What started out as a wall building joke is no longer funny.
First of all, I would like to apologize to all women for our significant fear of you. Many of you are significantly afraid of yourselves, but that's a conversation for another post.
Hillary Clinton- for all the good she's done and all the cracks she keeps putting into that dreaded glass ceiling- earned that ass kicking Donald Trump gave her last night. You can blame misogyny or Comey or whatever Russian Wikileak you'd like. The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton hoped like hell that WE were way too afraid of that pussy grabbing outsider to ever take a chance on someone never elected to public office before.
The same populist movement that elected Donald Trump will now be anxiously waiting for certain dividends that will pit him against his own kind, the rich and powerful.
In the end, she ran a race on fear with commercials feeding into the fear we should have of Donald's decision making, or lack thereof. In the end, she was dead wrong.
Not that she was wrong about Donald.....sorry, president-elect Trump's dastardly ways. She was wrong to use them as a way of stoking the fears of human beings. Fear might be a motivator of sorts, but it is most commonly known to invoke hesitation and doubt, not clear-eyed certainty.
To Trump's.....sorry, president-elect Trump's credit, his campaign of fear was not one that he needed a television ad or any real effort to sell. After all, WE have long since doubted the intentions of the Washington elite, and he waged a campaign of retweeted anger that did nothing more than tell US what WE already felt enough to tweet.
Nothing is sweeter than the sound of your own name or being retweeted, and president-elect Trump used the oldest sales tool in the book to display the art form of negotiation and close another deal. He listened.
Hillary Clinton spent way too many days wondering how in the hell she was so close in a race that she should have been winning in a landslide while ignoring the fact that she barely beat Bernie for the nomination and never really convinced the Berners that she was really interested in what mattered to them even while desperately needing them to show up at the polls.
In reality, she was terribly interested but listened to the wrong voices (insiders) and took an early victory lap when she decided to drive the down ballot bus instead of focusing on her own. All the pollster deserve the same ridicule I'm leveling at Hillary, but none of them were running for the highest office in the land, and the successor to a president MANY did not consider their own and said so, over and over and over for 8 years straight.
Forget about President Obama's approval ratings right now. Those were one part Michelle Obama and two parts disgust with the two candidates campaigning to succeed him. Pollsters might have been dead wrong about president-elect Trump's level of voter enthusiasm, but they were totally right about the lack of it for Clinton. She tried to ride the enthusiasm of everybody in the world including Jay-Z and Beyonce in the final days, but no surrogate could transplant their charm into her.
I'm not thrilled about getting someone other than who I circled on my ballot, but I was never going to get the person I preferred anyway. He (Jeb Bush) got rubbed out early on in the same name smearing fashion that finished off Hillary too.
Will Paul Ryan live to regret opposing Trump? Will Hillary Clinton?
The more I reflect on my journey in this election, I recall the question I had a year ago. Why would someone who is able to do so much good around the entire world while making shitloads of money from speeches- in between spending lots of precious time with her grandkids in the waning years of her life- be willing to give all that up for a job she knows is not really that cool anyway?
Hillary Ran For US.
I'm not happy for you sad or afraid voters, but I'm thrilled by all of those quiet people who either didn't vote or didn't take it seriously with that silly write-in name you chose. Their lack of comical posts right now speaks volumes to the impact this election shall have on all of those who quietly hoped the rest of US could elect Hillary while they maintained the role of sideline ridiculers. Some of you really petty people are more than happy to pretend to relish in your Illuminati theory of the whole system being rigged, but even you thought the system was rigged for the insiders, not pussy grabbers.
I will be more thrilled when WE all get to see what happens when you try to push forward Wall Building Acts or Infrastructure Bills given the reluctance of congress to invest in anything worthwhile. Maybe they were just blocking Obama for 8 years and now understand that they will get Trump'd too if they aren't listening to the voice of America. And maybe president-elect Trump always realized that he was proposing non-republican populist stuff that America is looking for him to achieve, and must now truly roll up his sleeves to get it done. Either way, we are now wide awake and fighting for a front seat at the table of this divine civics lesson we are receiving.
No Trump TV?
President-elect Trump has a 100-day plan promise that involved implementing term limits on the same people he will ask to pass the bill. It involved finally fixing our failing roads and bridges (I guess you can pork-barrel a wall into that bill, but then Mexico doesn't pay for it), and dealing with the income disparity in whatever way first-time presidents who used to run businesses do it.
If he can do it, he and WE are all the big winners. Until he does, even the winners are losers with a difficult mandate ahead. Both insider parties are losers too as Trump systematically proved WE are tired of them all. Both republicans and democrats needed total reconstruction and will be putting out new autopsy reports soon enough.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
When Trump tried to tell us that he is surprisingly good at uniting people all while functionally dividing the entire GOP, we should not have been so surprised. Actually, he chose to preface his statement with how surprised we are going to be in his ability to unite people, so never mind. Feel free to be as surprised as you'd like as Trump proceeds to expose US- to US.
Speaking of pledges, did you see the Hitler pledge to Trump?
After stealing Florida from Marco Rubio and forcing him to bow out of the race, Donald Trump has each of his remaining Republican opponent's fighting just to keep him from the delegate count (1273) that would force them to finally stop giving Hillary so much general election ammunition against the entire party. Soon, they all must choose to either endorse no one, or endorse Trump while trying not to look like Chris Christie does while doing it.
I would love to completely focus on those television ads to come from Hillary, with those supporters of Trump's doing that hail Hitler pledge, but why bother?
Although modern Republicans behave like Democrats by no longer promoting trickle down economics or any economic idea beyond eliminating most regulatory agencies- and by not caring much about deficits anymore- none of that matters because voting for a Democrat is unreasonable to those raised staunchly against such an thing.
There is something ingrained inside of the political DNA of many American voters raised to disregard the bleeding heart intentions of the left, and to only see the futility of the liberal nature. Moreover, many Republicans have been taught that party trumps candidate for reasons of sustained strength. The concept proves valuable for state and local elections, but the party rejected it as well as their own internal autopsy report from the first presidential election defeat by Obama when they allowed the Tea Party and the Libertarian fractures to weaken their bone structure by pushing their own ideologies to the forefront of a party with few binding ideas.
Consequently, bewildered Republicans, angry Independents who still vote Republican along with those aforementioned fractures, have given in to the eventuality of Trump as a Republican in name only over the alternative of Hillary the Democrat, a Communist in Bernie Sanders (something Republicans called Democrats long before Bernie openly embraced the Socialist label btw), or not voting at all and functionally handing the election to either one.
I would love to hate Trump for recognizing that some people will never consider liberalism- even over a megalomaniac- and for noticing how left leaning independents don't vote enough to have ingrained beliefs one way or the other, but I can't. Trump has drafted lots of former dem's into his cause, and is exposing America to the fact that fence straddling dem's who thought electing Obama meant 40 acres and a mule for everybody, and are still angry enough with Obama's right leaning presidency to cross over too. Trump also knows that Republicans don't care THAT much about policy or positions as long as you can win for a party they've sworn an allegiance to from birth. Because of losing to Obama, Republicans would rather trust a life long liberal donor in Trump than their own party faithful anymore.
Didn't you hear it too? That statement from Trump came eerily close to being a policy position- which means it was probably a knee jerk response- so Trump doesn't repeat it anymore, but he certainly said it.
Trump's position that Mexico would build the wall was also nothing more than a counter puncher's approach to the question of funding the thing. Even if you hate his answer, you can't say he isn't ready for a fight, or that he doesn't stay on his toes ready to knock out potential objections before they rise. Politician's have always promised the world without any concern of how to harness the moon first, because details aren't necessarily their duty.
Trump is quickly adjusting to this demand for details that is an aspect of a political campaign, and nothing like business or war where surprising your opponent is helpful for victory. In a presidential battle, the most important detail is that your so called opponents are every voting citizen in this nation who quickly become your only hope for victory too.
The Trumpians might be concerned that too many American corporations are starting to do business in Mexico, but they won't even follow that thought to it's natural conclusion which is, people who can find work at home don't need to migrate elsewhere for it. If someone tells you that Mexican's still prefer to come here because of welfare and jobs, don't believe them since no illegal immigrant is eligible for any benefit except emergency medical assistance if needed. Assuming American corporations have been perfectly happy with offsetting jobs into countries like China, Mexico was a no-brainer alternative to our immigration problem and our Asian trade imbalance as well.
Trump could easily offer to exchange a fair pathway into (or back into) America for a wall of Mexico's building, which might not be a bad way to sell the deal to Democrats or to Republican supporters who got interested in Trump because of his wall promise. What Trump is exposing us to is that republicanism is bound by an every man for himself business negotiation mindset in which the goal is to get the best deal possible for yourself. There's no doubt in my mind that if Republicans are considering the necessity of higher wages for millions who rarely vote for them, there has to be something in it for them.
While Trump took victory laps after winning Florida and knocking out Rubio, he was surprisingly humble enough to admit that the rich are indeed going to have to get a lot richer for any of you regulars to have your wage hopes realized. He declared this with apologies realizing that he is already extremely rich, so promising that he'll get richer first wasn't easy to admit.
Powerfully rich people and those who long to be them, don't seek more power and riches for some altruistic promise to share with the poor. Their commitment is to the promise that getting richer and more powerful beats the hell out of any alternative. Besides, who would reasonably set an agenda for sharing power and wealth except people who don't already have it?
Food stamps, ObamaCare, college tuition assistance? If most middle class families can't qualify for social assistance, all social assistance becomes means tested wastes of time to people with money, power and influence. Welfare is only worthy of salvaging or expanding in the eyes of citizens who consider it reasonable that every one of us will pay for the health and well being of the other, be that directly or indirectly.
It is fairly reasonable to believe that every one of us is already paying for the ignorance and sickness of the other, yet people in America work with contagious illnesses all the time, as if their bills give them an immunity to spreading germs. Aside from the rare few, WE all complain about people working sick, yet everyone does it, because we are rugged individuals who don't need anybody to help us get by in life (cough, cough).
Trump and his rugged individualistic supporters didn't cause sick workers who feel pressured to make bills, and not public health, their greater priority. The Trumpians might also be among those rare Americans who never needed some really great coach, teacher, professor, parent/s, neighbor who watched your kids, or all of the above in order to be who they are today. Sometimes, ruggedly individualistic Republicans make me wonder if only Democrats do the daycare hustle or have kids that don't leave home after college due to the economy, so they support Bernie because they need a job.
Is segregation in politics part of a Republican creed or just a reflection of our other segregation issues? Do parents of children from both parties work to indoctrinate their offspring or is this just a Republican thing?
Trump is exposing America to the ingrained problems of both parties and of the system as a whole that allows for the party elite to continually manipulate the rest of us into a corner of their choosing. Currently, congressional Republicans appear to be compromised from a lack of ideology, so they survive on a steady diet of American segregation and gerrymandering. Hillary, on the other hand, has to promise a continuation of the right leaning agenda's of Obama and Bill while grafting the populist mission of Bernie Sanders into her plan at the same time.
Populism versus Capitalism
Populism is entirely contradictory to capitalism because capitalism isn't a way of life, it is the economy of life, and no civilization functions without some system of exchange and profit. Conversely, populism is not an economic system but a means of disrupting and redistributing one; sometimes for the good, but there simply aren't enough great functioning examples of populism/socialism to brag about. Sorry Bernie.
You Can't Win The Deal Without Making One First
Capitalistic efforts like NAFTA or the TPP are Bernie's greatest contempt and key differentiation from Obama, Trump and Hillary, though Hillary has expressed some "reservations" with the TPP too. Trade deals, past present and future, are also the reason that Bernie likely loses my support and the support of Obama who needs a capable successor to his tenure. Trade is simply a necessity of our world, and one that my Socialist brother Bernie will never be in a position of strength to handle while standing against it philosophically.
Trump won't really talk a lot about the TPP much because he is running so that he can dive head first into this deal, that deal and every deal in between. If Trump gets his way, he'll be going TPP all over that entire world and beyond if possible. The author of "The Art of the Deal" can't possibly be against our dealing in foreign lands. In fact, he's certain that he can be the reason WE finish out on top of these deals instead of feeling like the biggest loser with every trade pact we make.
But deal he will.
Anyone who is still unclear that Trump is all for every deal that he can engage in is unclear about Trump. When he says we'll get sick of winning, it's because he'll never get sick of dealing, whether it's negotiating to convince Republicans to vote for him regardless of what he truly espouses (or because of it), Trump even has a fix for angry voters who quit voting,which just so happens to be the same fix for those who got tired of supporting the losing team.
Trump has all of US trapped inside of a rare, life sized art exhibit called "Exposition"- masterfully exposing the harsh truth of who we are as a nation of voters and how miserably we respond to the duty of leading and governing ourselves.
By virtue of the overriding sickness of ignorance, we've never taught ourselves enough details about our electoral process of selecting a president to know if we approve of it or not. Trump is exposing to both his supporters and detractors, things WE never had reason to care about much before he made us learn and care about.
For example:
Did you know that each party has the power to rewrite the rules at the convention so that it benefits the needs of the party. In other words, if the Republicans decide to broker their convention exclusive of Mitt Romney, who currently isn't running and needs to win 8 states to qualify as a potential nominee, they can simply rewrite those rules to allow Romney to overtake the convention and be the party nominee regardless of all the voting on behalf of other people.
In addition, while they are fighting to keep him from winning enough delegates, Trump could actually reach the delegate threshold and still be forced into a brokered convention because the parties write the rules as needed.
The Democrats can do this too, but their use of uncommitted superdelegates is their personal technique for avoiding the risk of entering the convention with a candidate who doesn't have a great chance to win In essence, they've done their brokering on the front side by soliciting superdelegates that can do the party's bidding without voters recognizing their impact.
Trump's presence in this presidential race has exposed more aspects of our fractured republic than many of us were willing to recognize. Whether we are talking race, immigration or the manner of choosing a president, WE've got real problems.
I would like to take Trump to task for his assault on these Constitutionally designed party protections called delegates, but I can't. He has single-handily exposed the absolutely undemocratic aspects of the very Constitution that WE hold near and dear, while simultaneously exposing the differences of emotions each of us feel when we talk about the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution itself.
Is the Constitution a divinely crafted guide from our founding father's and political elders, or is it the sanctioned way in which we allowed for "White Only" drinking faucets?
It is both.
Our Constitution has fully sanctioned our organized failures as a society, while offering both the light and a pathway towards correcting them.
Through the sturdy flexibility that the Constitution insures, Colorado and a couple of other states stopped giving citizens felony convictions and immense legal and life hurdles for small amounts of weed possession, even while weed still continues to make felons out of recreational and medical marijuana users all across the nation. It took a similar state by state rejection of Constitutional standards to kill the Prohibition of alcohol and bend the Constitution back towards the will of the people, even if our will towards alcohol green lighted one of America's most deadly addiction problems.
Trump doesn't talk a lot about confronting addiction problems or dealing with inner city policing issues with Constitutional measures, but he might start IF he wins the GOP nomination and enters a general election versus Hillary who virtually locked up her party's nomination with a Super Tuesday sweep (3/15/16) including the big boys, Florida, Ohio and Illinois. As a salesman, Trump is willing to do what every good salesman does to close a deal, and right now, feigning moderation is just not part of the negotiation.
Like any expert salesman, Trump is a master at reflective listening and leaving those he encounters with this odd sense of feeling heard and understood. What Trump won't have to do is actually make good on his promise to make US great again because the great he's promising involves things being more great for US and less great for Trump and the one percent. In reality, Obama has already done the part of making the rich richer, so more of the same won't impress anyone. If Obama the redistributor could force open America's economic flood gates but can't force the poor people faucet to trickle even as the rich are getting richer, there is simply something wrong with the pipes.
Just call him sucker punch Sam. He doesn't deserve a real name.
As president, there will always be limitations to what a can be done to actually impact greatness because every move demands a long wait while the ship makes the turn. As president, Trump won't be free to hire a whole lot of Mexicans anymore like he always brags about doing. even as those who support him express frustration from jobs lost to Mexico and its immigrants. He can encourage diversity, but he could not insure the diversity of Trump inc. or any corporation until after he serves in office.
If elected president, Trump will be able to finally ignore the angry people that he's basically using to usher himself into the final stages of this race. That won't fix stagnant wages, or clear him of our fear that he'll preside as a Democrat even while he competes under the banner of Republican. But once elected, he can track as far left as he wants and just call it as right as he chooses. Essentially, president Trump would be free to govern as he pleases and then spin every decision he makes as he see's fit, since spin and marketing are is his top two skill sets.
Policy agenda nuggets that mistakenly slips from Donald's wealthy lips glistens of third term Obama except with a southern fence. He'll finish off what Obama started with ISIS. He'll humanely bring the Mexican's back after finding and deporting them.(??) He'll take care of people who need better wages and fix universal health care with something better than ObamaCare. (????) And he'll be a uniting force like we Hoped Obama could be, except for banning Muslim's from entering America until he can figure out what the hell is going on with Islamic terror.
All of this on the notion that he, unlike any president before him, is uniquely tough enough to make people do as he demands. Instead of firing them like he did for years on television, he's throwing them out of his rally's and inciting his crowd to do his violent bidding by expressing what he would do if only he could.
Trump feeds off of this narcissistic exploitation of vulnerable people, and no one is more vulnerable than the angry. He who angers you owns you- but he who can incite your existing anger has the power to evoke immature rage on command. Trump has placed a segment of America's angry and afraid on a chain like a ravenous dog. Some are actually immature enough to sneak a bite at departing rally protester's while the rest are prepared to blame the victims for getting too close. As one united coalition, the Trumpian's are answering the clarion call of their leader to get tough, play dumb and make America great by any means necessary- and Trump will clean up your legal mess if necessary.
How adults can be groomed to be more loyal to party than country is answered in the children they raise. From a very early age, right wing offspring are given an image of liberalism attached with fear and loathing, not an endearing Republican theme that becomes their unified mantra of party loyalty. As the Republican party becomes increasingly segmented, the various options of which way to go are slowly pulling the party to its death. Add a little populism spewing from every presidential candidates voice, and the only distinct ideas become that crazy Muslim ban and the Trumpian wall.
Trump has even exposed the fact that every politician is trying to figure out our preferences just to sale us a bill of goods exactly like the other candidates, only better.
Will Republicans alter the Constitution so that it mirrors their love of Christ and hate of abortion and gays, or do they love guns and freedom more and decide to leave people alone so that people will do the same for them? If Obama and every other modern president have had no problem creating policies to make the rich get richer, why can't either party find a way to make America's wealth trickle down- and which party actually deserves another chance to finally make it happen?
If either party had an easy answer to issue of wealth disparity, they would have used it a long time ago. Now, Trump has exposed this failure from both sides of the two-party political conspiracy forcing both sides to join together in figuring a simple method to stop Trump and start opening pathways to wealth before America fixes this electoral college hustle and gives Trump a try.
Instead, let's simply focus on the details. Even if we choose to transfer the terrorists housed in Gitmo stateside, we will pay for their lives (well over half are on hunger strike and must be force fed) for the rest of their lives. The cost of doing so at the Gitmo facility in Cuba makes everything exponentially more expensive.
From strictly a perspective of ANOTHER socialized program for tax payers to endure, this one is one of the worst. I realize that modern day prisons are also a really bad socialized means of making us feel safe from criminals, because it mostly trains them to do crime and sends them back on our street to test their skills before they finally get sent to prison to stay as habitual prisoners; habitual meaning they've practiced a lot.
What exactly does locking up suicide terrorists actually protect us from? Colorado republican Senator, Cory Gardner, rejects the notion of sending Jihadists to Colorado's Supermax prison, or to an abandoned prison in Colorado, but quickly admits that terrorism will continue whether WE behave humanely or not.
I scratched my head for quite some time after Gardner made that statement (2/23 on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Report) because I suddenly realized that Gardner, and everyone who agrees with him (including Marco Rubio), has decided that our image in the world means nothing one way or the other, so why should America care one way or the other? Why should we continue to uphold some old aged sense of decency that hasn't stopped evil doers from attacking the bastion of freedom in order to weaken freedom as a whole? Why should integrity and values matter when dealing with the Jihad? Are we always expected to address evil with wisdom and restraint?
Essentially, these are the type of questions you have to ask yourself in order to justify the persistence of Gitmo, America's jail for the Jihad......which, by the way, doesn't house everybody who joined the Jihad, ONLY middle eastern captured enemies. What jail is Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) being held in?
If so many Americans are truly convinced of the necessity of a Jihadi Jail @ Gitmo, they have to accept that we are abandoning former core values by doing so; core values that former president George W. Bush may have to answer to one day.
In essence, WE the People of the United States of America, have chosen to fight this particular fire by circling the fire starters within a ring of fire, pushing back every detainee who'd prefer the fiery death option by use of a really expensive pitch fork no less.
To respond to any evil with even a small dose of its own medicine doesn't change evil or its way. It changes US. For now, fear and anger are enough to keep Gitmo operational because the GOP is full of both emotions, and in full control of both houses of congress too.
Until WE temper the emotions that caused Gitmo to be in the first place, it remains our knee jerk reaction to an immediate crisis that our past two presidents have now admitted was a grave error. Those who think it belongs around FOREVER are stuck in crisis mode and incapable of guiding this nation away from Gitmo or the fear and anger of terror. As long as terror produces fear and anger and breaches of the Geneva convention pact, terror succeeds.
Am I the only person who got caught off guard with today's primaries? When did Super Tuesday turn into saucy Saturday in primary politics? Who expected to be talking politics this weekend, and who knew that it would be so significant to the future of the race?
The world of progressive politics has become so pervasive, that the GOP candidates have to spend as much time as they can bashing Obama just to keep from sounding just like Hillary and Bernie all of the time, while Hillary has resorted to GOP tactics just to deal with the pain of the Bern.
Sure, that joke about all the free stuff the Socialist Sanders will give away when he's president sounds like a funny line for sake of a chuckle, but it doesn't really offer alternatives to the current scenario in which incomes have plummeted and only forced hands will loosen enough to change that fact. What force ends up looking like in the end is a matter of significant debate among both sides of establishment resistance.
Has GOP voters given in to the Trump craze even though the GOP establishment has not?
What is not debated is the necessity of more income for average Americans. Trump might be winning over massive support being the former Democrat that is willing to talk like a tough republican for the sake of a GOP win, but if you ask him what motivates him, he says he loves his work, meaning the deal making and the showmanship, not the politics. When pressed, he still refuses to own that politician label while continuing to beg us all for a political vote of confidence.
Polls, and tonight's primary results (SC) strongly tilt toward Trump- until you place him head to head with either of the remaining candidates from the opposing side. In that polling, Trump gets trolloped. Yet, the tendency for either potential trolloper to prematurely lick their chops needs to be curtailed until they finish their own infighting.
In recent days, Bernie Sanders has correctly accused Clinton and her husband of damaging the black community as it relates to excessive incarcerations and those restrictive welfare policies (welfare to work) and programs that forced single black moms out of the house leaving black children without supervision. The impact on many poor black single parent households was young men and women captured by the influence of gangs or drugs while hard working black mothers struggled to keep food stamp support (which now requires both a job and poverty to maintain) to feed her remaining latchkey children that gangs haven't yet taken.
Like Jeb Bush and 9-11, can Hillary embrace Bill's good without touching the bad?
If Bill and Hillary can admit that the policies were wrong, then they must admit that it was the impact their policies had on real lives that made them wrong, regardless of their good intentions or other good things they've accomplished for poor people in general.
Conversely, Senator Sanders has been accused of offering way too much in the way of free public services without a realistic vision of how to get it passed through congress or paid through fiscal provisions. This is also an accurate claim against Sanders and his ideas, though ObamaCare, Social Security, the military, public schools or any needed socialized program demands proper funding adjustments to realize optimal efficiency, a word that is typically not associated with our government.
Hence the problem.
That same inefficient government likely holds the last best hope for price controls within our healthcare industry, controls that exist in nearly every country expect America. Current growth trends relative to medical costs show healthcare increasing at a much lower rate than it did prior to ObamaCare's beginning, but insurance companies are fighting to keep you from finding out. For Sanders to speak to the necessity of changes in areas like medical costs or college debt strapping our children, doesn't immediately make him responsible for the details that would go with implementation of these obvious needs.
Hillary tried her hand at healthcare before Obama got it done and knows that details always need to be ironed out. Bernie also understands that the Clinton's expected their policies to ruin black families about as much as Bush expected to ignite ISIS with his invasion of Iraq. For now, what they both know of each other and what they are saying lately have grown worlds apart.
For now, the gloves are not totally off, but Hillary and Bernie have switched to those smaller MMA version of gloves so that the sting is felt a little more. Clinton has recognized the threat of Sanders despite his Democratic Socialist label, and Sanders has discovered a real viability for his message in spite of his Democratic Socialist label.
What shall proceed is not helpful to either candidate or to this coronation for progressivism. Clinton is not going to be better off for having to explain how Bill screwed up black people or for having to articulate an impossible agenda for dealing with it when black people who support Sanders inevitably pose the question to her. Sanders, on the other hand, is also not better served for having to do the very thing that Donald Trump scoffs at- share policy details.
If Sanders has to explain the single payer system too much, it won't get him elected and we will be stuck with huge deductibles, since huge deductibles are the last best place for the medical insurance industry to stick it to us and cover their shareholder commitments. Medical industry profits aren't as huge as most people think, and are mostly derived from the assured long term presence of sick people and the low risk, high profit investment that assured sick people create. Until we become truly healthy in our bodies and in our funding of healthy bodies- and a viable competitive alternative comes along to disconnect true healthiness from the sick industry that bears its name- the health industry has no real incentive to change.
Again, Hillary knows this. What she doesn't know is how to stop Bernie Sanders without establishment support, and so she is resorting to the very things that the GOP will do to Bernie if in fact he is able to actually beat her and be the party nominee.
Is Ted Cruz developing a ceiling on his support that Trump and Marco Rubio are likely to split if he falters?
Politics 101: Never give your opponents the knife they're seeking to slay you with.
Of course, if Trump keeps tagging republicans with primary losses and the terrorism of 9-11 (which no other GOP candidate ever admits), the GOP might soon hand Trump over to Hillary as the knife that she'll use to slash republican throats and make them bleed out all together. Jeb Bush's departure from the race might help the GOP secure a nominee, but the reasonable one's are dropping like flies. Whatever they try to do to actually stop Trump promises to be an even better show than what we've seen thus far. Either way you project it, the future of this year in politics will be a whole lot of blood shedding, political entertainment as the two party establishment machines fight to kill progressivism while adopting it at the same time.
This week in politics is revealing that the last man or woman standing will be battered and bruised in the eyes of the general electorate because they will have already been weakened and drained of significant life blood from taking too many stiff jabs and knife stabs during the 2016 primary season. And then the bare knuckle and grenades begin. Today, we took one significant step towards all that.
Hillary is currently the only woman Donald has not tried to destroy. Is he saving it for later? Don't republican women have a problem with this?
If resiliency is the TRUE test of mettle that helps us to determine our president, than this is actually more of a coronation then any of us knew.
What we know about American politics has been shaken to the core. First, by two terms of a Muslim named black president, and currently by the total inability to connect the dots on what will happen tomorrow.
Will Bernie "the Socialist" Sanders really keep rising in the polls as Hillary and Trump remain the most hated and likely candidates to represent their party in a general election?
Trump gets away with being utterly offensive towards key segments of the republican electoral path while Hillary gets beaten and battered for reasons we might take years to ever agree about cause we'll be too busy beating her still.
Will she eventually get the positive impact of all the negative press that she's getting when voters have to stand in a ballot box and decide who can actually handle the rigors of the job, realizing that an adversarial media is among the greatest of all human hurdles?
Sort of.
More accurately, the press is proving themselves to be one part journalist' and two part predators of sensationalism above substance. Like the way in which they've clung like stink to crap on the story about The Donald who dared to describe another presidential candidates facial features as a reason for her inability to preside.
Did Donald actually say that Carly Fiorina's mean mug and pursed persona makes her less capable of leading others?
No, but I GUARANTEE you that had Donald declared such a thing about any man, the automatic question that would have followed would have been:
"Do you feel that his facial features will hinder his ability as a president" That question never came. During the interview or in post interview analysis of what he said or what he meant while trying to clean it up.
What also didn't happen....again, is the expected drop in poll numbers that would connect the dots between the behavior and the response that says Americans, primarily republican American women, care about electing a misogynistic president.
Did I just call out republican women?
Actually, all women- including my wife and 5 daughters and my momma, and grandma- are unfortunately squarely in my line of sight today because the more and more we really take a true examination of the REAL war on women (and it is a real war, rather you like it or not), some of the combatants are lobbing grenades at themselves from both sides of the battlefield.
Sorry ladies. I say this with all of the due respect and humility that a male feminist represents. The mere notion is an oxymoron and nearly moronic if you think about it. How can the slave master pretend to be interested in ending slavery while benefiting from free labor and idly watching the systematic brutality that insures the future of the program?
Our women are victims of men. They are victims of our inability to understand their core motivations. Where men failed to fulfill the role of leader/provider, women have done what was necessary. Changing your duties doesn't necessarily change your core motivations but it will expand your capacity to do what otherwise had been expected of others.
Is it proper for women to be in leadership roles?
Is Nina Turner too passionate for her own good, or is she willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the cause of justice?
I grew up around churches that didn't know if women could be trusted to preach (so they took over testimony service, which is now mostly gone as a result), or be trusted in pant suits similar to the style a man commonly prefers.
Today, we still don't trust women to be smart enough about their own reproductive choices. "What makes them think we need legislative daddy's to tell us what to do. We are grown 'A' women" said former state Senator Nina Turner of Ohio on Saturday's (9-12-15) MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry Show.
In her always passionate refrain, Turner added, "If your hair is on fire, make like your hair is on fire" responding to the tacit response that women often choose to avoid the risk of agitating the fearful masses and risking their own existence.
Her words inspired me to wonder why I always run to the television when Nina Turner speaks, but don't necessarily feel the same heat from other women who undoubtedly feel the same burn Turner has.
To be Square and fair, black folks do this towards black folks and every group of challenged individuals picks sides in the struggle to either embrace or reject their plight.
Not just black on black crime, I'm talking black on black criticism, or white looking Mexicans who denigrate those who cruise and low ride during Cinco De Mayo.
I listened to an interview with Dr. Damon Tweedy, a black doctor who recently describe how one elderly black patient rejected him as a doctor feeling that the hospital had passed the inferior black doctor upon an unwitting black patient. (NPR interview)
Self hatred examples are ample, but y'all women really need to do some reckoning. Not because you are the sole cause of the problem, but because you are the focus of the change. Men can Lean In, but we have to bend our posture towards the cause of happiness for the women in our world and in our lives.
We know that our drunk and disgruntled daddy can do a lot to help cure the damage of our childhoods that we carry into our adult lives, but the real work is personal. Sometimes drunk daddy isn't ready to help you in the healing. Yet heal you must.
Women must heal themselves from misogyny by addressing the misogyny that they do to each other, as we've long since realized that women mostly dress up for each other and hardly for us guys. In kind, women criticize each others dress and hair style while we guys obsess over the hips and curves hiding behind all of the pomp and circumstance of being a woman.
We've always known that women are notoriously skeptical of other women relative to the issue of rape. When it comes to Bill Cosby, I don't really want to tell you the lack of universal disgust among women, even in my house.
Donald can get away with being an ass because he knows what we all need to come to grips with. Women are as tough on women as anybody. Maybe worse at times.
Had Hillary's assistant been Anthony Weiner and Weiner's wife was caught sending naked pictures on a phone, goofy looking Weiner would be a hero of sorts, especially if the nude woman involved was his rather attractive wife Huma Abedin, whose nude photos would only draw criticism from other women judging the size or the amount of firmness in her breast', or the presence of stretch marks if she's had children and/or a weight control issues.
This demand to be beautiful could also be blamed on men, but it loses its impact among wise women who know that men are attracted to ALL types of women, especially confident ones.
Whether she's elected or not, Hillary is going to win in the court of public opinion just because of the perseverance she gaining vis a vis this media butt kicking she's bravely enduring . She won't get it from The Bern, who is too nice to go there, and Joe Biden is hoping that this email thing will hurt her instead of help her as it ultimately will when it comes time to actually vote for just one of these candidates on either side of the isle. Americans notice the attacks, but not more than the camera which has a way of focusing itself over and over upon the person who eventually gets the nod.
Is Hillary Struggling With Women Too? Hillary not only needs to actively court the support of women, she needs to actively court the vote of black women like Michelle Obama, Nina Turner and the 6 that are in my immediate family (all will be voters in #2016). While a coalition of black voters can be inspired to get out and vote by the Obama voter turnout machine, who they vote for (especially in the primary races) could be a mixed bag without some necessary female guidance.
Some aspects of that guidance will need to softly inspire that segment of society that only a soft spoken black woman can push into action. Other parts will need to go Nina Turner all over this nation to inspire those people who only listen when passionate, trustworthy black women like Nina Turner challenge you with her vision and values. Does that represent a form of my own male self hatred? I won't pretend not to be more cautious around a smooth talking man versus a loud but loving lady.
Does Hillary need a "blacker" woman to lead her cause?
With rugged women, you may not always like what you see but you always trust that it is real. That is the power of what it means to be a woman, and nobody seems to harness and utilize this power better than black women. Hillary needs a couple of strong voice, dark skinned (no offense Karen Finney. we insiders know you are black) black women to get out in front for her for the sake of both the female vote and the black vote, key reasons for 8 years of Obama.
Women must harness the breadth of their power for more than just silent control of unsuspecting men. Women can force the hands of justice by simply patting out the fire in each others hair and destroying all of the matchbooks of self hatred that starts many of them.
What does that mean exactly? Push back at Trump's polling numbers until he lets up on Fiorina, and remind all of the other legislative daddy's that Roe .v. Wade was decided by a lot of smart adults, some of which were women.
Can You Win Any Election Without Women?
Even that cute skinny comedian who did the Fat Shaming video has a reason to join this cause since she will not be young and pretty forever, however, she MIGHT decide to remain a woman since she mentioned that being a man would have made her humor more funny or more generally accepted. (But you knew you weren't a man going into the satire that you hoped would shamefully inspire people..........huh????)
Women could insure the wage equity that they seek as well, but not without bringing along other disadvantaged people (men) in the process.
Don't assume that I see women as some monolithic conglomerate of voting sameness? Hardly!
Yet, the attack of Carly Fiorina's face is an attack on the entire gender, regardless of political bend. And the cause of gender equality is ONE.
This was a similar revelation that Dr. Martin Luther King faced when last he marched on earth. How do we fight for the conditions (via policy) that impact blacks the most without fixing the greater impact on poor people as a whole?
How can ONE woman rise above beauty as a pre-requisite if so many other women tacitly support these trappings of beauty and popularity?
IRAN NEGOTIATIONS REWIND AND REVIEW Obama forged an unprecedented coalition of nations to accomplish NO NUKE negotiations. Mission Accomplished....the coalition even more so than the negotiations if you ask me. History might agree when we are soon at deeper odds with China and Russia who freely do lots of business in Iran and could soon force the U.S. to check Iran and it's enabler's long before this deal is done.
Iran did not have to agree to peaceful nukes during the period of sanctions nor did they. RETURNING TO SANCTIONS IS A RETURN TO THE STATUS QUO = Iran does whatever they choose as America and allies (not China or Russia) fight via economic choke holds. Whichever potential status quo you find most effective (American/Allies sanctions only or G5+1 sanctions) could limit the access to nuke building money. But it instantly gives Iran more reason, more passion and more room to function UN-MONITORED; a nation that the opponents of the deal don't trust WITH monitoring would be much less trustworthy UN-MONITORED.
TO THE NATION UNDER THEM, ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ARE AN ACT OF WAR.
Un-monitored nuke behavior AND MORE SANCTIONS ARE THE SAME THING and is why war, or the serious threat of war, would be the right thing to do next if our hostile sanctions didn't create a more docile and agreeable Iran. Are those of us who support the deal suppose to assume that war would be avoided even if sanctioned Iran continued to create nukes during sanctions? (and why wouldn't they if you really think about it?)
#2016 will be an election determined by women and Hispanic and Hillary could help herself with an Hispanic running mate on her ticket. Did Bob Menendez disqualify himself by vocally opposing the Iran deal? Is Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro someone to watch?
Maybe war is not the ONLY alternative, however, opponents of the deal hardly offer another realistic alternative outside of more sanctions and A BETTER (nondescript) DEAL.
Why a better deal instead of the best deal in the land/world/universe/galaxy? We call them deal's because each side has to give up something to make it happen. What opponents seem to want is called a nuclear treaty- and those only happen after you win a war.
Up Next? If Marco Rubio has moved out front before his time, who will be the Hispanic hopeful (and maybe Hillary's running mate) to fill that void?
Bob Menendez and Chuck Schumer are playing re-election politics and have calculated that opposing helps more than it hurts politically. These men have never endeavored to describe what a better deal looks like or how sanctions alone can encourage Iran to be kinder towards its enemies?
