The Gags On US As Donald Trump Pretends To Pivot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

So they won't.

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

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

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

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

It's All About Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sort of like that bucket gag.

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

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

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

Libertarians Are Seeking Presidency With No Policies

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

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

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

(Articles previously published January 2014)

Libertarian's Carrying Conservative Ideology Into Political Jungle

Libertarian Message Speaks To Everything Except Reality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4.0 Omissions

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Crazy Uncle Seems Totally Afraid To Win

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

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

Call him Uncle Donald if you will.

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

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

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

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

THE LESSON?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why In The World Do They Call Hillary Clinton Evil?

Full disclosure.

Why exactly do you want this job again?

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. 

Bernie's Running For President But From Socialism

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.

Rubio Is Rising. Clinton Is Moderately Progressive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me repeat that in case you missed it.

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

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

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

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

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

Why Is Iowa So Full Of It?

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

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

Oh, contrare.

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

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

Supposed to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Popcorn please.  This should get good.

Tolerance Was Always Too Low A Standard

We the People, in the hopes of forming a More Perfect Union, have settled for a society of tolerance.

Wasn't it tolerance that created segregation?

What's the problem with tolerance?

Let me provide an example or two.

Did you know that the United Nations believes that we can eliminate AIDS by 2030
(AIDS epidemic can be eradicated by 2030)

AIDS that is, not HIV as a virus can never be truly eradicated.  If the difference between those two confuses you still, it is because we've moved from laughing at the word during my 1987 graduation benediction speech, to now probably knowing someone who lives with or died from AIDS, yet that's about the extent of our progress.

People rarely die from AIDS anymore but millions of US still have no clue about the advances in medicine, or the continuing risks that still exists relative to the disease.  If we understood AIDS and didn't try to tolerate it as only a homosexual or drug addict problem, I would not be still shaking my head 30 years later at the stupidity of such a smart nation.

Several of our presidential candidates are partially victims of this disease of tolerance that has infected us into apathy, while some are using moments of real humanitarian crisis to tap into the unfounded fears of people.  How do I know these are unfounded fears?

Because every migrant who already risked their lives in leaving home would hardly feel slighted by ANY help that America's congress could agree to. Forget Syria for a moment. Any idea of fixing our Mexican immigration issue would be 100% better than nothing at all or dying in the desert.  Yet, a basic agreement driven by human understanding is exactly what got Eric Cantor fired from politics forever.

What exactly did we hope to achieve in becoming a more tolerant nation?  A marriage that looks something like the separate bedroom marriages that used to exist prior to this push to be tolerant?

I wish I didn't have this happy sadness every time thousands of people crowd around Donald Trump to listen to him lie about thousands of New Jersey Muslims having a tailgate style party over the fall of our Twin Towers.

To Trumps credit (and his thousands of followers), a Washington Post article helped to generate the confusion that Trump is capitalizing on now.  The article was wrong, but it wasn't unseemly to capitalize on our misdirected anger back then, and it's obviously not so hard to do now either.

My sadness with all of this comes from all of the living that we've done since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with so little change to show for it.  My happiness comes from the reality that most change begins when the bottom becomes clear.  In my mind, this is exactly what you get when you allow tolerance to be the height of your social pursuit.

Plenty of US have lived with this misconceived notion that WE actually used the tears from watching Martin and Malcolm and those Kennedy brothers die for a more perfect union, to actually become a more perfect union.

Mostly WE pursued tolerance.

Tolerance like they had in seemingly Happy Days or the world of Leave It To Beaver. When folks stayed together forever, but not always in the same bedroom and not with the magnetic passion that created the union, but with the tolerance and acceptance that you  probably won't be too bothered by someone who sleeps in another room.

Tolerance has value- but it doesn't insure understanding.  Respect is cool too, but it wasn't the reason for the orgasmic bliss that built this great family of people United by a common belief and emboldened by an acceptance of the intense necessity of understanding family to perfect the Union and insure the hope for tomorrow.

If WE the People are agreeable to tolerance, WE are essentially retreating to our separate rooms.
If nothing else, Trump is helping us see how very little WE have learned about each other while retreating to our own rooms in this pursuit of tolerance.

Even back in the day, Dad always needed Mom to help adorn the space while Mom probably needed Dad to redecorate from time to time without back pain to follow.  Trump is uncovering our segregated dusty rooms and the damage to our carpets from not redecorating and moving things around a bit.  He's also showing how separate is rarely equal and how ignorance is rarely bliss.

Plenty of Americans can totally relate to every sentiment that is driving the GOP presidential election leader, while plenty of the rest of US who mistakenly believed WE were better than this are witnessing the sad truth.

The Truth Is Never Bad 

Leave It To Beaver didn't prepare us for neighbors like Archie Bunker or George Jefferson, although Archie and George tried like hell to prepare us for today by saying
"Hey!...Like it or  not, this is America too"

Meanwhile, most of us who could, ran to recreate that Leave It To Beaver dream that never was as valuable as it appeared in the first place.  It was fairly tolerant, but segregation will always be tolerant.

Today, WE the People still need integration and understanding to form a more perfect union.  Tolerance has never allowed for too much integration, or the red states and suburbs of America wouldn't be crafted as they are. The word suburb should basically mean "that community where diversity doesn't exist".

Show me a truly integrated community with lots of race mixing and racial understanding and I'll show you an expanding urban trap in which tolerance is still the agenda even if understanding is messing things up a bit and driving the red to be purple or blueish. Everywhere else, tolerance doesn't have to matter as much, and to hell with understanding.

Even WE who claim to be understanding are fooling ourselves a bit and need to recognize what Trump is revealing to us each and every day. WE are all just as confused about each other as ever, and more shocked by our lack of progress than WE should be.

Plenty of nations practice tolerance to some degree or other.  This more perfect union dream demands a new and different understanding.

Lindsey Graham: BEST Republican With Worse Polls

I'm giving up on Jeb

I have accepted that Jeb Bush did not want to do this president thing and should have listened to his momma who told his butt not to get involved in this race.  According to Barbara Bush, America has more families than just the Bush family to bleed the life out of, and I just decided that momma was right.

He is still the decent man that I believed of him, but he's letting Donald Trump dictate his words nearly beyond repair and totally beyond respect.

How low exactly are these zeroes?  

If Lindsey Graham can remain funny and engaging during the next debate
maybe he has the last laugh on Donald Trump.

I was watching the interview with Lindsey Graham on Morning Joe (MSNBC) this morning and found myself really interested in what he has to say.

Aside from the fact that he outlined the same collaborative military force to address ISIS that we agree upon,  he was really really funny.  

(previous post on ISIS)

On Donald Trump:

"Donald Trump is going after that group of Republicans who still think Obama is a Muslim.  And I want the other folks"

Graham offered several really thought out suggestions of economic reform, but mostly focused on the entitlement reform of Social Security and Medicaid which he thinks must be means tested according to age in order to keep in solvent for the long term.

Graham was, however, willing to increase taxes on hedge-fund managers too, an idea that Trump has also brought to the fore, but he would only do it if it involved reducing the debt as a part of the deal.  To reduce taxes and give that extra cash back to a wasteful government was not in the agenda of Graham.

Graham had the hook in my mouth for the humor and the vision, until suddenly the interviewer asked him about his jobs plan.

He answered Dodd-Frank and then returned into the reducing the debt part of his answer in order to comfort those who don't know what he meant by Dodd-Frank as a jobs plan.

Where has Dodd-Frank succeeded and failed? -Bloomberg

Conservatives and Liberals alike have all come to accept that loose lending is not great, but stiff lending is stifling, maybe even strangling to the jobs market, especially the key area of jobs created by the small business owner.

The biggest reverberation from our economic downturn was the shake up on lending to the small business man, the undisputed lifeline of the American economy.  Small business owners are not strangled by corporate enormity which traditionally bleeds payroll for profit as its primary method of operation, especially when times are tough.  

Read about companies who don't bleed payroll during tough times -Bloomberg

Profit through sales can be a really dicey proposition when the consumer is forced into a fickle corner as gas prices pretend to get better but egg prices blow the hell up from that aviary disease ($3.00 per dozen??).

Lindsey is fully unbridled by the fact that he has just enough American support to register 0% in the polls.  One percent might be a number that you could put into a computer algorithm and calculate into an actual headcount of support.

Zero is a formula for quitting the race or giving up on the game playing.

Lindsey Graham has quit the game and was amazingly unbridled in a way that could be game changing if he has the chance to dominate the kiddie table debate like Carly Fiorina did.

My sad hunch is that Graham is speaking a little too real and raw for Republicans or America, with the message that we must destroy ISIS in Iraq and then coordinate the next phase- getting them out of Syria too.

What seems imminent is that he will get the chance to introduce himself in this way again, real soon.  Much like Ben Carson who has broken through from winning a really boring debate of little nuanced substance using one closing zinger (people only remember the opening and the close), Graham showed this ability today and could shake up the conversation by starting one that we are reluctant to have.

Or he could relegate himself to less than zero percent because only 2 people in America are interested in war with ISIS, RIGHT NOW.

Don't worry Lindsey.  SomeONE is still listening to you.

I CU Lindsey.....I CU!!!