wall in front would be a real waste of the current fence including all of the time and money spent to put it there.

Don't forget that every time Mexico talks back to Trump about his wall, he will make them pay for the additional 10 feet he'll add to help quench his anger from their defiance. Given his quick tempered nature and the number of years it took to finally build our first fence, Trump's 50 foot wall construction project could be a never ending story.

Sort of like that bucket gag.

Why do we keep running back to see that same song and dance over and over and over, as if there is a mystery to what we are witnessing or what might happen next?  Actually, there is a bit of mystery involved because we never really know when that bucket of confetti will suddenly become water, so you to have to anxiously wait and wonder if this time it will be real.

If you are waiting for Trump to get real and actually appear as if he wants to win the presidency instead of indirectly forcing us to vote for Hillary in fear of him, it won't happen.  In fact, Trump has thrown that real bucket of water a long time ago, and WE're all wet.

Those people who keep going back for more just like to be entertained.

Libertarians Are Seeking Presidency With No Policies

My questions of the Libertarian party have not really changed too much, but the growth in their political positioning has. Gary Johnson and Bill Weld are generally interesting enough to actually be worth worrying about if I were either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump and those two political parties they represent.

But let's not be confused. Johnson and Weld are not even really telling or selling you on any particular platform that they hope you are willing to buy into.  They are feeding themselves from the weight and collective will of the Libertarian party that has progressively groomed themselves for this very day with political concepts pleasing to the palate of would be voters looking to consume something new and revolutionary.  They are also feeding off of our disgust with the other options.

It's been a while since I've written about Libertarians because I started to feel like I was picking on a little kid who knows that they'll be big enough to let you have it one day, but can't figure out how to make it happen now. Their rise has been somewhat recent and extremely rapid as a "live and let live" offshoot of the Tea Party. Libertarians have had moment of sunshine ushered in by the steadfast dedication of the Paul family, Rand Paul and his famous Libertarian father Ron. Had Rand showed the courage to actually run as a Libertarian, perhaps he would be the Gary Johnson for the Libertarian's right now and more positioned to articulate policy plans like ending mass incarceration.

(Articles previously published January 2014)

Libertarian's Carrying Conservative Ideology Into Political Jungle

Libertarian Message Speaks To Everything Except Reality

Rand was not courageous enough to take that leap. Neither were Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, who both found themselves stuck in the midst of a political party that they really had no business being in the midst of to begin with. Trump was fortunate enough to be the beneficiary of  too many years of GOP saber rattling and screaming in a crowded theater about the dangers of Barack Obama.  When those dangers never quite materialized to the level of the hysteria, it gave rise to Obama's approval ratings and a plummeting effect on the people and the election process to follow him.

In hindsight, the Obama's might have given us the last hint of dignity as a nation that we'll see for a while in both the manner in which they campaigned, and the integrity by which they lead this nation.  You may not like how much Barack golfs, but we thought Bush golfed too much too, and we know Trump is fully connected to the game and will spend plenty of time on the course.

In fact, two terms of Hillary might be the best hope we have for not complaining about our president golfing for a while.

I say that because Gary Johnson will be stuck in the weeds whether he is a golfer or not given his decision to stop smoking weed so that he could run for the presidency.

If Johnson has been toking since the 70's, and managed to accomplish as much as he has, do we actually trust him without the weed, or trust that he'll not return to the vice the moment Putin starts acting up?

Will giving up weed force Gary Johnson into more dangerous or embarrassing vices than he otherwise would have pursued as president?

I am now more inclined to find out about his stance on pot, because possessing it caused lots of people to be locked up unnecessarily. Our first admitted pot smoking president may really be the key to fixing some of this unfair incarceration problem.

The bigger problem is trying to determine that possibility or any other potential policy by reading the Libertarian platform.  Like I've said, the damn thing reads like a school book in which the chapters are broken into sections 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and so on. It feels like they originally only had 4 bullet points, but had to extrapolate that out to seem more thoughtful, so they went text book style in the format.

The whole thing includes a preamble and a statement of principles, followed by all of the bullet points which feel like nothing more than explanations to their statements of principles.  In other words, the Libertarian party platform is the most fence straddling piece of nothingness that I have ever seen in presidential politics including bullet point 4.0, "Omissions", which I copied and pasted below for your enjoyment.

4.0 Omissions

Our silence about any other particular government law, regulation, ordinance, directive, edict, control, regulatory agency, activity, or machination should not be construed to imply approval.

The only thing close to real policy prescriptions is their idea to privatize healthcare, retirement (SSI) and education, but no real declaration of whether these departments would be eliminated or only kept for oversight of our new privatized entities who would undoubtedly cut corners for profit if given the unregulated freedom to do so.

With so little policy specifics in the Libertarian platform, it seems the party with the greatest opportunity to break the back of the two party monster, is mostly hoping that it will break on its own.  The campaign approach for Johnson and Weld is basically, if you are looking for something other than Hillary and Trump, check us out. 

Well I did check them out, and reading that platform felt like reading the Libertarian Manifesto and not some distinct plan for how a Libertarian president will actually preside over a fractured two-party congress reticent to put forth a Libertarian agenda when they can't even agree on their own convoluted ideas? Although consensus sounds like a fair approach to governing, consensus around more of the same failed policies of the party's you have replaced would be a waste of our FIRST third party president.

My appreciation for the possibility of Libertarians is strong, but mostly because my hate for two-party politics is stronger, and Libertarians  pose the greatest threat that we've seen yet.  If too many people are way too smart to be tricked by Hillary or Trump, what makes Libertarians think platitudes will suffice? I was originally of the mindset that it would take Libertarians quite a few years to have enough head count to risk an election by splintering off from their republican brethren, until I realized that they could do it now, but are not defining their mission enough to change minds.  If Johnson and Weld can't put more meat behind the bones they call a platform, it will take something tangible in Hillary's emails, along with more of the same from Donald, to actually make the, "choose me instead" Libertarian ticket viable. 

So maybe that's the reason for the platitude platform from the Libertarian ticket.  No sense in divulging to much specificity until you have a real chance of needing to use it.

Our Crazy Uncle Seems Totally Afraid To Win

"She really thought I didn't mind that crying baby"

What isn't hard to understand is the love and understanding that we all have for that crazy uncle in our family.  You know who I am talking about because every family seems to have THAT uncle.

Call him Uncle Donald if you will.

He's that uncle who always seems to say something to infuriate somebody, if not everybody at the same time, though some in the family know how to let him have his way and not poke the bear by trying to censor him.

Usually, our crazy Uncle Donald is aided by a fair amount of liquor to increase the audacity of his offensiveness, but he is perfectly capable of pissing off many, with or without liquor. The liquor is usually just an easy excuse for the kind of stuff they do all of the time anyway, but it also gives us something to excuse him for, until the next time.

After all, crazy Uncle Donald is family, and there really is no way to totally disassociate yourself from family....is there?

It was way back in 1989, with Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. campaigning mightily to stop the impending State legislature pursuit in Louisiana of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.  That was the only other time in which a party attempted to oust one of it's own nominee's. It didn't work and Duke won that seat.
(http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/white-supremacists-feel-inspired-trumps-2016-campaign)

THE LESSON?

Sometimes when you DON'T stand up against your unruly family members, they'll only get more unruly and eventually take over the whole party.

Two years later, however, republicans learned their lesson when Duke attempted to win the Governors seat in Louisiana, but was unsuccessful due to a strong stand of resistance from members of his own party.

David Duke is nothing like crazy Uncle Donald. He is our slick Uncle Duke who is rhetorically capable of convincing you of just about anything with his gift of gab and immense intellectual capacity.  As a black political editorial writer who researches constantly, I have to watch carefully to the amount of time I spend listening to David Duke because he can totally focus on elements that you'll agree with him about, and never reveal the other elements of his intolerant self that resides at the core of his being.

Those who keep up with such things know that our racist Uncle Duke rarely talks about blacks anymore, but is an intense skeptic about the pervasive influence of Jewish money in American life in addition to the 8 billion dollar welfare payment we send to Israel even while Netanyahu spits in the face of our president. Uncle Duke and I do not disagree on this bone of contention, yet he loses me on the race purity mission that elevated him to Grand Wizard. Though he has abandoned the sheet and the hood, what became of all of that hatred?

Whether he continues to espouse such hatred and extremes or not, is a risk that Louisiana voters refused to trust again, as Duke has run for many political offices in Louisiana and beyond, but never won another seat after winning the state legislature seat in 1989.

Louisiana voters, and its republican party, have rejected his form of hatred and turned him into a fringe lunatic lost in the extremes of politics and academia until revived by his recent endorsement of our crazy Uncle Donald.

Although much more lucid a thinker and talented as a orator, Uncle Duke was denounced for turning back the clock on race relations in America. In a crazy bit of political irony, Uncle Donald, far from full fledged denunciation, is FINALLY being seen as the sincere threat to the future of the GOP that he has always been from the moment he claimed the label, and a sincere threat to the reputation of those who continue to love and support him too, much like our crazy Uncle who no one knows how to functionally separate themselves from.

The fact that the GOP is talking about some form of nominee switching intervention is good but sad when you think about the damage they have accepted by waiting so long.  At this point in the conversation, it's hard to know if they will be more damaged with a Trump victory and a path or plan that could be so progressive even Obama will wish he voted for him, or if he and Republicans lose once again and fight with presidential defeat depression while searching for the motivation to  redefine their identity by capturing some of these millions of now bewildered voters.

Hillary has a delicate line to walk on as she seeks to secure enough bewildered voters herself to win the electoral map and the presidency. No race against an opponent so immensely flawed should ever be this darn close, but it is because no one really likes Hillary that much either. At this point in the process, she'll never extend her favorabilities to even that of Mitt Romney, who must be chomping at the bit to defy his families wishes and save the country from Trump by being the secondary option of this GOP intervention plan.

The voters that Clinton must pursue are those particular family members who hate Uncle Donald's crap and might choose to spend more time at the reunion with lying Aunt Hillary- who is only hard to believe, versus crazy Uncle Donald who lies and attacks everybody in sight- but only if you make them choose between the two.

In this election, making people choose between these two is exactly what WE must do.  I say WE because Hillary will insult the voter's she needs while blaming our crazy Uncle on their support of him.  She must continue to treat him in the only way that he understands- with ridicule. Rational debate has little value with crazy Donald. With that insecure Uncle of ours, there is actually nothing better than a little name calling to piss him off and take him off his game. Trump can't focus on the issues while defending himself from name calling or angry Gold Star families. Clarifying his existence in this race by calling him crazy Uncle Donald would achieve a very intentional, two-fold purpose.

While Hillary points out how insidious it is to give our crazy Uncle the most powerful job in the world, WE must keep informing our friends and family that THEY are the reason that he is still sticking around.  Donald is showing as many signs of wanting out as that tomato can boxer who needs to last four rounds to insure he gets paid.  Trump is well past that four round threshold and more likely to lose money and power if this keeps up much longer. If he had hired a trusted corner man, he would have fired him already for not throwing in the towel on this thing.

The only person more shocked that you crazy voters still love the crazy uncle is Trump, because he probably never got involved to actually become president.  The reason why he's running will be a secret to history or one hell of a book if he has the courage to reveal the art of this deal he made with the devil, Hillary, or someone really mad at the GOP.

It's not out of the realm of understanding for our crazy Uncle to be up on a soap box trying to convince us that he is the most talented and brilliant of us all. That is what he does at every party.

The reasons why he still has people supporting him is the reason why I am writing today.

Hitler's rise came absent the balanced informational obstruction of the Internet.  Trump is not so lucky.  If you need to know more about what he is all about, the evidence reads like a clear and present danger.  He is a self serving business man with no evidence of being benevolent or particularly good in business because he refuses to release the only proof of such things, his tax return, calling them all "under audit". In the absence of the only resume that a business man can offer for US to review, let US review the details that are available to us.

Every time I take the time out to complain about the pain in the arse we call Trump, I find myself unable to do so without some element of praise that he deserves too.

He deserves the credit for demonstrating political dominance without financially dominating the process too.  He deserves credit for exposing a delegate system that we had little functional knowledge about.  If the electors in half of the United States go rogue, as the Constitution allows, he might soon give an up close and personal look at the electoral college aspect of the two-party hustle, used to maintain the two-party grip on power. He deserves credit for forcing the conversation to happen on several hot button topics that political correctness had previously silenced, and he deserves a lot of real credit for exposing the cracks and flaws in our system of governance including our immense racial and cultural divides that function as wedges to help maintain and expand those exposed cracks in the foundation.

Stated more clearly, he has helped us to see how terribly racist and divided WE actually are.

If his candidacy is reflective of this nation, it is showing that WE are mean, somewhat vile, vain, full of hatred and polarized beyond our ability to even recognize friends and loved ones when examining them through a political lens. This political season has found millions of our friends and family members getting dropped off our social media friends list- assuming they haven't dropped you first.

For a while, both sides had serious reason, other than favorability ratings, to call the two of these candidates equally bad. Trump's former attack of John McCain and so many others after that, wasn't enough to exclude him from presidential consideration, but his recent attacks on babies and Muslim parents of slain war vets while lying about his relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, has at least clarified that he is uniquely horrible.

Trump is that crazy Uncle we all have, the one we would never imagine helping to become president. If you don't know how to bail out for pride or embarrassment, you are like those folks on the Titanic who realized the carrier didn't have enough life rafts for everybody, so you stand resolute in the no way out scenario you've found yourself in. What you are doing by standing steadfast in the corner of Trump is surely a grand display of courage and determination as you sink down to your slow, icy death.

Crazy Uncle Donald is not only sinking the boat on his own political race, he is destroying the political reputations and careers of everyone that hitches their wagons to him. Most of those people I politically oppose, so Uncle Donald has done something great for me. As for the voters, voters don't have to reveal their voting booth selections even though FaceBook seems to make us think we have to declare a pledge of allegiance to someone so that someone else isn't presumably winning by default.

In the words of Vice President Joe Biden, that is a bunch of malarkey.  We'll never rid ourselves of two-party rule if we remain convinced that any vote outside of one party is an instant vote for the other.  If there is no reason for me to know who you vote for, there is no reason for me to ask or care who you vote for either.  WE use a secret ballot for a reason.  If any of US are truly interested in Making America Great, finally, insuring over 90% voter participation gets us closer to a majority selection and not just a campaign season survivor. As long as voter participation remains stuck at numbers barely over 50% of the population, financial influence can, and does, win an election every time.

Hillary can do herself a ton  of supporters and  loads of Super PAC money a lot of good by championing the reforms (campaign finance, immigration) that Trump has brought to light. But don't get it twisted. Our distrust of Hillary is real, and nothing will instantly convince US that she will fulfill her campaign promises or fulfill that progressive platform after getting elected.  So, instead of blowing a bunch of presumed hot air full of political promises that no one really believes, Hillary must keep dishing the ice on the hot rhetoric of crazy Uncle Donald to help expose him as the crazy Uncle that we all know him as.

If you are still in his corner, you are doing a loyal and honorable thing as a member of America's family, but a horrendous thing for the future of this nation. Nobody is telling you not to love him and keep inviting him to the party.  Just don't make him our president.

Rubio Is Rising. Clinton Is Moderately Progressive

Keep your eyes affixed.  The winners of Iowa (even third placers) will impact the amount of gas the Super PAC's will put into their candidates race car before they pull the plug and find a racer with a better chance at winning.

Did you know that when a caucus room is split evenly between two
prospective candidates for president, the stalemate is broken by a coin flip?

Apparently, Marco Rubio put  quite a bit of effort into his engine to gain the spot that he got from Iowa, and is expected to try a similar win from the back attack to achieve similar success in NH. If you find it somewhat odd for a candidate to fight like crazy just to be a second or third, you don't get how peculiar caucusing is. In fact, caucusing is almost exactly like Super PAC'ing, in which the biggest groups try to promote a viable candidate, but must bow out and shift their support elsewhere once their first choice loses viability, lest they risk wasting their support.

Be it several crowds of people caucusing in some high school gym, or several piles of money gathered together in the name of a Political Action Committee, this game is about finding financial gamblers to keep alive your political aspirations, and keeping that PAC behind your back for a long enough time to survive the attrition of the process.

Unless you are Donald Trump of course, who is engaging in mostly merchandise sales and speaking event ticket sales to fund his effort to be president, on top of being really rich to begin with.

Trump remains the main candidate that is NOT beholden to any financial engine as his means of getting his message across. Bernie Sanders is in a similar position with his, NO SUPER PAC, small donor effort to upset Hillary, but even he is raising and spending money in lock step with other candidates who feel that they must spend to survive early in this race.

Jeb Bush actually spent more money in Iowa ($2800 per vote that he won) than everyone combined, only to end up in....in (what place did Jeb end up in?).

Let me repeat that in case you missed it.

Did the only Libertarian quit because he
wanted to, or did his supporters pull the plug ?

Jeb Bush.....all by himself......spent more money in Iowa than all of the other GOP candidates combined, comparative to the votes that he received for his spending. Only Bush and Mike Huckabee exceeded $500 spent per vote received in the final outcome of Iowa, bringing into question the value of the increased levels of spending allowed under new campaign finance laws.

Granted, Iowa and New Hampshire might be worth the spend, as they are critical testing grounds for whether or not your campaign has the legs to endure 48 more states worth of caucusing.
As a result of the failures in Iowa, Rand Paul has suspended his
campaign-  as did Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee,
and democrat Martin O'Malley.

Did O'Malley know he was leaving before he agreed to that last debate that originally included him, but wasn't originally guaranteed to include Sanders?  Might O'Malley have tipped his hand to the DNC or Hillary?  Both Hillary and the DNC needed O'Malley just to schedule the debate, and to continue on with it had Sanders pulled a Trump and not shown up.

O'Malley just so happened to stay in the race long enough to split the democrat vote in Iowa, making it more possible for Hillary to squeak out a narrow victory there. Those 7 precincts that O'Malley garnered  in Iowa would have been up for grabs between Hillary and Bernie had O'Malley quit prior to Iowa, which could have made the outcome and the narrative of Iowa drastically different.

Why Is Iowa So Full Of It?

Iowa is nearly as littered with right wing fundamentalism as it is countered with far left leaning liberals (I said Iowa was full of it).  Although the evangelicals clearly dominate the population, Iowa's last 3 selections from the GOP have yet to survive the primary season to become the nominee.

Does that mean Iowa doesn't really know what they are talking about?

Oh, contrare.

What happens in Iowa is what we are talking about now, and in many ways will dictate what we talk about in the days to come.  How candidates finish in NH will be contrasted against the success or failure of Iowa.  If you can't appeal to either of these polar opposite voting blocks, you probably don't have enough appeal to stay in the race.

Exiting NH, the GOP field is supposed to whittle down drastically.

Supposed to.

In a normal world, Trump was supposed to pay the cost for not having a real ground attack in Iowa, and for not really being an evangelical in a state that mostly selects evangelicals as its choice for president. As it turned out, Mr. 'No ground game' Trump, was only 4 points away from joining the list of previous republican winners in Iowa that would have included Pastor Pat Robertson, Pastor Mike Huckabee, ultra evangelical Senator Rick Santorum and Trump.

As it turned out, ultra evangelical Ted Cruz went all in (probably cheated) just to beat Trump by 4 points and Rubio by 5.

Rubio raced in from the rear and nearly rear ended Cruz and Trump.  He did so well in fact, that Rubio is now describing Iowa like that race car driver who gets interviewed during the middle of a race delay while seated several cars back, but clearly the driver in the fastest car.

Actually?  That describes Rubios position perfectly, but let's put that into perspective some.

Rubio and Cruz finished exactly as the polls said they would.  Well, Cruz actually fell to second place in the polls during the closing weeks of Iowa, and engineered his own last minute ground attack to inspire his evangelical base in Iowa to help him do what he, nor Rubio, will likely do in NH.

 In other words, they both must celebrate and bloviate Iowa's success just to endure NH.  If NH becomes the slaughtering house evangelical candidates expect it to be (many long shot candidates don't even bother going to NH), Iowa will be the memory and the rhetoric that they hold unto as they press a gauze on their wounds and press on to Nevada or South Carolina- two upcoming states with polar opposite electorates much like Iowa and NH.

Was this "Official Public Record" stating the caucus habits
of Iowans and their neighbors a slimy approach to politics?
It turns out to be a ruse by Cruz to stimulate turnout.

Ben Carson was one of those evangelical's that did not head straight to NH, but went home to Florida for some rest and relaxation, and to plan for a March 15 primary victory in Florida instead of heading straight to an unfriendly state right after an untimely, possibly even unfair defeat.

According to both the Carson and the Trump campaigns (Carson's wife heard this happening herself), the Cruz campaign team shared and tweeted the heading home to Florida news (via a CNN report) about Carson in the middle of the caucus, apparently to scare Carson supporters into thinking that Dr. Carson was posturing for an exit, and Cruz was the next evangelical in line for those votes.

Cruz's team doesn't really deny sharing Carson's CNN divulged itinerary, but denies doing it as a statement about Carson's future candidacy. Although the mere mentioning of it during caucus voting feels shady, and sends some red flags as to how desperate Cruz was to live up to his Iowa expectations. The fake voter violation piece from the Cruz campaign team creates even more integrity concerns than the misinformation does.


Trump has tweeted the Iowa results as "illegal" and "stolen" by the Cruz team, calling for a new election. While many people feel that this is just more Trump spin to help rhetorically nullify the Cruz victory and the Trump defeat (Cruz call it a Trumpertrantrum), the Carson team is the team impacted most, and they are verifying the attack as having happened as well.

In the grand scheme of things, this is the season of expectations and of assessing the ability of each individual candidate to live up to, or exceed their individual expectations as a candidate relative to each state primary.  What evangelicals candidates achieve down South or in Iowa won't necessarily work in blue states. Meeting or exceeding the spot expected of you is about the extent of what it takes to win right now which basically means, keeping your donors intact.

Consequently, Rubio not only maintained his donors and his level of expectation, he equalled the production of the venerable Donald Trump.  What no one seems to accept is that this (Iowa, that is) speaks more positively about Trump than it does Rubio or even Cruz who mostly only did what Iowa has consistently done before.  Choose the evangelical.

If Hillary can simply minimize the impact of being in Bernies
backyard, she can win NH like Rubio did.  By default.
Hey Bernie....you barely beat me.  Hey Bernie.....Hey, Hey!!

Trump finished near the top, but was NEVER expected to really get people to caucus for him.

Hillary might have a similar struggle in NH where Sanders holds a huge lead in the polls. But for reasons of low expectation purely, Hillary has an opportunity to dance the Rubio if she can just do a little better than we think she can. Her ground game in Iowa suggests that NH will be worth the watch.

On either side of the isle, the conversation comes down to headcount.  Too many heads in the GOP  might soon put all but Trump down for the count, since Trump's stump speech is the only one noticeably different than any other GOP candidate in the field; and different is working for him right now.

As for the Dem's?  The lack of a substantive lead has forced Hillary to beg for more debates so she can contrast her message against that of Bernie Sanders. On one level, she has moved to the left of Sander's (gun control), but mostly she's claiming that he's too far left to be of functional value to the party or the real world, reminding Bernie that those rich Americans are Americans too.

Sanders has countered with a claim that Clinton is doing too much of a progressive tap dance as it relates to her campaign rhetoric despite close relationships with Washington's big money machines. Neither of them really win the primary season having to track too far to the left if they then struggle to find their way back to being progressively moderate, or moderately progressive enough for a general election.

For now, most of us are fully confused about what either term really means anymore


Are WE truly ready to take on the powers that be and take over our nation once and for all as Sanders suggests we do? Or will we calm down and let the powers be, but pressure them to be a little more fair? And which of the remaining candidates (other than Trump and Sanders), will show the moxie to call out big money while also begging them to help fund their elections? 

Popcorn please.  This should get good.

Trump Won Iowa, Sanders Proves Socialism Okay

Nobody really wants to hear me say this, but I have to keep it SquareBiz for those of you who need it.

Trump won Iowa.

No really.

Trump won Iowa, and it wasn't even close.  Well, it was close, but not in the way that you think. Iowa is AS full of religious fundamentalism as any state in the union.  Not only is Iowa full of it (so to speak), it is full of religico's who are highly politically active as well- possibly more so than any other fundamentalist spot in America.

In other words, betting Ted Cruz to win in Iowa would have been a wasted bet in Vegas because you would have had to put down $3,000 just to win $100.  I just made up those odds, but you get my point.  Iowa chose Mike Huckabee two cycles ago, and Rick Santorum during the last presidential election primary/caucus season. because the Tea Party has owned Iowa for some time now.

Polls might have threatened to hand Iowa to Trump, but they didn't have a great way of knowing who would actually leave their home and caucus for Trump.

Now we know, and the numbers are staggering.

Cruz might have stopped Trump from finishing on top like he claims he always does, but he barely kept Iowa from shifting itself away from its religious roots and firmly into the area of social dissent with many other parts of the American electorate.

If there is any reason for Marco Rubio to be doing victory laps over a third place finish (and there is), Trump has just as much a cause for applause for finishing second in a place that his heathen arse should have never finished so high, but he did.

Without the benefit of a real ground game in a state that he knew would be a waste of money to fight in, Trump still came up second.  Cruz committed mightily to the outcome he got, and should also consider the Rubio result to be a considerable challenge to his evangelical claim over the GOP.  As for ground game, the same could be said for Clinton who had a representative in each of Iowa's 1681 democrat caucusing precincts.

Hillary and Cruz worked like crazy to insure the Iowa outcomes that they sorely needed.  Trump and Bernie Sanders will be hard to beat in New Hampshire, so a loss in Iowa too would have been a rough start for Hillary, too rough in fact for either to allow for such an outcome.  So she didn't lose, and neither did Cruz. 

But they almost did.

Did Cruz win by a wide enough margin to celebrate?

Rubio can feel happy about the large portions of Cruz's voters that had to be a part of the results he enjoyed last night.  Yet if Rubio has any legitimacy to his joy (and he does), than Trump and Sanders should be sipping champagne too.

From my perspective, they answered the question of how loud will the voice of the angry populist actually be in this upcoming election.  Will unusual voters show up to do something that they've rarely done before?


After our first sampling, it is clear that they will be pretty damn loud if we heard their voices all the way from fundamentalist Iowa. 

Pretty damn loud indeed.

What If Trump Poll'ers Are Actually Voter's Too? Are WE Moving Closer Or Further From Democracy?

I am philosophically torn about this collision course we are on, assuming no one can stop what Donald Trump's been doing for the past 6 months. Lately, he's gone all-in on the tactic of fear, and for now, this too is working for him.

Most believe that what is working at this stage will hurt him in the next.  Nonetheless, he is winning the game and he is changing parts of it at the same time. In the next stage, Trump could take US all on a full fledged collision course with the power of the party establishment and it's layers of protections installed by- and for- the two political parties that created the electoral game to begin with. Trump is smart enough to understand this, but he will need to be a genius to bring it down as a third party candidate, or overtake it from within to become the next GOP nominee absent establishment consent.

If WE finally took down that divisive confederate flag because of it's capacity to inspire hate and the death of the Emmanuel 9, you would think that the republican establishment could take down Trump. Except, of course, WE did nothing to remove the ideas or the people who fought to raise that toxic, anti-American flag in the first place. The people, their thoughts, and that flag still fly.

If you need your answer to Donald Trump, don't forget that WE
never actually removed the confederate flag from S. Carolina, a
state that has Donald Trump clearly winning their primary. 

Trump still owns the GOP polls too, and whether you are editorializing tacit admonishment of him, or leading off your news program to exploit him for ratings,  Trump is at the center of our media universe. The only break we take from him comes for a day or two during a natural disaster or terrorist massacre, and those days he merely falls from the lead. As he repeatedly insists that he is doing all of this to "Make America Great Again", few of US fully agree with his interpretation of what great looks like, how what he's doing could be so great if so many are so embarrassed by it; and have WE ever actually realized true greatness without realizing true equality?

All that being said, Trump is past being an anomaly and has moved into becoming a full fledged test of our fractured republic.  He is the conductor on this inevitable collision course with our system of delegates and electors; the same system that allowed George W. Bush to win a disputed election over Al Gore in which Gore actually won the popular vote, but- thanks to slow lines, hanging chad's and election laws- still lost the election.

Although most of US voted to make it happen, I am not certain that WE deserved an Al Gore presidency.  We probably only deserve the repercussions of about half of our eligible voters taking part.  Without enough people who care to say yes or no either way, it is likely that WE've earned our rigged electoral vote and voter suppression efforts across the land instead of a more democratic 'count the vote' , everybody votes, system of voting participation that could help us choose a leader and maybe even address gun violence once and for all.

For better or for worse, WE didn't prove ourselves ready or worthy of president Al Gore going full bore into his climate change agenda. Despite never before seen flooding in Missouri- in the middle of winter- we remain more afraid of Gore's global warming agenda than global warming itself.  Which, like gun violence, seems an easier problem to dispute than defeat.

Fear of fixing our fractured republic is how we ended up with two terms of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, 9-11, extreme deficits from an expensive, endless war, and a worldwide economic collapse that our home finance banking system caused. Oh yeah, let's not forget the deeper chasm of distrust between Islam and the West that is feeding the Jihad and leaving our world more unpredictably dangerous and more scary than before Cheney and Bush promised they would fix it.

That fear has returned despite the immense efforts of President Barack Obama, who has kept us fairly safe while repairing broken bridges with Islam around the world. Obama's community organizer, voter turnout skills have also clarified to many common people the power of the populace at the same time that it inspired his awestruck opponents, still unsettled by their defeat at his hands. Consequently, whether you are for him or against him, this president has shined a light on the power of establishment approval (bagging delegates) and the necessity of an overwhelming voter turnout to encourage (not insure) an equitable outcome.

The dark side to this story is that having some form of a count the vote system in place right now instantly makes Donald Trump's pursuit to be our next president much more scary and not just terribly annoying. And while all of his divisive Trumpeting feels quite scary, our greater fear should be the power of establishment politics that makes Trump's chances virtually impossible.  If he truly represents the voice of as many Americans as it appears, then democracy says that WE deserve a Trump presidency.  In a representative republic, those who finance the game control the players.

Trump knows this because he was the Big Money that paid for elections and bought influence, sending some of his own big money to players on both sides of the game.  (View this Big Money video) This is also why Trump won't take a penny from Big Money donors, and wants you to know every time they offer it to him.


What remains somewhat scary is that a whole lot of my moderate friends, family and neighbors, are totally grooving to Trump's song and dance. Many middle of the road'ers, who don't really follow politics until campaigns or scandal, understand the words and feelings that Trump's been shouting to maintain his lead in the GOP polls. The truth is that Trump listens very closely, and he actually heard you tweet these fears and frustrations first.  Trump is striking a chord with so many because he is basically retweeting what he heard you say, and what he thinks you meant.


WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??

To be frank, we all understand where the fear is coming from. Most of US have considered the question of these new strains of Jihadi extremism seeking claim over Islam's identity?  If you also understand the Christian Crusades, the Salem witch hunts or the KKK, you likely know enough already to explain this fight over the face of Islam too.

      (Al-Shabaab's Trump recruiting video)

It's not entirely different than the fight over the face of the GOP.  Each of the recent extensions of right wing ideology (Tea Party, Libertarians, and now Trumpians) agree on the necessity of a platform of extreme ideas to save their party and the nation from inevitable ruin. Unfortunately, that's where republicans depart. Who, or how the GOP paves a way forward is torn between Love of God extremism versus Smaller Government extremism and the tug-o-war to prove each version of extremism more right.

Extreme views breed extreme behaviors, and millions of moderate, reasonable lover's of America, who also consider themselves Christian, remain tormented by their personal intolerant interpretations of scripture, and a fear that America is moving away from its intolerant Christian roots by allowing other extreme roots- with similar behaviors of intolerance- to grow right in front of our face.

As ISIS begs Obama and the West to meet them in the field of battle for ground war, they themselves hide within the community of innocent bystanders as a protective cover. These bandits are mostly a gang of punks and thugs with really cool video recruiting skills and religious zealot leaders exercising their own extreme interpretation of scripture, while recruiting the angry son's and daughter's of the world to handle the martyrdom so they can continue spreading extreme ideas. Whether WE the People of America are ever going to counter them with real war or with better videos containing better ideas, this fight, and our plan, must ultimately be debated and approved within the halls congress.

One major reason for the rise of Trump is a congress that has strategically chosen to "Do Nothing" valuable if Barack Obama might gain legacy points from it.  Even attempting to  reverse their do nothing tactic is internally viewed as an instant waste of all the damage they caused by doing nothing in the first place.

This is probably why the recent bill overturning of Bush's landmark "No Child Left Behind" law was mostly missed by the public.  For this congress to turn tail now and push forward the necessary legislation that could help move the country forward (infrastructure bill, immigration bill, ACA reforms) would invalidate the central mission of minimizing the Obama legacy at all cost.

Meanwhile, WE the People, give blind consent to this type of congressional terrorism when only 50-60% of America stands up to say that we believe in the power of our vote to begin with. Without most of US helping to exercise leadership through our vote, all of US become the sheep of blind and bull headed congressional shepherds.

Vote!  

Be Heard!

An ideal democracy demands that everyone be heard before congress can act accordingly? 

It might seem fool hearty and somewhat melancholy to dream of the day that most of US vote, and America actually lives up to the purpose of its founding.  But dreams are what inspire every idea, and democracy is an idea that deserves a proud, functioning example somewhere in this world. Why not US?

Can You Destroy Ideas Without Eliminating Thought?

How about this idea?  Only Love can conquer Hate.

To those who've been thinking about destroying an ideology (Sharia Law perhaps) regardless of how it might spark the next World War, I would have to admit that Trump is a breath of fresh air.  Mostly it is hot air, but even hot air feels fresh when you are suffocating from fear and in desperate need of both oxygen and answers to tough questions.

I am saddened that anybody close to me, next door perhaps, is pushing Trump's poll numbers to be what they are. But mostly this stuff is disrupting my sensibilities. Does Trump get to be the one to finally challenge, maybe dismantle the electoral and the two party game as we know it? Together, they conspire to be the leading obstacles against the dream of democracy for America, a nation founded on the dream of democracy.

Our electoral system allows for the type of political collusion that could actually become necessary to stamp down Trump, or any fascist, and keep them from taking over a party convention and eventually the face of America as well. Party delegates won't want Trump to continue going rogue, yelling toxic rhetoric under the republican umbrella, but they are even more afraid of him trying to Make America Great Again through a third party run. Trump himself actually wants no part of that third party thing either. As a third party candidate, he must try to accumulate unattainable delegate support for any hope of graduating from America's electoral college- which will be harder to achieve than his vaunted Wharton degree.

Rand Paul is a devout Libertarian (whatever that means). But it was due to Trump, not Paul, that the GOP created that pledge of party allegiance, and the only reason they are threatening a brokered convention as well. Trump is also the only reason that establishment GOP candidates are pressuring New Hampshire's "first of" primary status for having the audacity to allow him to lead their polls and potentially win their primary. Apparently, the GOP establishment can't afford to let NH vote rogue without a sufficient counter threat against them.

If Trump can win Iowa (not likely) or NH (fairly possible), he legitimizes his run beyond his current 39% nationwide polling that appears to be his ceiling for now.  Romney actually held strong at 45% during large portions of his run, yet still remained under constant assault from the establishment GOP that feared he couldn't win a general election polling so low among his own party.  They were right that Romney was wrong, but Trump will not win a general election either without garnering the support of a decisive majority in his own party.

We know for certain that a capitulating moderate republican like Romney couldn't win the general, and we highly suspect that an internal rogue candidate won't be allowed to overtake the GOP convention without a fight. So how exactly does any external third party candidate overtake preordained, two party delegates and electors that are enlisted to help force feed us candidates of the two-party choosing?


If you research the parameters of this electoral business, here is how the federal government describes the electoral college of collusion that we use to choose a president.

"There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their States. Some States, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by State law and those bound by pledges to political parties." (from archives.gov)  http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html#restrictions

26 states in America have laws or pledges forcing some form of a democratic distribution of electoral votes. What these elector laws or party pledges don't erase is the fact that all of the current electors  and delegates are selected from within the two-party design.  As for those remaining 24 states?  They have no laws at all to insure the democratic distribution of the votes from their state. In other words, each of these state's electors are free to go rogue, and must be planning to do so if talks of a brokered convention have begun, something that hasn't been done by either party in 60 years.

Keep in mind, however, that our sacred electors only become a  relevant factor once candidates have survived the primary season to become a party nominee. Before we whittle the 2016 race down to two (or three) final candidates, the party delegates could also go rogue and rage against the state primaries and caucuses, forcing the selection of a nominee to be brokered (negotiated) again and again until a nominee, approved by the delegates emerges.

This is the threat that the GOP has made towards Donald "the rogue" Trump, and the reason why Trump is threatening a third party run in response, which could split the conservative vote in two and deliver a death nail to the GOP's chances of winning the presidency. For Trump to pull off a third party run, it must involve peeling away voters from both sides of the political spectrum complete with a massive voter turnout effort detailing how our electoral game is already rigged against US, especially when we fail to vote.  Trump is already doing this against campaign finance and Political Action Committee's (PAC's) who launder Big Money towards today's campaigns and candidates.

Electors can ignore the will of voters, so electors own the vote. Ultimately, either WE own our own votes, or WE don't, and only a serious third party candidacy (which demands voter turnout) can unveil this shameful electoral truth to US all. Shameful like the millions of dollars Jeb Bush might be wasting away on a futile campaign. Unless, of course, its the Florida boys (Jeb Bush and  Marco Rubio) that Big Money supporters are using the brokering threat to save.

It may or may not happen in 2016, but eventually a significant third party candidate is going to dominate the popular vote and fully disrupt the manner in which we assign and distribute electoral votes anyway. 

I prefer that the long awaited privilege of pulling the curtain on OZ, would go to presidential candidates Lawrence Lessig,  Jill Stein, or perhaps Bernie Sanders who proudly declares himself a democratic Socialist. If each of these candidates, pursuing distinctive and unique platforms, refuse to pursue them as a Third Party candidate, what does that say about the viability of third party candidacy? Any serious presidential candidate understands that the delegates and electors game make it a strong necessity to force feed their candidacy into one of the two political machines instead of chasing after third party support without a mechanism for harnessing delegates and electors to make the run viable.

Lately, Sanders is openly courting  the moderate middle class Trump's supporters, while simultaneously forecasting his expectation of Trump's demise. Gobbling up Trump's left behind's would almost certainly demand Sanders also consider a third party run instead of hoping and wishing that those right leaning moderates will cast their votes to the democrat party. As a third party candidate, Sanders free's up a lot of moderate voters to express their anger at both failed parties of congress via voter turnout.

To the GOP, voter turnout feels like political terrorism.  That is mostly because so many segments of the general populace get force fed into progressivism due to republican talks of fence building, Muslim banning, or when they stand behind county clerks that deny gay Americans their Constitutionally earned rights. In fact, voter turnout is political terrorism, but it is terrorism against whoever designed our rigged electoral system and whoever keeps it in place. Extreme voter turnout will expose the cracks in the electoral game, in our outdated voting machines and methods, and in the snake filled, mirky waters of the campaign finance hustle.

It was roughly eight years ago when Barack Obama won his party nomination and became our president by overwhelming Hillary Clinton with strong delegate support, and  his social media, voter turnout ground machine that revolutionized the meaning of ground game forever.  Back in August, when Joe Biden was still threatening a run at the presidency, Hillary was mostly able to dissuade Joe using the same approach, divulging that she had already secured a significant number of the necessary super delegates it will take to become the party's nominee, and revealing her Obama style voter turnout machine. Sanders will remain a political pest as long as he stays in the race, but Trump is usurping the importance of the primary and forcing the nation into an early general election war of words, thoroughly diminishing the stature of every other GOP candidate in the process.

Is there a chance that Trump is actually just  trying to shake
up our entire view of the presidential process we accept?

Assuming it is now safe to say that Trump is NOT an enigmatic internal plant of the Clinton family creation, but an actual republican candidate with massive moderate voter support, the GOP establishment will have little choice but to broker their convention just to avoid the long term risk of fully signing the face of their party over to such a toxic republican, without a reasonable fight to avoid it and save their party's presidential future.

Could Bernie win a 3rd Party bid too? He already thinks he could 
take over Trump supporters and give Hillary a repeat defeat.

I've long since believed that WE needed someone to come along and disruptively test the electoral college system into it's own dismantling, though I never really saw it being someone so disruptive.






Trump could be on the verge of inspiring America's largest and laziest political group, non-voting  moderates, into showing up on his behalf, shaking our whole system of democracy into instant re-examination and potentially legislative change too. Moderate voters who typically stay home, won't take too kindly to engaging in another big waste of time like they did during Bush .v. Gore, when several voting area's and thousands of people did not make it through the lines to cast a vote, or lost their vote to a hanging chad.

When this is all over, Trump's pursuit of the popular vote, absent the use of Big Money's money, and potentially without much delegate support either, could actually instigate "count the vote" measures by federally mandating state delegates and electors to follow the popular vote of their state.

Such a Constitutional change in voting, along with simplified voting for all, could inspire 80% or better voter participation and actually move US closer to the democracy WE deserve.  It could also be the very thing that makes way for a president Trump one day. Whether you love or hate that idea, in a true democracy, you will get exactly what you deserve and not just the Big Money puppets that Big Money offers up for us to choose from.  Until some nation in this world shows the courage and integrity that a true democracy demands, the idea of democracy remains theoretical supposition.

Why Not US?

Today's Gun Battle: The Reality Versus The Rhetoric

The reality of guns is simply not matching the rhetoric anymore.

The reality is that responsible users use guns responsibly, but fear ignites gun purchasing for purchasing sake and doesn't insure responsible ownership as an absolute necessity of ownership.

The reality is that gun lovers mostly blame the stupid gun owners and the criminals who use them (for obvious reasons) so as to misdirect the blame that was never pointed at them in the first place.

The reality is that 85% of gun owners actually agree with doing something reasonably different about gun ownership and background checks, but the rhetoric doesn't allow.

The rhetoric says that more guns out there is the best way to deal with the potential danger of the guns we already have out there.

The rhetoric says that only law abiding citizens will follow new restrictive laws and not the criminals.  I shake my head at the very notion of that idea since Webster's dictionary calls a criminal "one who disobeys the laws", which I would assume to include laws regarding gun ownership. By that reasoning, no law applies to the criminal element of society.

Can we at least get most of the criminal guns off of the street with some level of success that reduces street deaths by gunfire?  The Australian plan of offering a "hefty" buy back price to street criminals for those weapons would take some guns off of the street, but the means by which they got there in the first place has to be addressed as well.

Is The Gun Industry Supposed To 
Be Self Sustaining Like Farming?

Weapons in Mexico are almost exclusively created and purchased in the USA, and almost never under legal means.  So unlike weed-  which can be grown almost anywhere in the course of 100 days- weapons don't just grow out of the earth.  They are engineered, serial labeled, packaged and shipped under strict tracking for an end destination that isn't currently tracked very firmly at all.

Way too many liberal gun laws (Texas) allow firearms to be purchased under the darkness of night and lost into the growing world of firearms in America and South America. We know who created them and when, but can't always pinpoint who has them now.  And our laws currently say, that's okay.

If this one broken reality could be the only change that we make, we would have taken a major step forward. Unfortunately, the rhetoric works to maintain laws that say any person who owns a gun should have the right to sale that gun without hoop or hurdle, to whomever and whenever they please....because this is America. Most laws expect the purchaser to register that weapon under their name (like you do with a sale of a car), but nothing insures the step, allowing guns to get lost in the shuffle.

Suddenly, what seems like a reasonable idea gets lost in the swirl of fear and anger laced comebacks that are rooted in things that force you to peel back the onion skin even further to make sense of it all.

If you mention restricting mentally ill from the danger of themselves, the company line against that is a recognition that very few confirmed  (diagnosed) mentally ill folks have committed these crimes and the confirmed crazy but dealing with it folks don't want to be made a target of  our displaced frustration with senseless killings at the hands of just a few of their demented young brethren.

If you then switch the target of the argument onto assault weapons and weapons typically catered for environments of war, the crux of the true debate might finally reach the surface.

Most gun lovers have been convinced by the rhetoric that they need to uphold a Constitutional concern of the government moving to overtake the individual by taking away their guns first.  They are not focused on the reality that an entire block of neighbors who all have multiple AR-15's, wouldn't be able to hold back the military force that exists in today's America versus the single shot musket world that wrote the damn Constitution.

Words (rhetoric) are clearly powerful. Much more powerful than guns, yet they crumble in the face of reality.  Gun lobbyists are keeping their harvest  and production of guns ripe and fervent from season to season with distorted perceptions created by powerful rhetoric of fear.

Most gun owners who come to the end of the line with the reality of the 85% concession on background checks, will reticently draw the line back, but only a little bit with their well trained 'agree to disagree' rhetoric that goes: "if you don't want guns in your home, that's fine....just keep your hands off of mine".

Does that also include your bullets?  In California, a measure is moving forward to require background checks on the actual deadly parts of guns (bullets) instead of fighting the war with gun owners over the encasement of the bullets. California is not only chasing to deal with the access to ammunition, they are doing it using the same ballot initiative approach that brought medical marijuana to California. With technology available to uniquely assign bullets to the owner of a gun (microstamping), limiting access to death pellets is a reasonable next step towards addressing the reality of gun growth, the challenge of tracking gun deaths in America in the ongoing effort to solve crime and reduce gun deaths.

Direct Democracy?

Whilealso admitting to some drawbacks, California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom called laws that permit state ballot initiatives, Direct Democracy.  I personally call it the way in which America stops fearing its own government and finally recognizes our capacity to govern ourselves while modernizing our sacred Constitution for times like these.

Our voice is way too loud in this digital era for Congress to hold the will of the people hostage to the power of  rhetoric, generated by the gun lobby. Yes, over reach is always a risk during government intervention efforts. But not more risky than continuing to insist that doing nothing can possibly make something change.