How will that "don't vote for any of them" plan work out actually?
I had a rather heated response to this question that I posed when I posed it in a FB post, but I think it deserves to be asked again, and in a more thoughtful way.
In order to frame this question, it's important that I ignore the defense of Hillary because I'm doing my darndest to be more sensitive to those of you who've decided that nobody is worth your vote this time around.
I'm going to disregard that Bush (the son) had 13 embassy attacks resulting in 66 deaths including 3 American diplomats and 22 embassy workers. I'll do the same ignoring of the 10 attacks under Ronald Reagan resulting in 318 deaths including 1 US Ambassador, 18 CIA officers and 254 Marines. I can even forget the fact that Bush never had an investigation as a result of the deaths, and Reagan only had one.
None of that matters when the people telling you that Hillary is a murderer are convinced that she is the reason they are dead. The 13 investigations have taken these Hillary haters off of her email trail for the purpose of finding blame over Benghazi, but they still need a Wikileaks to prove some form of pay to play with their very charitable organization, CGI (Clinton Global Initiative).
Keep in mind that the email Hillary's opponents are seeking for pay to play proof is a connection only made possible because THE CLINTON'S HAVE RELEASED THEIR TAXES AND THE BOOKS TO THE CHARITY.
Let me say this again in another way.
In order for me to believe what you are saying about that evil Hillary and her horny husband Bill, I have to connect some yet to be found email, or yet to be authenticated Wikileaks, to the open books that they've provided for everyone to see, just like most presidential candidates do.
I am suspending belief in all that I've just mentioned about Hillary's open documents, and I will equate this yet to be found open book crime with whatever Donald has told us about his closed books. For the sake of argument, I am trusting what a Russian dictator has shared from people's private files (will it be okay if they release any nude photo's since some of you are okay with the rest of this stuff?) and I am scouring through all of it like the gospel truth, trying to connect it all back to THE OPEN DOCUMENTS THAT THE CLINTON'S PROVIDED TO EVERYONE.
For the purpose of this article, and this question, I am ignoring the obvious differences between these two candidates and taking them to be the exact same Bozo's that some dear friends and family have called them.
Now that I've separated myself from my own distorted reality in exchange for your more realistic one, I am now truly, really and sincerely ready to consider the idea of doing the exact same thing as some of you and not vote for anyone as well.
My question is- before I make protest posters or write up blogs to sell the rest of America on the value and virtue of this approach- what is the value and virtue of this approach?
What would be gained if only me and about 600 more people that I can convince join in the "No Vote" ideology? What happens if every American finally see's the light and bows out of the presidential vote too? Other than the Congress being forced to choose for US, doesn't the process of bowing out allow the remaining voters- whoever they may be- to decide which president the rest of US lives with?
That's not really a question because the answer is obvious. Of course, the people that vote are the people that choose for all of us. That is not really a debatable topic even though it sounds like extortion if you are as firm about the right to "Not Vote" as Colin Kaepernick is about taking a knee.
I am not debating the right to take a knee on an anthem or an election. I am asking the value of it so that I can decide if I will join in myself. As it stands, I am willing and ready to sell the benefits of not voting just as I've sold the value of taking a knee and every other protest that came before it.
I'm not personally interested in taking a knee against the flag as my way to improve it, but I appreciate the knee people for the conversations and the situational awareness that must happen every time someone gets into another heated debate over the virtue of saluting the flag versus protesting the ways in which the flag has failed.
Protest is important, and comes in many forms and fashions. I just don't understand this "Not Voting" protest, very much.
I can advocate for this not voting thing in the same vein of free expression if I could just put into words what this decision expresses. With barely 50% of Americans voting these days, how does reducing those numbers to less than 50% and allowing less than a majority decide for all of the rest make sense? What is the magical percent of lack of involvement that will finally make bureaucrats listen and respond to our frustration?
Like it or not, we are all stuck with the president that the majority (or plurality) selects. voters who sit out might hope for more obstructionist government, but even that doesn't change the impact and direction of the Executive Orders that will ensue or the Supreme Court selections that are still the privilege of whoever wins the presidency.
Should Bashir Al-Assad be removed and what happens with Russia if we do it. Our next president must soon decide if America will honor the Syrian no-fly zone that Russia claimed to establish against ISIS.......who has no aircraft.
No, you do not have to exercise your privilege to vote because freedom provides you that privilege. You will, however, have to accept Roe v Wade if the wrong side wins but you want abortion to become a crime. Conversely, your gay friends who recently got married may have their nuptials annulled by the results of this election, depending on who wins.
You don't have to choose from the best of the bunch or write in your own choice if that seems like too much of a long shot. You don't even need to show up if none of this seems like it's worth your time, but you will live with whoever WE choose for you, so please don't curse and whine at friends and family that choose your next president for you. WE invited you to come to the store with US and pick out the best watermelon available. Sorry if we choose the sour one over the seedy one.
We'll be heading back to the store in four years, just so you know.
Will nations that normally censor US choose to broadcast Trump's rigged election claims?
I'm not sure if I can really write an expose more significant than my headline, but I'll do my best.
Donald Trump's rigged election claims are the most damaging blow to the image of America and our potential for future greatness since Donald Trump won the nomination. No really. The world, manipulated by hacked information from Russian president Vladimir Putin himself, laughed at US just for allowing that television show hustler to get this far. Now even Putin isn't laughing because Trump has essentially declared that the democrats and Hillary Clinton are about to win the election the exact same way that he would do it.
What Trump is way too uneducated or unsuspecting to understand is that his newest rhetoric is only likely to suppress his own voters by giving them very little cause to believe that waiting in the line will matter very much.
I won't attempt to connect this dot back to my nearly year old claim that Trump is Hillary's plant who doesn't really want to win, though documents have been wikileaked showing that Hillary at least encouraged his running and spoiling of the GOP well. Regardless of the impetus, Trump is here, but he is either way too dumb to understand which vote gets suppressed by tainting the legitimacy of an election that he's losing in the polls, or he understands oh too well and intends the results he's influencing.
Disregard the very smart election experts that work for Trump, who have to know the truth about Trump's approach. Remind yourself of the broadcast people that are his key consultants, and remember that Trump's son in law has been reported as seeking an initial contact towards creating a media network.
To win any presidential election, you need a team of people called surrogates and subordinates who speak on your behalf via various media outlets, and they make media productions, also on your behalf. In other words, running for a political office is the equivalent of building a media production organization. The process of transferring that highly functioning organization into a working entity involves paperwork and naming. That's it. Win or lose, Trump has an alt-right ready media organization and a gang of people motivated to stay on the Trump payroll either way. It explains why so many people are willing to risk their reputations while supporting things that are ambivalent to the very word democracy.
Things like calling our elections rigged and then hoping to legitimize that same election when it's over. Keep in mind what exactly Trump is saying here. He is saying that our elections are so flooded with illegal votes, that the only way for him to win is for....for what? More illegal votes than expected from the other side or more real voters than expected? And how does Trump gain those real voters while making rigged election claims that hardly appeal to the people he's got? What is the remedy for this inevitable illegality and how in fact would we consider Trump a legitimate winner if he insists he can only win by getting votes from his own millions of dead people just like Clinton has?
Isn't this the statement that political spectators from South Africa- who've fought to gain free and untainted elections themselves- are hearing? We know Russian and Chinese citizens are typically censored from American media, but wouldn't it be rather smart for these countries to broadcast this nonsense uncensored? Doesn't it make those fascist countries look a little less wrong if America no longer has an unrigged election? Doesn't all of this make the world a less hopeful place in the minds of foreign citizens who believe Trump? How hopeful will those who admire US be if even one person decides to take this revolution into their own hands as a result of Donald's dumbness? Was there truly only one Dylann Roof with the balls to stop talking and do something?
How long have conservatives been so comfortable with Putin?
If alt-right talk show hosts on radio and television have sold the notion that Hillary has a body double- someone who plays her when she is not healthy enough to do it herself (another odd conspiracy that dumb Donald keep's trying to sell, among others), I actually hope that the alt-right is right this time. I am hopeful that Hillary's body double is the unfortunate soul that takes the bullet that, we'll pray, doesn't kill her. I am hopeful that plans are well underway to deal with the toxic situation that no person, who really plans to win the presidency, would ever create.
I repeat. There is no way in the world that any person who plans to win the most distinguished office in the world would ever taint the job before getting it. The only reason you taint that post is not because you don't believe you can win it, but because you never really wanted it.
Maybe he'll have the nerve to admit it one day during an exclusive interview on Trumpivision. While embarrassing, could you imagine his ratings?
Did Tim Kaine really just do his best Trump impression? Did Mike Pence ever answer the actual question asked?
For the few of us who cared to watch the VP debate, my immediate impression was the same as the rest of your impressions- tainted by the emotional desire that we all have towards seeing the other side take a beating. In that regard, I got exactly what I came for. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's running mate, beat Donald Trump to a pulp while constantly challenging Trump's running mate (Mike Pence) to stand up and defend the many indefensible and inflammatory statements that have come from the top of the GOP ticket.
Mike Pence never tried to answer the unanswerable. Instead, he did what politicians are supposed to do, pivot, spin and control the conversation regardless of previous errors from the campaign. Pence doesn't deserve too much credit for controlling the conversation, however, because it is way too hard to be in control when you are spinning and pivoting so much. For that reason, I not only missed that Kaine beat on Trump without laying a hand on Pence- the actual man onstage last night- I also misunderstood how pundits would view Kaine's effort, forgetting that Pence came into the debate with his own questionable record that made him worthy of deserving a few direct blows himself. He got away mostly unscathed.
I cheered and jeered at the aggressive attacks, even some of the flailing swings from Kaine, and I happily rejoiced at the reality that he was doing more of what Hillary couldn't do in her recent debate because Trump refused to let it happen. I appreciated the fact that the important remarks were being stated and placed on the record even if you had to listen over multiple voices (including the moderator) to hear what was being said sometimes.
I enjoyed the dismissive giggling and dodging that Pence was forced into doing while running from the direct opportunity he was given to actually sell us on the values of Trump or defend him from Kaine's attack that ignored Trump's pawn and went straight for the king himself. Pence never really stood up for his boss, and appeared to lose his way to me if for no reasons other than his intense condemnation of Putin (something Trump seems terribly hesitant to do), and for Pence's inability to build a case for his boss other than "we need change". Conversely, Kaine made Hillary's case from beginning to end.
Did Mike Pence just dodge enough poop to elevate himself to top of the GOP field for 2020?
And then I listened to hours upon hours of breakdown of the VP debate, in which every station and pundit conceded, in some form or other, a victory to Pence. By virtue of the standard set in the first debate, pundits handed the victory to Pence in the same manner it was given to Hillary, rewarding the person who seemed most polite and thus presidential. A victory by default if you will.
After hours of flipping channels and watching the video outtakes from the VP debate, a few very distinct revelations came to me. Hillary is so serious about not losing this race that she is treating her debate victory as if she had lost. Not by reviewing the entire debate all over, but by making sense of the televised outtakes that followed.
It's important that we recognize how Trump has not only lowered the bar on political decency, he has lowered the bar on his own expectations and that of the party he currently heads. How can they clean up so many ugly soundbites when they are already on the record, along with the ones he adds each week? Thanks to Trump, his entire camp is now only expected to avoid land mines while begging voters for change. Anything more is way beyond their current expectation, and probably doing too much by virtue.
Despite her brilliance, I wasn't always ready to give Hillary as much credit as I give her now. It is now time we watch, learn and decide. If you are watching, you will easily learn how Hillary has decided to run her campaign. She is showing herself willing and able to adjust to the demands of the undecided electorate, that segment of society that can still be convinced to vote for her. Trump has hit his ceiling some time ago and can only hope to bring dismay to the process and the people Hillary needs for a decisive victory.
Hillary is going about things with reflection and humility, allowing herself the chance to see her own campaign through the eyes of those hesitant to choose her.
It is truly the time to save our children from Trump or with him. As such, it is vital to recognize that the home stretch kick has begun now that voting has started in many states. In my opinion,those questions I once had of Hillary are laughable compared to the question of what happens under a president Trump. Right now is not the time for any of us decided ones, on either side of this battle, to be confused about who WE support, nor wavering in our efforts to help our side win.
To his credit last night, Mike Pence was neither confused or wavering, though he didn't fully show himself on team Trump. Otherwise, the 2016 VP debate
If Trump is the current face of the GOP, who takes that position if republicans lose the presidency?
performance from Pence was an excellent example of what it will take for Trump to close the widening gap Hillary has opened in the polls and give himself an electoral chance in hell to win this race.
To enhance that chance, he must do exactly as his running mate displayed by masterfully side stepping all of the piles of poop Trump leaves on the campaign trail for himself and his surrogates to deal with each day. When it comes to big piles of poop, Trump is the head elephant in the GOP arena now, and the primary reason for all of the perfect poop dodging that Pence did last night, providing a clear blueprint for Trump to follow.
Trump's big bombastic poop droppings are part of the reason why MOST Americans have stopped listening to all of this a long time ago.
Not just months ago when Trump first demanded Mexicans leave this land of immigrants, but decades ago when the voter turnout numbers proved that barely 50% of eligible voters in America care to vote in the first place.
WE seem to much prefer television stars over politicians, and our long standing apathy towards politics is doing an awesome job at making a circus out of something so many described as a circus long before now.
Most importantly, Trump is the ring master of circus outtakes. He not only knows how to talk the kind of talk that fills arenas and sells overpriced, useless swag, he knows how to insure the news programs will play his outtakes no matter how irrelevant or damaging they are to his mission, the subject at hand or the country at large.
You see, nothing that actually happens in politics will ever supersede the hot video outtake television uses to thrive. While Trump seems stupid to continue saying silly things like "maybe Hillary is cheating on Bill...but why wouldn't she?", he is brilliant enough to know what it takes to make the outtakes. In the end, there are only so many minutes available to every televised program, and every minute spent on useless but spicy outtakes, is a minute that can't be spent on something substantive. If So Few Are Voting, How Many Are Not Even Watching?
For those who didn't have the time or energy to endure Hillary v Trump (live or video recording), your only understanding of what happened must be chewed and fed to you in digestible bites for you to swallow and regurgitate to the others who also haven't the teeth for all of this, and demand pre-digested food as well.
Trump understands our fickle digestion like no other presidential candidate before him, and uses bombastic outtakes to drown out the substantive stuff that only 20-30% of us try to chew on our own. That's right. Even if a little more than 50% actually vote regularly, almost half of those people to do it out of civic obligation, and don't necessarily study like they should. As most of us have been watching this foolish circus for months, millions upon millions are slowly and reluctantly taking their seat at the table.
Clinton Changes The Game With Kaine
During her own debate, Hillary mostly kept her poise and was told she won the night, but watched while most of the outtakes were of Trump being an arse, not of her style and substance that were lauded, but was only captured by those who watched the debate themselves. As a result of the slanted soundbites, Hillary and her team have not only caught on to Trump's game, they sent Kaine out to test the game first.
Actually, Hillary's stump speech was the first sign that she has started to display a little more style and way more Johnny Cochran than ever before, and she is now using it to drive the conversation in a way she has not done in previous weeks. Although the most palatable outtakes from the presidential debate were of Hillary tripping up Trump with a few pre-planned lines of attack, Donald's bombastic blast backs and constant interruptions ended up controlling the news streams and forced the pundits to explain to the viewers what the camera wasn't showing.
Consequently, close viewers on either side of each of both of these debates could easily claim a victory. One side based on keeping their cool, and the other for so many hot outtakes, because keeping cool usually ends up on the editing floor.
Whether you watched the VP debate or not, this is what you need to know about last night, and about the Clinton campaign to follow. Hillary has decided to hit a little harder and she intentionally used Kaine's and a few canned phrases to help get it started. On behalf of the democrats, Kaine jumped in the circus ring and left behind piles and piles of seriously unanswerable questions as well as the message that WE all should continue asking Trump the same. Hillary has decided to help us stay on the question even when Trump tries like the crazy to say something new and soundbite worthy for an outtake that might switch the subject and make us forget just how crazed he's been.
Trump's assessment of US is legitimate. How do I know? Raise your hand if you live with, or know someone who often says, "I'm so tired of this campaign. I can't wait until it's over"?
Trump has preyed on our politically fatigued and made victims of the politically handicapped who stay in the back of the pack of society, hoping to be fed digestible morsels of information to aid in their voting and to relieve that empty grumbling in the belly caused by civic guilt.
All of this simply because WE can't stand to watch anymore.
I'm not sure if Trump is doing business in Russia, but based on his choice in wives, I damn sure can't simply assume he is not.
Trump knew it, but now, so does Hillary Clinton. Now, Clinton and her surrogates will proceed to take advantage of every opportunity to blast Trump and his trumpeting Trumpians with the one question that makes very little sense, but was the most resonating outtake from last night's debate.
How can Trump demand Pence release his taxes to qualify as a running mate, but he won't do the same for US?
"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.
I am the person who originally wondered why in the world Hillary Clinton would know as much as she knows about the difficulty of the presidency and still seek the post. I am that guy who never felt that breaking the glass ceiling was a reasonable enough reason for Hillary to seek to lead the free world while doing it.
I am fully concerned, and hardly convinced that this is the perfect person for the job. Given the nature of our world, I'm concerned that men hate women worldwide even more than Trump does here in America. To be effective in her role will be a challenge greater than her skill for negotiation and compromise. Much like Barack Obama did, her uniqueness will threaten existing power structures into a greater sense of fear and loathing, and a stronger stand of opposition against her than the one they made against Obama.
I totally get the stand against Hillary for president.
What I don't understand is why there is not a legitimate substantive debate against her instead of this incessant "Evil Hillary" nonsense that is founded in nothing legitimate.
Actually, I am not confused about it all. In the absence of substantive policy conversations, it becomes necessary, almost vital to play like The Donald and drop insults with no substance.
This is one of the nice Obama devil pics
Insults like those that Photoshop created for the past 8 years of the Obama presidency. When it became clear that most of Obama's policy decisions had a decidedly right wing lean to them (domestic oil production, RomneyCare 2.0, TPP), the problem with him had to be made more personality driven.
If you trust modern social media, Obama needs to complete his term as president so that he can resume his rule over the Illuminati. Republicans might have cornered themselves into oblivion with all of the fear bating, but the downside of obsolescence is that you no longer have anything to lose.
Trump and the Trumpians are using any means necessary to win
The GOP has relegated themselves into a segmented party without a true identity. If they have one, it now belongs to the Trumpians, supporters of Donald Trump who helped to wipe out a huge field of political competitors, by any means necessary, excluding of course by means of sharing policy, plans and details that is.
By any means necessary politics has been known to call Ted Cruz "Lying Ted" and Marco Rubio "Little Marco" for reasons we really don't need to bring up again.
By any means necessary is exactly the approach that is now being deployed against Hillary, and it' feels just like the Obama is a devil claims. So...are women truly evil?
There really is no major effort needed to sell the notion that women are somewhat crazy and maybe even downright evil. To levy the charge of "that evil Bitch Hillary"- which is essentially what you folks are saying about her- as a means of running off people who are already leery of women in leadership to begin with, is low-brow, by any means necessary politics.
Why do these evil charges have no merit?
If you look at the only topics that seem to lead this claim of evil, they were all done under the guidance and leadership of men who WE've conveniently forgotten or disregarded. The beef with the mass incarcerations from the Clinton years and the reverberating memories of the word "Super predator" places the blame on the president's wife...not the president himself or even Bernie Sanders who was in congress at the time and voted in favor of the crime bill too, as did many liberals.
The issue with Benghazi or even Libya disregards the fact that every decision made in both scenarios, was at the accountability of the president, not the Secretary of State who has no authority to act without presidential consent.
If Muslim minister, Louis Farrakhan, has a sincere problem with our killing of his Libyan friend Mohamar Qaddafi, he should take it up with Obama, not Hillary. But he's not. Instead, he'd rather post videos convincing us all that Hillary must be evil because.....because.
Actually, this evil claim has no foundation for existence and needs to stop. It is low-bar sexism at its worse, and it's an instant reflection of our unfounded fears of a women and worthy competitors. No, many of us do not feel comfortable with women in leadership, reflected in our corporate boards and our wage disparity. For whatever reason, WE just don't think women are worthy.
WE didn't really think that black men were worthy of being president either, but two elections with an apparent rejection of white male alternatives has made it clear that the WE who decides elections is never fully reflective of US all. Dylann Roof, Obama bashing, Black Lives Matter, Trump and now evil Hillary claims have all revealed to US all that WE have quite a way to go on issues of gender, race and equality.
WE've never fully overcome like the song promised we would during those long arduous marches for freedom. In reality, WE've thrown dirt over the exact issues that now make the Unites States of America the most socially divided accumulation of human beings on the planet, with money, power and influence overtaking gender and race as our key dividers.
I'm not discounting the natural demonic depiction that becomes every president eventually, or the power and inspiration of Photoshop alterations to prove our modern claims of evil. What I am discounting is this decision to demonize Hillary simply to disqualify her in advance. Even Obama avoided the label until after he won and suddenly posed a real threat to those who doubted that he really could win in the first place.
Obama Did It!!
Blame Obama for this one too if you must. Two terms of a black man have made it abundantly clear that we will not simply go back to white men for fear of everything else. WE are willing, ready and prepared to be lead by a women president, and Hillary is as thoroughly qualified for the job as ANY candidate that has run, maybe ever. Much like racism against blacks, she has had no choice but to be twice as good just to make it half as far.
What can not be ignored is that she has a history of legal issues, alongside her husband, that leave her with question marks on trustworthiness and integrity. But she also has a consistent history of working hard for children and families of America that just doesn't disappear because her opponents yell Benghazi or evil Hillary so much.
She is a woman of principle and motives, and she appears to be the best of what WE have left to choose from. If Trump is actually able to behave so incredibly devilish throughout this campaign, and Bernie Sanders is an admitted Socialist, something so many have long since considered evil, how exactly is it that Hillary keeps coming out on the internet as the only evil candidate remaining?
It's because she is winning, likely to win, and because she is a woman. Just as the black man in me did not idly sit by while folks called my president a devil without cause, the father of 5 women in me does not appreciate this cheap attempt to disqualify a woman on the age old claim of being an evil witch.....or worse.
Because Hillary never ordered a hit on ambassador Stephens, or got caught cheating on Bill, this belief of her being genuinely evil comes exclusively from her gender. I thought WE were better than this.
I heard a recent commentator remind us how presidential candidates used to be sought out. Now, political candidates seek out the presidency like a flashback to high school politics. As if being head boy or girl is equivalent to staring down Putin to make him deal with Syria before you do.
Senator Bernie Sanders started a revolution of thought that might have made him the only remaining candidate that was sought out for the post. His poll numbers justify that idea thoroughly in that no candidate comes close to competing in a head to head with Bernie. If the real reason that Mr. Sanders remains in the game, despite the hoops and hurdles he must navigate to win, is because he is the only candidate that can soundly secure the presidency, he is doing a noble thing.
Can Bernie actually run as a Democrat but preside as a Socialist? Who becomes a part of his bill making coalition?
Noble because campaigning is grueling on candidate and family. Any real reason to doubt your prospects is a real reason to spare your family the strain and struggle of fighting from behind. That is the reason most candidates bow out expeditiously. At some point when fighting from behind, you are mathematically needing to eat the whole pie- or most of it- while your opponent continues to get their fair share of bites.
Like a puppy in a litter, you simply can't eat fast enough to get all of the food, even if you are the bully of the bunch.
Sanders is not a bully, but he is trying to bully his way into a process that wasn't made for bullying. In the end, he must convince the superdelegates to change their mind about Hillary and to cast their support behind the best chance Dem's have at winning.
Hillary can claim a lot of positives, but her approval rating and head to head polling against Donald are not among them. She is stuck between needing Bernie and his support, and needing him to shut up already at the same time. Without the volume of voters that Bernie can inspire to turnout on her behalf, the republican party might have just enough Obama anger to energize their way back into the white house.
If the real mission is to simply keep Donald Trump away from the presidency, I'm starting to get confused by Bernie and his pathway problems. Not the problems he'll have procuring the lion share of the remaining electorate just to block Hillary's path, but the problem he and his surrogates keep having and declaring with the process and it's rigging's.
I hate to find myself lambasting my brother Bernie once again because we Socialist really do need to stick together. Not that we are a dying breed. On the contrary. Capitalism is simply way too notorious for attracting the slime of the world for any clear eyed young adult to view it without some skepticism. Old folks like myself have been fairly brainwashed into our position on Socialism, so there really isn't a lot you can do to change that. We grew up with parents whose parents fought the last great war in this world, and they left that experience thoroughly convinced that we must draw a line.
Socialism bad. Capitalism good.
Our generations have the images of Mikhail Gorbachev and Nikita Khrushchev on the television screen and magazines. TIME magazine had me fairly convinced that the odd birthmark on Gorbachev's head was surely as sign of something evil. When President Ronald Reagan declared that he must tear down that wall, the world came to some odd sense of comfort that the age old Cold War had finally come to an end. In reality, our nuclear race between the former soviet union was not a Cold War at all. In reality, the Cold War was always one that we've been fighting with ourselves. The fear of the rise of the proletariat has been embedded into the psyche of old folks like myself and older. Our generations read Karl Marx as a warning of something demonic and dangerous, not as a warning of what happens when Capitalism is not given the kind of balance that it demands.
Bernie Sanders is nothing more than the voice of the proletariat that Marx promised. And surely, just as forewarned, they are fed up with economic imbalance and want to point a finger and find a fix. If you're looking rather closely, Trump has quite a few proletariat's himself, except they are pointing their fingers at different causes while complaining about the EXACT SAME PROBLEM.
Some think Donald Trump can fix it while others believe he'd be more of the same since he's been rubbing elbows with the same candidates that we've grown weary of trusting. Candidates like Hillary Clinton in fact. She is a notorious insider who has just a few points of favorability (42% versus 39% ) over Trump, probably only because she doesn't intentionally offend people on a weekly basis- but that is the only reason.
As a result of these dismal polls on the two remaining front runners, Bernie Sanders now has a really interesting decision that he needs to make for himself and his so-called party, seeing as how he's Democratic Socialist running under the Democrat flag. Sanders must fully legitimize the manner in which his party chooses a candidate and legitimately use it to whoop Hillary's ass in California and give the party a SERIOUS reason to believe that he can secure enough of the kind of voters that represent most of America.
Sanders has won plenty of state caucuses to fully justify remaining in this race. What he hasn't won is more primary voters than Hillary or diverse populations like New York or California, places vital to victory for any Democrat candidate.
As a result of what he's doing absent the tailwind to justify doing it, the process itself has been brought into question- by Bernie himself no less. Process, meaning those superdelegates that are free to do what they want. They (superdelegates) must want Bernie over Hillary for Bernie to be the Democrats nominee. But Sanders does not need them or any party just to secure more votes in a general election than Trump or Hillary. The numbers say that he could do that now, yet not from the inside. Bernie must come to grips withe the fact that either it's okay that superdelegates exist (without them, Trump might have run as the Democrat he truly is), or they need to go away right away and not be courted as a legitimate pathway to the presidency for Sanders.
The real point is this.
What if you actually win Bernie? In essence, you will be declaring that an unfair game just unfairly flipped in your favor as you proceed to happily use it to achieve your presidential aspirations. Will you lambaste it similarly if you actually win? In fact, by courting superdelegates while besmirching the process, you are offending them and asking for their support all in the same campaign speech. The integrity to insist that a system is totally unfair and must be changed, but then say their remains a pathway to make it work for you- so stay with me supporters- is beyond odd, it is disingenuous and destructive to the party you are asking for support from.
Bernie is the first candidate in the history of our political system with a legitimate shot at winning the popular vote over both of the two-party options, forcing the Supreme Court to figure out what the hell happens next when the laws are written to cater to the these two parties against the rise of another.
By all means, Bernie Sanders should press on to the convention and make his claim for the portion of delegates (super or not) that he truly deserves. Trump and Clinton are just as flawed as the numbers say they are and every attempt to tell US that they are actually something different and better than what WE already know of the two is kind of pissing me off.
Yet, I'm much more enraged by my brother Bernie who wants his cake and wants to eat it too. When Marx described the rise of the proletariat, he might not have anticipated the two-party counter efforts from those who've feared their arrival ever since he warned of it. Like it or not, the Two-party system was, and is, made to resist that rise. Either accept it and overtake it nonetheless, or shut the hell up and run as a third party candidate.
Stated more succinctly. Be a damn socialist Bernie or not. You can't run as a democrat and not accept the full implications of that choice. Since I am totally convinced that Sanders has not the courage to actually blow the whole thing apart and run third party, I am a mad Socialist who wishes he'd just shut up and stop helping Trump.
Even Ted Cruz is predicting a Trump Super
Tuesday victory. Which means he didn't send
out enough of these fake voter violation forms.
After today, the wheat should be sifted from the chaff.
Actually, that shit should have been sifted some time ago. Now, only a miracle or some serious Ted Cruz type voter tampering effort will stop Donald Trump from exiting this day with anything less than a strangle hold on the GOP delegate chase for the party nomination.
The near certainty of his success has two of his opponents pre-predicting a Trump landslide today, but a comeback that will somehow begin once they win their own state caucus. Ohio Governor and presidential candidate, John Kasich has all but assured a Trump victory in most of the 11 states at play today, and so has Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who predicts the comeback beginning when he wins his home state. Kasich has a similar theory, but neither he or Cruz seems ready or able to explain why the Trump train suddenly falls off of the track just because their train gets a shot of home cooking in the caboose? Will Trump start to lose because of the ponzi scheme investigation into Trump university, the now defunct school that Trump created to teach hundreds of people how to master the art of real estate?
What should we make of that
endorsement from Chris Christie?
As I reflect on the many things that Trump hasn't had to be accountable for, the idea of a real estate hustle from a real estate hustler doesn't exactly rise to the level of the thing that finally downs Donald. Nor will Florida Senator Marco Rubio's veiled reference to Trump's genitalia.
Why didn't Rubio stick to Donald's Duke
and not his..Richard?
Apparently, Rubio has decided that snatching the limelight with Trump style attacks is the last remaining way to win the game that currently Trump is leading and re-writing at the same time.
What Rubio doesn't seem to understand is that his reference to his opponents small hands makes an indirect statement about Rubio's more than ample hands, which must (in his mind) give him the girth to be the kind of trustworthy president we want.
Does that make the presidency something small hands need not consider Marco Rubio? What say you of women with small hands or hands larger than yours? Does it make them more or less trustworthy Marco?
If there was no need for a prior concern that Rubio is pursuing the presidency too soon and before his time of political maturity, there should be now. Suddenly I have fears of Rubio conducting a frat style, beer keg party in the White House to celebrate big boobs, big hands and, oh yeah, winning the presidency too. Woohoo!!
Every time I think I've shaken my head enough over the GOP presidential process, something comes along and causes a crook in my neck from another case of excessive shake syndrome. I'm not exactly sure if that is a real ailment, but I am certain that it needs to be after the many wrong directions the right, and my head, have taken in this race.
Again, not only is it too late for two or three GOP candidates to get out of the race and force the republican electorate to choose between Trump or somebody else (something each candidate keeps trying to suggest to the other), now they ALL MUST STAY IN regardless of today's Super Tuesday results, just to fracture the republican vote for fear of allowing Trump an easy pathway to the delegate threshold that he's pursuing.
At this sad but obvious stage in the game, all that remains for republicans is stopping Trump from making it to the convention with enough delegates to force Reince Preibus (the GOP party chair) to hold to his party pledge form that all of the GOP candidates were forced to signed when they were only afraid of Trump jumping to a third party.
Now, they are being forced into one last, desperate plan of obstructing Trump's path to the presidency. Their skill with obstruction is notoriously sound and well rehearsed, making these next few months of presidential politics of historical significance..
Let me repeat this for those who missed the point.
The ONLY hope left for the GOP is a brokered convention. What was recently just a threat, has become the last remaining street on a one way road to nothing.
Nothing means that nothing you proud and hard working GOP voters are doing right now will really be worth a damn bit of difference if your party is working like hell to make your vote totally insignificant. They are telling you that your massive turnout for Trump. and extreme support for the rebel voice are misguided and not allowed in our CURRENT system of governance,
They (two-party establishment) are doing something somewhat similar in the Democrat party, but Hillary isn't the wrong candidate like Trump is, so there is no real reason to activate the defense shields for what she's doing.
In other words, nothing you Bernie loving, registered Democrat voters are trying to do will matter much either. Even if you mess around and actually show up in mass as Bernie insists you must- but currently you've yet to do- he's not the right candidate on the left side of the ledger. I say "you" because "I" am a proud, Christ loving, conservative socialist who might have caucused for Bernie, but is not allowed to caucus in Colorado on behalf of either party without dropping my steadfast disgust with labels and banding together with one of the two-party labels just to join a caucus process tainted by a design that demands party allegiance to participate.
After today, the non-Trump GOP candidates must band together to chop down the Trump tree to somewhere well below the base of nominee mountain, keeping him from a delegate majority and from bringing the war for the GOP's nominee to an end. After tonight, the right is in for the fight of it's life as the war to infiltrate ends successfully for Trump, and the war to overtake begins forcing Trump's opposition to respond in the only way they have left. Hand shaming and things of the sort.
None of that matters when the people telling you that Hillary is a murderer are convinced that she is the reason they are dead. The 13 investigations have taken these Hillary haters off of her email trail for the purpose of finding blame over Benghazi, but they still need a Wikileaks to prove some form of pay to play with their very charitable organization, CGI (Clinton Global Initiative).
