Sad Election Choices

I haven't blogged since right after the conventions finished. Initially I thought to let the race settle in to its pace then chime in from time to time. Something happened along the way. I became more and more mystified as the battle heated up. These are the best the parties had to offer? Wait what?!?! The Democrats went with an old school openly corrupt self serving elitist. The Republicans went with, well they went with Donald Trump. At first he was a breathe of fresh air owing nothing to a party and speaking his mind. Then he kept speaking his mind and the more he spoke, the more ridiculous the man sounded. I can put up with the "locker room" talk. If you want to hear real locker room talk be a limousine driver for a bachelorette party sometime, they make Donald Trump look like little orphan Annie. I know, I've done it. However, the man does suffer from foot in mouth disease. I guess he's just a bad hombre. I don't know how he's going to get a wall built either with all the Native American land there is at the border. That ain't gonna happen.

I honestly don't think he wants to win. Let me make my case. With all the open and proven corruption and flip flopping attached to Hillary, he could easily with class and a modicum of dignity bury her. Instead he chooses to attack her through her husband's infidelities and sexual harassment. Like a WWE wrestler he goes for the sensational and meaningless bull. If he's going to use Bill, then he should be pointing out she wants to put the man who helped create the 2008 recession in charge of our economic recovery. While he's at it he could point out that the Democrats say Obama fixed our economy already, so why would Bill need to be in charge of a recovery? He could push her on that but he doesn't. He could bullet point her speeches to Wall Street, he could bullet point many items found from the hacked emails without making the grandiose claim he would put her in jail, but he doesn't. He goes one step too far.

Why would a man who is under fire for being condescending to women, alianate more women by saying his SCOTUS appointments could possibly end up over turning Roe v Wade? Why would a candidate under fire for being racist use the term bad hombre? Why would a serious candidate for President "keep us in suspense" about wether or not they would accept the will of the American people? He's been screaming rigged rigged rigged from day one and I suspect he will again in November should things not go his way. Wether or not rigged could be true, if you can't prove it then it is just an empty conspiracy theory. He just keeps shooting himself in the foot over and over again. So why would a person who wants to be President keep hurting their chances? They wouldn't unless they were really stupid. Say what you want about the buffoon, he's too intelligent to be that stupid. He's a billionaire business man and nobody with that kind of wealth and power is that stupid. If he was, then he'd be broke and his accountants and business managers would be rich.

I wanted to like him. I really did because there is no way in hell im voting for someone as corrupt and dishonest as Hillary, but I don't honestly think he can tear himself away from his companies and brand long enough to run this country. I don't think he has the self sacrifice inside of him it takes to do that. Which leads me to believe that this whole idea of running for President was self serving. It feeds his ego, which we all know is huge, and let's face it as big as his brand is, being a major candidate come November doesn't exactly hurt it. Not to mention, how many deals is he making behind the scenes with those who are either happy or afraid he might succeed? How much clout do you think he has right now in the international community? A lot more than we realize I'll bet. Wether it does good or not I am writing in Bernie Sanders this election. I refuse to vote for a self serving Republican or a self serving Democrat.

The Main Event

Conventions are done, battle lines are drawn and for better or worse, come November we will have either Hillary or Donald as our President. So it comes down to a liar in chief or a big mouth in chief. I get why Trump is the Republican nominee. In a time when the people of this country are calling for political change, he was the biggest face of change on their side. I don't think I will ever understand why the democrats chose complacency over change and put Clinton in. Maybe it's the "historical" factor. I just don't know. The previous President was historical and his presidency has been mediocre at best. History for its own sake just doesn't work.

Trump says what's on his mind whether you like it or not. He doesn't have much of a filter and this makes him a wild card. I'll call this foot in mouth disease or FIMD for short. If his wranglers can get him to tone down, he might be able to pull it off. Of course that's assuming he can let his ego go for five minutes and listen to someone else. Should he prove he can do that during the campaign, it might show he could do that during a term as President. The next few months will tell a lot. He makes me a bit nervous, but not enough to ever consider Hillary Clinton as my choice.

It has been proven as fact that she lies. From sniper fire in Bosnia to the truth about Benghazi to the classified emails she "never sent" on her server, it has been documented that she lies. She has close ties to Wall Street, her foundation takes donations from foreign governments, and she wants to put Bill in charge of the economy. The same Bill who signed two laws into effect that helped to create the financial collapse of 2008. In typical Clintonian fashion she never takes responsibility for her actions. The Clintons escaped Whitewater unscathed while their associates were convicted or committed suicide. How convenient that Bill pardoned at least one of those associates on his way out the door. Hillary's excuse for the classified email situation that she initially denied doing then was proven to be a liar, was to say others did it. Did others laugh about a rape victim too Hillary? I don't get it, most nominees lie on the campaign trail and then when they are President, their lies are challenged but by then it's too late. Hilary's lies are known before she ever got the nomination and yet....she still gets the nod. Wait a minute, maybe I am staring to get it. That's the change the Democrats chose, the lies are up front and out in the open and that must seem refreshing to them.

Democrats Blow It

Ok I've kept quiet for awhile now hoping the Democratic Party would get their heads out of their asses and vote against corruption, cronyism, and lying, but nope they decided that Hillary Clinton should be the nominee. First of all both conventions have been a cringeworthy circus that we should all be ashamed of, but the icing on the shit cake that is politics in this country is Hillary just made history. That can't be recinded. I had someone reply to a tweet I made that she was embarrassed as a woman that this was taking place. There are many good women in politics, Hillary is not one of them. I understand Trump getting there, the Republicans fielded no one better but the Democrats had Bernie and they chose instead to fuck us all with Hillary. I am not a religious man so I won't say God help us but some force better or we are screwed sideways until Sunday. A new low in politics has been hit in the name of history and we all know who is to blame for this.

Time For a Third Party Choice?

So here we are, apparently after a contentious primary season nears the end, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will square off in the November election. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I have serious mixed emotions about "The Donald". On one hand, he is a refreshing change from the same old political insider crap that has plagued us for decades. On the other hand, he is Donald Trump. Big mouth, shoot from the hip without thinking, insult you until you cry, Donald Trump. His business interest are mainly in America so his claims of wanting to strengthen our working class and economy probably ring true. He certainly doesn't back down from a fight which is good in itself but only to a point. When it comes to the international platform, he is going to have to learn to use more diplomacy than big hammer politics. While we are a leader in the world, we still need to consider the rest of the world and it's needs. He will have to work on his diplomacy a bit more. Not that he shouldn't keep speaking what he feels is honesty, he just needs to temper how he puts it out there. The Republican voters have spoken and said that they are tired of more of the same, but is Donald the right change? I'm not totally convinced of that.

Now on the flip side, apparently the Democrat voters are simply not interested enough as a whole to change things. They prefer overall to let things plod along as usual. Here's Hillary who has a history of "misspeaking", who has this cavalier attitude about using a private email for highly classified information, who refuses to acknowledge that the investigation into the email situation is just that, an investigation. Her ties to Wall Street are deep, and we all know Wall Street helped to create the debacle of 2008 which leads me to question her choice of economic adviser, her husband, who signed NAFTA and the repealing of Glass Steagall which also helped to contribute to the same debacle even though he blames it all on the Republicans. She has been on the wrong side of history on social issues until public opinion has become so great that she jumps on board, also known as flip flopping. She outright lied to the families of the Benghazi victims and the American public about the cause of attack while knowing the truth hours after it happened. Those same emails she's "not" being investigated for have proven that fact. She actually seems like the most Republican Democrat I can think of.

All of this leads me to wonder who really should I vote for? A hot headed big mouth or a openly corrupt career politician? I'm sure as hell not voting for the latter, and not sure I'm comfortable yet with the former. So now that leaves me looking towards libertarians and if they can muster up someone who will make a respectable run for the office. If we are going to have real change, it has to be either Trump, or a third party candidate. I'll keep my eyes on the libertarians for awhile to see what they come up with.

Others Did It Too: Clinton's Lame Excuse

Remember when you were a kid and told your parents that everyone was doing something you wanted to do and they didn't want you too? What was their response? If they all jumped off a cliff would you too? So now we fast forward to the present and Hillary in child like defiance claims previous secretaries of state did it too. Actually Hillary you just "misspoke" again in your defense because it's not plural it's one Colin Powell. Now that it has been proven that in fact she did something wrong, her excuse has gone from "I did nothing wrong" to "They did it too." Does this politician ever own up to her mistakes? Clearly not. Yet people still vote for her. As her track record gets proven to be dirtier and dirtier I wonder will he faithful still remain faithful? Probably. She could commit murder and as long as she could blame someone else for her actions the gullible will swallow it. So I have a question for Hillary Clinton. If others jumped off a cliff would you? Please?

Immigration Woes versus Immigration Pride

With the near riot atmosphere at the Trump rally in New Mexico I decided to speak on how immigration has played out in my life. To begin with I am first generation Italian in this country on my fathers side of the family. He and my grandparents came to America in 1957 through New Orleans and settled in New York. In June of 1963, they were all naturalized. They chose legal immigration to this country and were very proud to become citizens. Having been forced out of their home in Northern Italy in an area that is now Slovenia during the Istrian Exodus, they sought out a better life in the U.S.A. So immigration is not an abject subject to me, it is a reality that without, I would would not be an American citizen. That is to say, legal immigration.

I am not without empathy for people who want to escape persecution etc.. to make a better way, but I do have mixed emotions about the ones who come here illegally and skirt the naturalization process for as long as they can before either being forced to do it legally or getting deported. There are legal means and I know it can be arduous to accomplish but it can be done. I work with a gentleman that I call friend from South Africa, who has within recent years been naturalized. He admits it was tough and somewhat costly in the long run but he stuck it out and went the distance. Earning his right to call America home.

Recently I had the honor of attending a naturalization ceremony in Phoenix Arizona. I watched as my Son in Law's grandmother, a native of Peru, took the same oath that our soldiers and Presidents do, to defend the Constitution from "all enemies foreign and domestic" I found it almost thought provoking that naturalized citizens speak these words. If only all of us should have to speak them upon entering adult hood, then maybe the weight of what it means to be a citizen would sink in to more of us. It was a moving ceremony as several of the seventy five individuals from thirty nine countries stepped up to tell their story. One story in particular moved me more than the others. A middle eastern woman came to this country after armed men had stormed her home, took her brother and another male member of her family out by force, and killed them. Imagine living in fear that this could happen at any moment to you. In her country, she had gotten an engineering degree but here she was working as a waitress until she could find a way to use her degree. She was all alone at the ceremony and afterwords, while families took photos of one another, she stood near the crest of Arizona taking a selfie. I offered to take a picture of her standing there, and when I was done, I told her that her story moved me and wished her luck in attaining her dream. This is what legal immigration looks like.

Obviously, I realize there are serious fixes needed in the path to legal immigration, it's a bureaucratic nightmare at this point to fix. However we have to be smart about immigration. We can't have open borders with all the issues we have now to fix in this country, unchecked population expansion can not be sustained. There is no country that I know of that allows open immigration, because it's just not feasible. Reality has to be a part of any immigration system. When I see violence erupt, windows broken, stuff tossed at police, etc etc... When I see a quote of the effect that Trump is targeting my family who is here illegally. When I see things burned, honestly it hardens me to the plight of illegal immigrants because they are, let's face it, illegal. There are legal ways, albeit difficult, to become a citizen in this country and I for one am proud my Father did it the legal way, and my Son In Law and his family have done it the legal way, and my friend has done it the legal way. I respect them for this and am proud to call them fellow Americans.
This photo is of my Son In Law's Grandmother, and this is what legal immigration looks like. Salute.

Politicians Just Catching Up

I've been quiet for awhile just watching what is transpiring in the political arena, watching the media circus that has developed. Quite a few of the politicians now are jumping on the "we need more manufacturing" train. It seems to be a rather large talking point this primary season. I've one word for them .... DUH! When NAFTA was signed, the working ranks cried out, "what about our jobs?" We were placated by Washington, "Don't worry this will encourage more people to get college degrees and therefore better jobs" What the "Brainiacs" in Washington never took into account was that the aptitude and or desire of many blue collar workers wasn't compatible with a college education. Their attitude was that they knew what was better for us so we needed to shut up and do what they say. What we wanted or needed was of no consequence to them, they know better. They don't know much but they know better.

What the stupid bastards didn't realize or didn't care was, that they were making a nation of service industry workers who would now rely on fast food jobs and WalMart type jobs to feed their families. This makes our workers stronger how? Now they are catching up to what us common folk knew all along and are seeing that our working force is being burdened with increasing weight year after year. Now they are playing catch up and want to do something about it. Now.... after millions of good paying manufacturing jobs are gone, now they see. Who could have seen the problems the trade agreements much like the one this administration along with the rest of the politicians just approved, would cause? Oh wait, everyone that wasn't in Washington did.

The candidates pretty much all claim to want to do something about it, and they pretty much all acknowledge the mistakes of the trade agreements. Better late than never I guess and I hope they are serious about actually doing something about this. We can't keep hurting the work force which is the backbone of this country without causing more harm to America. It's just common sense and I know that Washington lacks this, but maybe they are learning on this one. Which does bring me to a question for Hillary. Why would you want to put your husband in as Manufacturing Czar after he drove the bus over us with NAFTA when he signed it into effect? Are you frigging nuts?!?! Are you the only one not learning or listening? Are you that arrogant and conceited as to not realize he helped cause this problem and now you want the fox in charge of the hen house? Ugh I hope for the sake of this country, you don't win. You'll never change, you'll never listen to the people, and you'll never be anything more than the business as usual dirty politician you really are.

Musicians and Politics.

For as long as I can remember, musicians have used their notoriety to further causes close to their hearts. Protest songs, and acceptance speeches have both been used to get their message out. It's good to see socially conscious stars reaching out to help make the world a better place and in doing so, give back to the community. However, I think the recent canceling of shows by two legendary artists, might have some unintended adverse consequences. Bryan Adams and Bruce Springsteen both canceled shows in Mississippi and North Carolina respectively because of laws those states passed that are bigoted towards the LGBT community. They certainly have a right to protest, and whether or not one agrees with their views, they have the right to speak out against the laws and I suppose they have the right to cancel shows.

For the most part, people on social media are lauding these cancellations, saying how great this is, I wonder how great they would think it is if they had missed the concerts because of this. Unfortunately, their actions don't punish the politicians, they punish their fans. These two artists are arguably "bucket list" artist. The kind of musicians you hope to see before you kick the bucket, or the way 2016 is going, before they do. I couldn't imagine how pissed off and disappointed I would be if I had tickets to or had planned to go to these shows and they were canceled for political reason. I'm sure that out of the 10,000 plus people that would have attended each of these concerts, not very many of them voted for the laws. If it's the laws you don't like, why make your fans suffer? I would think that a better way to protest the laws would be to write a hit song about it and donate the money to the LGBT community in those states. Come on guys, don't make the people suffer because politics, the idiot politicians are already doing that enough.

Opportunity Slipping Away

I'm a cynic, so hope isn't generally in my vocabulary. I've watched too much of the same old bullshit go on year after year in Washington to think that true change can happen. It's probably the reason I didn't vote for Presdident Obama. While I watched him preach hope and change, he just reminded me of the same old politicians who said what we wanted to hear to get our vote. Seven years later, the cynic in me says "told ya so" He didn't change how Washington works, he didn't provide more transparency, and he didn't get rid of the pork. Don't get me wrong, I don't think everything he did was wrong, he's just more of the same old same old. Before the primary season started, I didn't have much hope that there would be any true change, the cynic in me wouldn't allow it. Hasn't happened yet, not going to happen, was my feeling. Then it started to happen, what I thought was impossible seemed possible.

Tump and Sanders came along. On the GOP side Trump is shaking things up like the Hulk taking on Loki. Puny politicians. On the Dem side, there's Bernie. Bernie cares about people, Bernie cares about this country, and Bernie wants to really change how things work. He isn't beholden to the DNC and he isn't beholden to corporate America. He's beholden to his conscience. So at the beginning of this primary season, this cynic foolishly allowed hope to creep in. The prospect of a Trump Sanders general election started to excite me. Talk about real change. Imagine two candidates who are outsiders dukeing it out for the greatest office in America. Imagine. But alas it's not looking good for this scenario and the cynic inside me is starting to berate himself for daring to hope.

While its mathematically still possible for Sanders to somehow pull it off, it seems there are enough Democrats that can look the other way when it comes to corruption and lies, who don't want to see any real change, and who just won't jump off that damn Hillary train out there for that to happen. I don't get it, the Democrats have a real chance to field an honest, sincere and honorable candidate and many of them are letting that opportunity slip right through their fingers. I wish it could be different but it's looking like "I told you so" is going to be my mantra for a little longer.

Arizona Preference Election

Coincidentally we happen to be visiting our daughter and son in law in Arizona this week and today is Arizona's Presidential Preference election. It's sort of a pre-primary only independents are not allowed to vote which leaves out over 30 percent of their voters from today. Their regular primary happens in August when everyone can vote. According to what I have read, the GOP winner today gets all of the delegates for the state while the Democratic side will see delegates awarded in a proportional system with both candidates possibly splitting the delegates. Something I've had my eyes opened about this primary season is seeing all the different types of ways the states choose to cast votes. Caucuses, primaries, and preferential elections are but different ways to get to the same outcome. It's kind of cool to see states rights enacted this way choosing various ways to get to the end game. I think this helps exemplify what is good about this country in that each state decides which way does and doesn't work for them, while we all collectively get to work in our own way to achieve a common goal. This could serve as a lesson to us as if there is more than one path to travel in order to get to a destination, if we're willing to respect another's way, we can come together for a common good.

GOP: A Bunch of Dirty Bastards

The GOP magnanimously claimed they would back Donald Trump if he got the nomination. Of course the dirty bastards never promised not to move Heaven and Hell if it needed to block his nomination, showing us that they only said that because they never thought it would happen. The same guys who can't get a budget in place in time to stop a government shutdown and are refusing to gather together in time to look at the President's SCOTUS nominee, miraculously can get their asses together quickly enough to hold meetings to figure out to stop Donald Trump. House speaker Paul Ryan is saying an open convention is more likely to happen, and believe me, that's exactly what they want at the RNC, because with the others dropping out, their delegates could be used against Trump. You know damn well they won't be given to Trump unless he wins it without them. CNN is reporting that Bob Fischer gathered up a bunch of lawmakers and activists with the sole purpose of figuring out how to get rid of Trump. They're scared, lost little babies who are reaching for any thing they can to take Donald down even if it means being dirty. You watch, I bet if Trump wins the nomination, they will go back on their word and not give him their full support. Any one wanna bet?

Supreme Court Nomination

Look I'm not a big fan of President Obama, but if the Republicans fight him on his upcoming nomination to the Supreme Court simply because they want the next President to be the one to nominate that person, they are idiots. That's something that could bite them in November, not to mention that as President, he has a Constitutional right to make said nomination. On the other hand if the President wants to make them look bad, he could nominate someone he knows they would never go for anyway. That also would be stupid as it would be too apparent as to the motive. Let's hope both side do the right thing and give proper consideration to the nominee for this position. An appointment of this magnitude deserves that much respect.

Plenty of Blame to Go Around

Anyone who has read my blog can gather that I'm not a fan of politics as usual and I blame both the Democrat politicians and the Republican politicians pretty much equally for the semi-disastrous state we are in. However, there is another group who shares the blame as well, and that would be us. For decades we have looked the other way, as politicians skim the fat off before tossing the scraps on the floor for us to fight over. We watch as their loyalties have been to their party and those who donated the most to their campaigns, placing the good of America a distant third in their priorities. While maybe that's not exactly treason, it's still really disgusting. We have complacently allowed open corruption to take the place of integrity and honesty, I mean really how do we let them get away with Super Delegates, if that's not open corruption I don't know what is. We accept their excuses with a shrug of the shoulders or the comment "they all do it." as if that makes it somehow cosmically okay. All too often the defense we use to justify the bad actions of a politician that we like is.... the other guy did it. We are guilty of this hypocrisy as much as the politician is simply because we don't wish to acknowledge that the person we backed isn't perfect. We should have been demanding, honesty, and accountability all along instead of accepting excuses like "I misspoke" Too many times from too many mouths we have heard those words. Misspoke my ass, a lie is a lie, but we don't call them on this, we don't force them to own up to their lies, we let them bullshit us. What did my generation do when Bill Clinton had extra marital sex in the Oval Office? We turned him into a frigging rock star with excuses like it's not our business, it's between the Clintons. Excuse me? If a politician can betray their spouse and desecrate the Oval office in that manner, what makes us think said politician will be above board with the rest of us? Why don't character and integrity matter to us?

We need to start doing something about this, we need to start bitching louder and longer. In this electronic age it's too easy to find our leaders emails and send them our complaints. We should be inundating them with our anger at the shape our country is in. We should especially be challenging those we support or voted for when they screw up, maybe criticism from their own people will go further, they might actually become aware they could lose votes if we stood up to them. Why don't we? Complacency, laziness ,apathy. None of the above, all of the above.

If we truly want a political revolution, it needs to start with us. We need to weed through the crap, make them accountable, and keep at them when they screw up. I'm a fan right now of voting out incumbents, and that means party insiders looking to be President as well. The table is set right now for us to really make a difference with out vote more so than any other time I can remember. We have two outsiders looking in trying to get their respective nominations. Trump and Sanders. It doesn't look hopeful for Sanders I'm sad to say, because not enough people voting in the Democrat primaries are willing to stand up for change. Not at this point anyway. Now that it's down to basically Trump and Cruz on the other side, we will really see if Republicans are looking for change or are they looking to be lambs to the slaughter like so many of their counterparts. There is not much time left to make a difference in this next Presidential election. The time to make the change is now, not when it's narrowed down to two. Prior to November is when we should be showing them we mean business. After November it may be too late, our choices may both be wrong at that point.

Now are You Ready to Dump Hillary?

Hillary Clinton just made the remark that we didn't lose a single person in Libya. Is she suffering from dementia? Does she not remember Benghazi? I'm sure she will try and weasel out of it by saying she meant something else or misspoke. Now are you Hillary lovers ready to dump her? If not what in the world will it take for you to realize she is a habitual liar who is used to getting away with it? I think in the back of her mind, she thinks her supporters will back her no matter what she does or says, and what does that tell you about how she feels about those who follow her. She thinks your gullible and will swallow anything. Please prove her wrong and kick her to the curb. She doesn't deserve your adoration, she really doesn't.

Bernie Protesters At The Wrong Rally

Trump has everyone worried these days. Even the Democrats. A series of protests are interrupting Trump's rallies and they don't come from where I thought they might. I would think that during primaries when it is Republican verse Republicans and Democrat verse Democrat, protesters would be attending rallies of the opponent/s of their candidate of choice. But noooooo, the ones interrupting and protesting Trump are Bernie Sanders supporters. CNN reports that Moveon.org, an organization that has endorsed Sanders, admitted to providing the signs to them.

I get that Trump scares both parties, and he should, he doesn't owe either of them shit and he knows it. What I don't get is Sanders supporters putting the horse before the cart. If your boy can't get through Clinton, then Trump is a non issue. WTF? Why aren't you out protesting Clinton who has lied about Bernie during the debates? You're putting you're energy into an easy target like Trump who puts foot in mouth daily when you should be going after the person who could stop Bernie from being the Democratic candidate. Is his your way of conceding to Hillary? Damn get out there and fight for your candidate but put the fight where it belongs, with his opponent. If you don't help him win the nomination, you can put part of the blame on yourself for misdirecting your focus on a race that may not happen. Focus people, focus. Hillary is his opponent. All you're doing now is providing free press for Trump. He's probably loving what you're doing for him. You're really are putting the cart before the horse here people.

I watched an interview with Ben Cohen on this subject, now Ben is co-founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and a supporter of Bernie. While calling Trump Un American and blasting him about his comments, Ben waffled on the idea that the protesters were organized. I have a bit of advice for Ben, if you want people to believe you're being honest, you might want to look into the camera directly like you're making eye contact instead of looking all over the room and stuttering in your answers, like a child lying to his dad. Just saying. I understand Trump is scary. He's a scary man indeed, but right now the one you people should be scared about is Hillary Clinton, the scariest person in the Democratic Party. On a side note I want to give a shout out to Mr. K. It seems he enjoys my blog with a cup of coffee in the mornings. Thanks, it's good to know I have one steady fan out there.

Donald Trump a Punchline?

Dean Obeidallah wrote that Donald Trump is an embarrassment and a punchline. He makes an intelligent argument that the party that gave us Abe Lincoln and others now gives us Donald Trump. I can't say that he is totally wrong, as I have said that Trump is a cartoon character myself a time or two. However, in order to understand the Trump phenomenon, I think we have to look at what led us to this point. Years even decades of politicians putting party and self before country, have gotten people pissed off. I think as a people, we are at that breaking point that says something has got to give, and like the opportunist that he is, Donald Trump has swooped in. He's full of fire, he's loud, he's boisterous, and he won't cow tow to the GOP party. Not kissing the Republican's ass is what I think has more people on his side than anything else. He's making the biggest wave in the pool and people are attracted to him for his outside status. Let's face it, the professional politicians haven't done this country any favors as of late. Trade acts, deals that have allowed Korea nukes and soon Iran, regime building, and the general ignoring of what the people really need in this country, have weakened this country in the international community and turned our blue collar workers into service industry slaves who have to fight to get minimum wage increased so they can eat. Great job politicians, great job.(Sarc) You've turned the American Dream into, "what government aid can I do without to survive" All you politicians pretty much suck, with rare exception.

So on one side we have Bernie Sanders, an honest person with integrity and a long history of caring for people, who just upset Hillary in Michigan with an upset that may not be enough because of the asinine Super Delegates. While on the other side we have Donald Trump, larger than life, loud as hell and good at rankling feathers. It doesn't look like the Democrats are going to shake things up much, they seem determined to let Hillary, a career politician whose as bad or worse than the rest of them, have the nomination. So out of sheer frustration and disenfranchisement, people are turning to Trump. I can't say I blame them given the current state of Washington. Embarrassment? Maybe. Punchline? Maybe. But maybe, just maybe, it's just the embarrassing punchline those damn politicians need to smarten them up.

Sanders Gets Gritty

So Bernie Sanders has stepped it up, proving he won't be pushed around by Hillary telling her "Excuse me I'm talking." He kept her from interrupting him more than once which is exactly what he needed to do. Prove he won't be bullied. Since they were in Flint Michigan, Clinton took the opportunity to slam Sanders for voting against the auto bailout, as if the auto bailout was a good thing. Let's look at the aftermath of the bailout. We were told we needed to loan GM billions of dollars so they wouldn't have to file bankruptcy and therefore save a million jobs. Of course now Hillary inflates that number to four million, but that's what professional politicians do, exaggerate, aka misspeak, aka lie, to make their point seem more valid. In the GM deal the union got a percentage of the company and lo and behold, GM went bankrupt in 2011 anyways, making our bailout a waste in my opinion. If that's what they were going to do anyway, why did they need our billions? Last I knew there was five billion we were not going to get back from them. With Chrysler, when they gave them money, a deal was made for them to close a certain amount of dealerships. That didn't put anyone out of work? Now FIAT owns the controlling share of that company. So let's see, the big three American owned companies are really down to the big two since Chrysler is owned by a foreign company. Out of the two remaining companies, only one needed a bailout so they wouldn't go bankrupt and they did anyways. So what did the bailout accomplish? It spent our money that's for sure, it gave control of GM to the government for a small while (think OnStar people) and it paid off political favors to the auto unions, who should now be pissed at the Obama administration because the new Pacific trade deal looks to cut auto worker jobs out of this country making the efforts to "save" the auto industry even more of a waste. Yeah Hillary, point out that Bernie was against a bailout that really turned out to be a crap deal. Good job.

I saw online polls asking who won the debate, and by a large margin, Sanders was ahead, a large margin. Hopefully this will help turn the tide for Bernie, because he sure needs it especially since the corrupt Super Delegate process they use gives Hillary a huge lead toward the nomination. One thing is for sure, people need to get off the Clinton dynastic train and join up with Bernie. The time for change is truly ripe in politics and I fear that if this opportunity is missed by either of the two parties, we may not get it back. Imagine, another four or even eight years of politics as usual, that's a rabbit hole we need to escape.

A Word to Romney

I voted for you and despite that I find myself shaking my head at your bullshit. It's so effing obvious that the GOP machine called on you to try and rake Trump over the coals it's not funny. Are your buddies that scared of him that they called in you, a guy who has been mostly quiet in the years since you lost, to dance for them like a chicken on a hot plate? YUP. Pathetic. Crawl back into your cave and let it go. You and the GOP just showed that the Republican machine is going to keep playing dirty politics,and that is what will turn people away from you guys and drive them right into Trump's hands. Man you dumb asses are hard learns when it comes to paying attention to what the people want. See people are tired of thick headed politicians that don't learn (GOP), and whine ass ones that keep blaming the other guys (DEMS). As soon as you both learn this, maybe we can turn America around again. Oh and did you forget you thanked Trump for his support in the last election you giant hypocrite?

Hillary the Teflon Dem

You now who Hillary reminds me of? John Gotti, The Teflon Don. For years, no matter what that man did, he got away with it, outsmarting law enforcement agencies until finally, the FBI caught up with him. He was popular with the public and while he escaped justice time after time, his associates took the fall. Sound familiar? Clinton associates went to jail for Whitewater, but the Clintons got off scott free. Hell old Bill even pardoned Susan McDougal on his way out the door for her part in the scandal. After Bill's presidency, they move to New York and Hillary runs for senate. What did a Midwest born, southern Democrat know or even care about what New York wanted or needed? The answer is nothing, she simply wanted to set up a run for President.

As a defense attorney, she laughed about a twelve year old sexual assault victim that had accused her client. When women came forward claiming Bill sexually harassed them, she reportedly threatened to destroy them and called them bimbos, yet now she claims to be a women's right advocate. The only reason she is a Womens advocate is because it's politically advantageous, like being a senator from New York. She claims being a woman is holding her back in politics, yet she is one of the biggest insiders in the Democratic Party there is. The Super Delegates pledged to her show that. She "misspoke" about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia. How the hell do you do that? Probably the same way she "misspoke" about the truth of Benghazi for nine days when she knew the truth hours after it happened. Her, and her departments in-action in providing extra security in Libya when it was asked for two years prior to the tragedy, combined with their not sending requested help the night of, contributed to the deaths of American citizens. You think maybe that was a case of bad judgement at the very least? Speaking of bad judgement, how is using a private server that could be hacked in less than an hour by any halfway decent hacker, to hold confidential and classified emails from our government officials not a terrible lack of judgement on her part? Can any one of her supporters answer that? I'm wondering if this guy Bryan Pagliano, who has immunity for testifying, isn't going to end up shouldering the blame for the email debacle so that Clinton can claim she didn't know everything and therefore isn't guilty. Sound familiar?

What I don't understand is how with all this stacking up on Hillary, can she still have as many supporters as she does? Is Bernie too honest for you people? Does he have too much integrity? Has he stayed too true to his values for the past 30 plus years for you? What is it? Is bad judgement something you want in a President? What?? A vote for Hillary isn't just a vote for politics as usual, it's a vote for the Master of politics as usual. Every move she makes, every thing she says, is only to further her political and personal ambitions. The state department used it's influence on behalf of her son in law, she makes well paying speeches to major corporations, which by the way she has yet to release the transcripts so people can see what she has said to these companies, and to be honest, I think she stayed with Bill after his infidelities because it was the political savvy thing to do. How someone can think she is trustworthy and has any integrity is beyond me. You know who else the public loved through all their corruption until the end? Al Capone, Joseph Colombo, and John Gotti. Sound familiar?

Super Tuesday is Here

If he is going to overcome the pledges of the corrupt Super Delegate practice, I believe Bernie Sanders will need to have a super showing today. A dozen states and a territory cast their votes today, and because it is before March 15th, the delegates will not be a winner take all for the individual states and territory. Today's delegate allocation will more closely reflect the will of the people than those cast after the 15th, since they will be split somewhat accordingly, and Bernie needs to get as many delegates as he can. Somehow despite controversy following the corrupt, untrustworthy, flip flopping candidate known as Hillary Clinton around for years, the Democrat side of this could be a humdinger of a nail biter. It shouldn't be, which is sad in itself, but it's shaping up to be. I sincerely hope the people speak against insider corruption loud and clear today. We can only hope

On the Republican side of things, today should hopefully get rid of the two candidates who still wear rose colored glasses. Old Doc Carson and his partner in denial Kasich are at this point, simply stealing votes and possibly delegates they will have to pass on at a later time. Instead of a three way match which is were it should be, it's still a royal rumble that's not so royal. Super Tuesday could have possibly weakened one of the big three enough to narrow it down to two if there weren't five still in it. It's like Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are battling and bickering with an occasional pause to look over their shoulders and ask "Oh you guys are still here?" If this was a reality show, these two would be on their judges save and even though they won't survive until the end, they continue to muck up the works. You two are the weakest link....Goodbye.

The Two Holdouts Left Need to Go

Carson and Kasich have vowed to keep going. To what end? You two are not going to win, even with your combined numbers you don't make one good contender. Kasich and Carson need to go. It's time guys. All you're doing now is keeping the water muddy for the others. Let Trump, Cruz, and Rubio have at it. You know, the big boys. Somebody in their camps should be telling these two holdouts this. They are wasting money, time, and sucking up votes that should be elsewhere. Without them we could start to see a little clearer picture of what's going on. Them leaving could actually tighten up the race between the other three if their votes went to Cruz and/or Rubio, as I suspect they would, but we wont know that until they get a dose of reality in them and get to stepping. Time to close shop and go home to lick your wounds. Then the rest of them can get down to business. Just saying.

2008 was a Bi-Partisan Debacle

This morning I was scanning through the Twitterverse in order to see what was trending. A top trend for awhile was "Marco Rubio is Unmistakable". In that subject I saw a tweet that said something to the effect that he was Unmistakable about Obama knowing what he was doing when he fixed the Republican caused recession. This is getting to be an old tired mantra that is only half true. It's only half true because the Democrats had their hand in bringing about that crisis. In 1999 Bill Clinton signed into law the repealing of the 1939 Glass/Steagal act. A law that had been enacted in an effort to avoid another depression by keeping the investment banks and the mortgage banks separate. In 1999 between House and Senate 260 Republicans and 156 Democrats voted to accept the repeal. Many economists as well as Politicians from both parties, including Bernie Sanders, feel that the repealing of Glass/Steagal was a major contributing factor to the debacle of 2008. On Sander's website he has a page on the 5 reasons Glass/Steagal Matters. So how can it be solely the fault of the Republicans if that many Democrats and a President who was a Democrat backed this action? Can anyone tell me how? President Obama claims he had to fix an economy the Republicans ruined. Oh really? Bill Clinton said when he was defending what President Obama was doing to fix the economy that it was all the Republicans fault. Oh really? Hypocrite! Does he have a bad memory because he doesn't want to accept his and his parties part of the responsibility or he just getting old? Or maybe like Hillary on the Bosnia sniper fire incident, he misspeaks.

The blame for 2008 lies squarely on both parties shoulders and until we can get both sides to admit that together, how can we fix things together? What is worrisome to me is, there hasn't been enough done to prevent another collapse, just mostly a bunch of money thrown at a crisis. Does Washington want another crisis so they can spend more fixing something that could possibly be avoided? This also sits squarely on both parties. Only now during this primary season do we see people talking about doing something like Glass/Steagal to shore things up. Eight years later, eight years. Seven years ago we should have done something to help prevent 2008 from repeating. We've been vulnerable and will continue to be so until they do something. You can thank both parties for this neglect. Both.

Trump Yapping Again

Whether it's because he wasn't trending for a couple days and wants us talking about him, or that he really believes it, Trump has inserted foot into mouth again. He re-tweeted a tweet challenging Cruz and Rubio's eligibility to run for President. When asked about it by George Stephanopoulos Trump replied “I really – I’ve never looked at it, George. I honestly have never looked at it." Political speak for "I can change my tune later saying I have now looked into it." Rubio was born in Florida to Cuban immigrants, which makes him first generation born in America, which makes him American in my book. I'm first generation on my fathers side and if you came up to me in person and challenged me being American, we'd have an issue. The constitution says only a natural born citizen can become President. When reviewing Ted Cruz' eligibility The Harvard Law Review Forum last year wrote, While some constitutional issues are truly difficult, with framing-era sources either nonexistent or contradictory, here, the relevant materials clearly indicate that a “natural born Citizen” means a citizen from birth with no need to go through naturalization proceedings. I can only imagine this applies to Rubio as well, making him fully eligible to run.

Donald Trump is not stupid. He might have been left a bunch of money from Daddy, but if he was stupid he'd be stone broke and featured on a "Whatever happened to" show. So I think it's a ploy for attention but I think he needs to step back and swallow a dose of shut it on this subject. It's one thing to keep harping on a subject that has validity, but it's totally different if there is no merit behind the issue. You're gonna lose support Donald if you keep after the "birther" idea. It's basically down to three and Trumps lead may diminish some with Jeb gone and then when it comes down to two, if he's one of those two, anyone he alienates by spouting foolishness will end up backing the other guy. I don't know maybe Donald should give control of his twitter account temporarily to he campaign team. At least then he could blame stupid remarks on someone else.

Hillary pulls it off

In spite of the number of confidential emails raising to 1,752 that Hillary had on her private server, she took the Nevada caucus by around 7 percent and she goes into South Carolina with a lead of over 20 points. Her lead in Nevada had at one time been 25 which Bernie had cut into quite deeply indicating Bernie is making some waves. I just hope he begins making bigger ones. It's a bit disappointing to see that not more Democrats are looking to boot politics as usual in the ass. It's almost as if they are being as stubborn as they accuse the Republicans of being. Democrats were all about change last Presidential election but aren't committing to it this time as much yet, but it is still early yet. South Carolinas Dem primary date is the 27th of this month, a week away.

On the Republican side Trump won with 33 percent of the vote while Jeb dropped out of the race. Goodbye Mr. Regime builder. No dynastic administration for the GOP this time around. With only 3 days in between South Carolina and Nevada for the Republicans, Trump has a lead over Cruz of about 22 percent. That may decrease slightly with the loss of Jeb. Not that his being out is a big loss. On the Republican side it's outsiders 2 insiders 1 and on the Democrat side it's insiders 2 outsiders 1. Of course one of the insiders victory was due to a coin flip. Imagine that, in a caucus, the winner can be decided the same way the NFL decides who kicks off first. Gotta love it. I hope Dems start stepping it up and call for real change with their votes soon. Otherwise Hillary's barking speech could turn out to be prophetic as it could be a real dog fight for the nomination on the Democrat side.

Superdelegates: Corruption at its Finest

Superdelegate votes are the epitome of corruption in the election process. Superdelegates for those who aren't aware, are people who have a delegate they can cast for the candidate of their choice regardless of which way the people have voted. In the DNC there are 712 superdelegates and a candidate needs 2,382 total delegates needed to win the nomination. In essence, these super delegates can cast their vote against how the people of their state have voted. That's not to say that none of a state's delegates won't go to the winner, just not necessarily all that should go to them. What this really means is that the idea that "Everyone's vote counts the same" is pure and utter bullshit.

The votes of these chosen members of the insider of the party, and both parties have them, mean more than your's and mine, a lot more. This is a major WTF moment. It doesn't get any more crooked than this and we let it happen. We as citizens let this open corruption happen without so much as a whimper. We need to bitch and moan and groan about this. Why should their votes mean more than ours? This really means the whole process of voting for the nomination of the parties is a complete joke. The insiders can put their weight the way they want and business as usual continues.

I've read reports that Hillary already has enough promised superdelegates that Bernie Sanders would have to totally dominate all the rest of the voting delegates to win. I call foul in the loudest and angriest way I can. I'm not sure how or if this process can be changed but I know one thing right now. I'm going to contact the superdelegates in my state, N.H., and let them know they absolutely lose my vote for them in the future if they go against the grain of what the people have called for. We all need to do that or they are going to steamroll over us until we are bloody and sore. Please complain about this process, often and loudly.

Presidential Pardon Season

The time is here and once again we have a lame duck President. In the past, this time frame has been used by previous presidents to start pardoning people at a wholesale rate. Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton all gave the majority of their presidential pardons during their lame duck period, with Clinton outpacing the other three on that front in pardoning roughly 65% of his 459 pardons during that time. Eisenhower used this power on around 15% of his whopping 1,157 pardons. Ronald Reagan comes in at around 12% of his 406 in that period and Bush finishes his lame duck period with about 39% of his 200. It's noteworthy to mention, they were the only two term Presidents since the 22nd amendment imposing term limits for Presidents was made law until now President Obama. The list of crimes committed by the pardoned individual covers the whole legal spectrum. From Drug traffickers and security frauds to bank robbers and child porn, pardons were given. Relatives like Roger Clinton, business associates like those involved in Whitewater, a Pakistani drug trafficker and even George Steinbrenner were all given pardons.

A pardon is one of the last powers a President has to wield with Republican and Democrat Presidents alike wielding it. This seems to be an unchecked situation for abuse of power. I understand the sentiment behind the pardon is to right a wrong or to give a President the opportunity to say they feel the debt has been paid to society. However the sheer numbers of those that have been pardoned suggest that there is indeed abuse going on. You can't tell me that each of the Presidents has had intimate knowledge that all that they have pardoned were wronged. Did they attend the trials? Of course not. They pardon criminals people, criminals. Those who have been found guilty of breaking a law or laws and for whatever selfish reason they have, a lame duck President spits in the face of justice and pardons convicted criminals. There is way too many pardons to analyze each one in an attempt to tell what the motive behind the action was but seriously, since 1951 there have been over 5,900 pardons, commutations or rescinds by our Presidents. That's a big number of scum put back into our society. President Obama has one more opportunity to actually make a change before he leaves. On the issue of lame duck pardons, be like with drugs. Just say no.

A Look At Bernie Sanders' Civil Rights Activism: 1960s-Present

Just thought I'd post this to show how Bernie has been true to what he says today for a long time.

Poll Numbers as of 2/17/16

These are the latest poll numbers from RealClearPolitics.com
Nevada Republican Presidential Caucus CNN/ORC
Trump45 Cruz17 Rubio19 Carson7 Bush1 Kasich5
Trump +26
South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary SC House GOP
Trump34 Cruz16 Rubio15 Bush15 Kasich8 Carson7
Trump +18
Nevada Democratic Presidential Caucus CNN/ORC
Clinton48 Sanders47
Clinton +1

Hillary? Really?

Looking over the Democrat's side of the nomination process is a little more simple with only two major players in the field. It's almost eerily down to only two this soon in the process. Maybe that's because the DNC machine has all it's egg in the Hillary basket even if they aren't openly stating so. So on one side we have a self professed socialist in Bernie Sanders facing off against one of the biggest Democratic insiders there is. Hillary Clinton. Talk about a Davey and Goliath set up. Bernie Sanders is a believer, he believes in his cause and passionately champions what he believes. A mark in his favor. He's not running to be President for power, or ego, or even monetary gain. Bernie truly wants to help the people of this country live better lives, all the people. Just watch him speak and you can't help but see the earnestness in his voice and demeanor. He wants to take on big corporations and make them pay for doing business, and he wants to see executives held legally responsible for their actions. All noble causes. With belief to rival that of Don Quixote, Bernie Sanders leads the charge against Wall Street. Make no mistake, he's an intelligent, politely sly kind of guy. His recollection of regime building through the years and the way he tied Clinton to Kissinger without attacking her, is evidence of that. While Bernie's been around for a long time in the political game, he's not really one of the insiders and that is where his biggest challenge lies, taking on the apparent chosen one of the Democratic machine. Here's the thing I can't understand, he shouldn't have a hard battle against her at all. Not only is she a proven insider, a member of the club of politicians that helped to make the mess we have today, but the scandals and controversies surrounding her go back decades. Why is she still viable? Somehow there is enough support for Hillary in the rank and file of the Democrats that she is still a formidable foe. For me that's a WTF thought. Sanders mentioned in respect to regime building that judgement in a leader matters. I couldn't agree more. However I think Hillary lacks good judgement. Even if it turns out the she did nothing illegal in the email debacle, her judgement should be questioned hard by her followers. She used a private email server for State Department business. Wait What?!?!?! I know this is getting to be old news by now but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Her latest answer was that everyone does it. Remember when you told your parents that everyone was doing it? What was their response? Isn't that bad judgement? How can it not be? Let's not forget that she and others in the State department lied not only to the families involved in the Benghazi attack but also to the American people. It took her office nine full days to admit it wasn't a video, a fact she knew long before that admission according to her own emails she was questioned about in Washington. Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf told the world five days after the attack that it was terrorist related and that the Obama administration account was preposterous. Libya was more honest than Hillary was. Libya. Hillary a friend to women? Not sure about that, try looking up Juanita Broadddrick, or Kathleen Willey, or Gennifer flowers, or even googling "Hillary laughed at twelve year old rape victim" see what comes up. Why don't you look up Hillary and sniper fire in Bosnia and you'll find that she falsely claimed to have to run from gunfire. Later she decided it was a misspeak. Misspeak? Please it was the same type of misspeak Brian Williams was hammered for. It seems as if Hillary is about as crooked flip flopping a politician as you can find, yet people stand by her like she is a rock star. She's not a rock star, she's old time, clique politics. She's a tell you what you want to hear and next year if you want to hear a different tune well she'll tell you that too type politician. Don't believe when she tells you she's on the outside in Washington because she's a woman, because she's as big an insider as it gets. She takes big PAC money and she gives well paid speeches at big corporations. Where do you think her loyalties are going to be? With the people..... really? Look if you want more of the same old politics as usual bullshit then go ahead and vote for Hillary but if you want a real change vote for...... Hank or Lisa or Bernie or anybody but Hillary.

Slapped by Iran Again

So Iran is talking to Putin to try and acquire high tech tanks. This is like the fourth slap in the face by them since the Nuke deal. Way to go. Give in to a petulant child and they act up. Who could have seen that?

Trump Stirring it up Some More

Donald Trump is at it again. He is threatening to bring a lawsuit saying that Cruz is not eligible to be President because he was born in Canada if Cruz doesn't apologize for saying what Trump claims are lies against him. He is also slamming the RNC, saying that they are breaking the non binding agreement that was signed by them and he in which Trump has agreed to back whoever becomes Republican primary candidate. The GOP machine wanted this as a show of good faith that Trump would not make a run as an independent should he not get the nomination. That's interesting in that the RNC must realize that an Independent run by Donald Trump would hurt the Republicans more than the democrats, and they wanted to have a weapon if he does go Independent by saying he is untrustworthy for breaking the agreement. However what Trump is saying is that the Republicans have already not held up their end by stacking the audience with donors who favor other candidates. At first glance, Donald's huffing and puffing could be seen as a stunt to get attention and grab headlines but I think there is more to it than that. He's probably right they probably are stacking the audiences. I'm sure the insider Republicans don't want him to win the nomination being the wildcard that he is. By Trump calling attention to this, he's setting up a possible future for him to run Independent with a clean conscience and slate, in that he is pointing out that they broke the deal first which means he doesn't have to hold up his end. In other words, he's covering all bets so that no matter the outcome, Donald Trump, comes out with a deal he can work with. Do you think he knew of the donor situation before he signed the agreement? It would be just like him to have that escape route, or one just like it, ready when he signed what seemingly is a deal that ties his hands. The whole threatening to sue on behalf of Ted Cruz's eligibility I think is a just way to get Cruz to put pressure on the Republican insiders to get them to ease off Trump. I don't think Donald is ready to walk away from the battle for Republican candidate yet. A lawsuit would take time and resources away from Ted Cruz no matter what the outcome and would be a distraction he doesn't need. So it would almost be in Ted's best interest to backdoor help Donald on this front. If the republicans don't back down, it will help to show their refusal to change tactics and lets Trump off the hook, if they do, Donald has one upped them and either way, they play into his hands. Once again I'll say I think it's nice to have such an outsider as Trump running for a party nomination. He says things none of the other candidates can get away with saying and he doesn't just whisper them he loudly shouts it out for all to hear. Like him or hate him, he has been, and is continuing, to shake things up within the ranks of the Republicans and certainly made the entire primary season worth paying attention to so far.

Voter ID

I watched the segment of John Oliver's show on voter ID this morning online. Before you start I know he is a comedian, but he's a political one and a lot of people who don't want to watch more serious news seem to get their impressions from these types of shows. My own son once said to me he and his friends got their news almost exclusively from the Daily Show, much to my dismay. Not that it was the Daily show so to speak, but that it was the only place they got news from. I'm not going after Mr. Oliver, hell I think he's funny and for comedy sake alone, I thought the video of this subject was humorous. I'm simply tossing out a different opinion and at the end I will propose what I think is a simple solution to this controversy. In typical comedic fashion he skewered the idea of needing identification to vote. He showed clips of less than favorable advocates speaking in favor of requiring voter identification while tossing out statistics of a study that show African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected by this law. I imagine this is true because studies show that a disproportionate number of those same groups are in poverty. One of the clips shown was of a man who pointed out that some of the opponents to voter identification were in favor of an ID to buy "stuffy nose medicine". John Oliver tells us that voting is a right (Duh!) while saying that the reason we have to show ID to buy that medicine is because it's used in drug production (also a DUH!). So he justifies needing an ID for medicine, which by the way although not in the Constitution, is still a right to do as long as your not doing it for illegal purposes, but denies justification for an ID for voting. A clip he used to make the case that this type of law is racist showed an elderly African American woman stuck in the bureaucracy trying to get an ID and having a really hard time of it. How many people haven't faced this type of bureaucracy in their life from local, state or federal government? Show of hands please. I'll throw out a list of "Duh" things you need an ID for of my own here. When you get a job, you have to show ID, when you buy beer, you may have to show ID, and when you apply for social security or any other government run program like medicaid etc... you have to show an ID. Does planned parenthood not require ID? No I'm asking that question for real, I've never been there. If we follow John Oliver's logic then having to show an ID for all these things that are within the realm of our rights, is also racist as they still affect a unbalanced number of previously mentioned groups. Why not stop there either, marriage licenses, acquiring drivers licenses, getting bank accounts, and traveling on buses, trains, or planes also requires ID. Does that mean that white people, males in particular, are using this practice of showing ID to hold everyone else down? Is the requiring of ID to vote inherently racist? My opinion is no, but I'm willing to acknowledge that it does affect certain groups more adversely than others because of the poverty statistics. That's a fact I don't think can or should be ignored. So the solution I would offer to this is simple. For those people who live in a household under a certain yearly threshold limit, I'll use twenty thousand as an example but the figure can be adjusted to match actual needs, a free ID could be issued. We have other services for low income individuals and families why not make this a part of those services? This provides ID for those who could not otherwise afford it, and because poverty is unequal in this country, I believe it takes out the argument of race from the voter ID law and the argument dealing with voter fraud on account of a lack of an ID as well. It's up to the individual states to do this but if you feel this is a good idea, contact your local lawmakers and ask them to consider this option. Make it so that everyone can vote with less burden.

Rowdy Republican Debate

I got up this morning made myself a cup of coffee and went online to watch last nights Republican debate I missed because of work. Boy howdy was it rowdy with Trump tossing around the word liar like an evangelist calls out sinners. Cruz and Bush lead the charge against Trump with Rubio chiming in and reassuring us he was a conservative. Kasich implored the rowdy bunch to make peace and love with one another in order to keep Hillary from winning the White House. Meanwhile Carson hid in the corner whimpering and begging us to check out his website because no one was hearing his message. When Bush slammed Trump for going bankrupt, Trump replied he never went bankrupt. Well technically maybe he didn't, but four of his companies did and that exchange was just arguing semantics. Cruz, well he slyly slid in a couple of items that told me he was watching what people like about Trump, and he was going to coat tail him on those. He spoke about the "establishment" unfavorably for one sentence and then he when he was booed for a comment he made to Rubio, he softly mentioned angering donors. Something Trump had done in grand fashion the debate before. The thing is he's A: playing catch up on that and B: not going to out Trump Donald, as witnessed in Trumps's closing statement where he said "Politicians are all talk and no action." Proving once again he is the true outsider and not afraid to ignite a flame. Rubio in his closing statement once again spoke about marriage being between one man and one woman. Listen up Marco, whether you want to admit it or not, that's getting to be an archaic way of looking at that. I'm twelve years older than you and I understand that. I thought younger generations were supposed to be a little more enlightened. Guess not in your case. Get off that band wagon and get to the more important issues. You know like jobs, economy, the Middle East, social unrest in this country. Things like that. I guess the debate went about as expected but one thing last night scared me. Jeb Bush said we need to take out Assad. The definition of insanity rule applies here. Bush have you learned nothing about the last sixty or so years of our doing this? Taking out a dictator never works, it makes things worse and makes us more enemies. Republicans and Democrats alike are speaking out about this issue. Bernie Sanders points out about the unintended consequences of this practice. Are you that anxious to prove you are one of the Bush Boys that you are willing to announce on national television that you would take out Assad which would likely put us in the middle of another war?!! Trumps big blunder, although it probably won't hurt him much, was pointing out that 911 happened on Bush's watch. He was expectedly booed on that but he's not totally wrong in acting as if Bush could have avoided it. Both Bush and Clinton had a chance to deal with Bin Laden and those who pulled off 911 but they failed to do so. I'm sure they didn't realize what was going to happen but their inactions allowed the conditions for that attack. So once again he has us talking about something we might have ignored. An online poll by Syracuse.com showed that in a poll of eleven thousand plus people 75 percent of them thought Trump was the winner as of this morning. It looks like Trumps momentum is continuing to build as the others scramble to shut him down. If they are going to stop him, I think they are going to need to narrow the field. Dog pile on the rabbit didn't work in Bugs Bunny and it doesn't appear to be working here.

A thought about Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg has "teased" the American public with an announcement me might run for President as an independent. I have read that he will make his decision in March. This is my feeling about that. It's as if he's hanging around at a potential car crash like a vulture hoping to see something happen so he can pick the bones. If the conditions are right, he'll stay and try a run. If not, he'll fly off to make another billion. Look Bloomberg crap or get off the political pot. Either openly declare you want to fight to be leader of our nation, or go away. Don't be lurking trying to make a decision based on how strong you think your possible opponents will be. If you really think you can help this country go out and fight for it tooth and nail like a true warrior for a cause would. Otherwise you're just another political hack looking to serve your own interests.

Insiders Beware

Our political landscape has been shook up this year, make no mistake. Driven by the publics disdain for politics as usual, two candidates are emerging that are making the insiders of the respective parties have to pay attention to them. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Whether you agree or disagree with them, they have managed to make waves and have us talking points we might not normally be discussing if the field was filled with traditional candidates. Bernie Sanders for example while having been a lifelong politician, is not a traditional insider in that his view are further left than most and he leans, very hard, towards socialism. A fact he does not hide or run away from but is proud of. He doesn't come off as polished and practiced, but rather honest and straight forward. A bit of a fresh air if you ask me in a front runner. He doesn't shy from Clinton's criticism but defends it as strongly as he can without getting dirty. I'm pretty sure the Democratic insiders are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to get their rock star Hillary past this guy. From what I'm seeing online, however, the people are liking Bernie more and more. On the Republican side it's going to be a little more boisterous I think. Multiple candidates are vying for the nomination, with the biggest political outsider in the whole shebang leading right now, Donald Trump. His brash straightforward way of speaking has people both enamored and rankled. He says what many are thinking even if the way he says it is a bit crass. But that's Donald Trump. He's slick in that respect. He might piss you off how he talks about a subject, the wall being one of those subjects, but he gets you talking, and he gets you talking about him and what's going on. He has us all talking about him in one respect or another so say what you want, he has opened dialogue. Let's face it, he has us discussing subjects that need serious addressing. I don't agree with all of his views on how to do things, but I do agree on what he has said about needing to fix these problems. The GOP will never in my opinion, stand by and let the primaries and caucuses play out without some serious maneuvering behind the scenes. They can't, Trump is not beholden to them and a candidate who needs them as little as Trump does is dangerous to them. As with Sanders, Trump doesn't need the large donors or PACs to get to the people. The Republican machine I feel is going to try and rally behind Cruz, not openly at first but as the field thins it will become more apparent. They will do anything to keep Trump off the books. The Democrats will be less forceful but still try and maneuver Hillary into position. You see the two parties are used to placing party before country, a practice I maintain is nearly treason in my book. They have a lot to lose if they have to allow someone who won't bow to them become their candidate for President. Hopefully the people will voice with their votes what I see them voicing everyday and fight the establishment by putting in outsiders. Let!s make this election one for the people. Make 2017 The Year of the Outsider.

A blurb about social media

I did a quick check of the poll numbers this morning and what I saw excited me. Not just for the results but because of my post about social media being more important these days. On the site real Real Clear Politics, they showed Bernie cutting into Hilary's lead by 6 points overall since two days ago. Ok that shows momentum for Sanders, but the real exciting part was that The Huffington Post had an article about an online poll that had 45000 plus participants and the overwhelming majority of people gave Bernie the win by an 81% to 19% victory. Yay Internet, real rime results from tens of thousands of people. Side note, the very subject the Dem analysts laughed at Bernie about was still trending on Twitter this morning. Go social media.

Wisconsin Debate

Last nights Democratic debate was interesting to see in the fact that the stark differences between the two candidates was plain to see. Bernie Sanders spoke passionately, openly, and what I thought was in the moment for the most part. Someone who truly believes in what he is saying. I thought he had some good concepts on what to change to make our country better even if I differ on the methods he would use. Hillary, on the other hand, looked like a polished establishment politician who clearly had more experience in the debate forum. Her answers seemed rehearsed, even though the questions were random. I think the reason for this is a candidate like herself has a rote answer for nearly every question out there and it's always mixed with a pitch. She managed during the night to get all of the demographic groups she is trying to appeal to mentioned in her responses. I'm sure her campaign people praised her after last night. After all, she came off as the more poised professional. But is that a good thing in today's political climate? People are voicing their displeasure at political insiders, which make no mistake, Hillary Clinton is, and she presents herself as such. The opponents sparred back and forth with most of the exchanges being clean. Hillary however took what I consider to be the only cheap shot of the night. She miss-represented Bernie in what she called a forward to the book "Buyers Remorse" written by Bill Press. The "mistake" was even pointed out by the panel during the post debate analysis with a reading of the short "blurb" that Sanders said about the book. Hillary's take on what Bernie wrote was vastly different from the truth, and she made it seem like Sanders slammed Obama, not exactly true and after hearing the blurb which reads "Bill Press makes the case why, long after taking the oath of office, the next president of the United States must keep rallying the people who elected him or her on behalf of progressive causes. That is the only way real change will happen, Read this book." I don't see how Hillary can have the impression that's an attack Obama unless you're straw reaching or perhaps outright lying. Clinton also made the claim that Americans haven't had a raise in fifteen years when actually FactCheck.org says weekly income has gone up 9.2 percent in that time frame. Also according to FactCheck Bernie did a bit of exaggerating himself on the unemployment numbers for African American youth. He put the figure at 50 percent and FactCheck puts it at half of that. Hillary did the typical pandering during the night that people are getting tired of, but in fairness, Bernie kept harping on Wall Street even making the argument that going after them would help racism. Not that Wall Street doesn't need reeling in, it does, but your argument has to be more dimensional Bernie. Tying in social media to last nights debate. "Who won the debate" and "Kissinger" were both subjects trending on Twitter this morning. There were supporters and detractors for both sides on the subject of Who won the debate, and clearly at least on twitter, the debate continues on but now it is in the hands of the public more so than the candidates. The Kissinger subject seemed to be, from the tweets I read, mostly in favor of Bernie and I find that amusing because the post debate panel seemed to laugh at Bernie for bringing up Kissinger. They even made reference that the millennials wouldn't understand about Kissinger. Here's what Bernie did in a short span of time last night. He educated people about Kissinger and his roll in trade agreements and regime building, along with the connection as one of Hillary's confidants. They can Laugh all they want, but social media took notice of this and ran with it. One other thing before I give my take on the debate. Sanders mentioned good judgement during the subject of middle east and unintended consequences and I think he is spot on. Good judgement is definitely a characteristic I want in a leader, and I'm not sure Hillary has always used that in the past. Alright so my take is that Sanders took the edge last night, and if he broadens his arguments, he should be able to keep or out pace Hillary, whom I can't even believe is still a viable option to as many people as she is, but that is a subject for another post.

Social Media and Politics

President Obama promised us transparency with his administration, and while he has yet to truly deliver on that promise, social media has kept it for him. There was a time when we got our news from T.V., radio, and newspapers with information about events coming to us days even weeks after it happened. Our knowledge came in such a way that we were hearing about things with no input of our own sometimes long after the fact and in many cases too late to affect any outcome. Social media has changed that drastically. We live in a time now when minutes after words are spoken or events have happened, social media begins buzzing. Once the buzzing begins there is no stopping it, as information travels in an exponential fashion quicker that I can write this post. "You can't stop the signal Mal." Details of events, come to us almost as instantaneously as it does in the Borg collective. Unlike the Borg however, we have our own input that can be sent back just as quickly as we wish. Using hashtags we keep up on subjects and talk about ideas from the inane to the important alike with the speed of Hermes. The instant someone with technology sees or hears things that they deem as important, they are tweeting and posting and sending photos of it for their followers to see. Everyone has their say with social media. This is what makes social media so influential in politics and so cool to boot. We now can speak our minds directly or indirectly to the politicians or candidates on subject we feel strongly about. We can connect with like minded and opposite minded people as well to have our voices heard. It is a phenomenon that is not going away and one that the smart politician or candidate takes notice of and uses to their benefit. Case in point, there were supporters of Sanders that were using social media to insult and demean women. Bernie Sanders did not ignore this issue, he recognized the influence of social media and took the opportunity to distance himself from these fools by saying he didn't want that kind of support. If they want to know what the public thinks, the answer is just a few clicks away. No longer is it necessary to rely just on polls or what advisers tell them or what they hear at a rally. They can learn for themselves online, in their pajamas if they wanted. Sure there is a lot of dip shit stuff to weed out but there is also a ton of legitimate information about how we are thinking, and what we want, out there in cyberspace. Keep it up fellow social media junkies. Keep getting your opinions out there. This is an important part of our political process now. They can't ignore it, not if they're smart.

Why I don't like trade agreements

As I'm writing this I am watching the aftermath reports of the N.H. primary. Christie has left the race and so has Fiorina, no big surprise there. Ben Carson should put on his big boy pants and drop next but he is holding on like he just found out his dad was Peter Pan. I'm watching as Kasich is trying to distance himself from the GOP establishment, a tactic I don't think will work. He is more moderate than many of the GOP but I am not sure how far he strays from the machine. I do think he would work with Democrats better than most of his party, but whether or not he has the oomph of Trump remains to be seen. Watching these events transpire, I think of a subject that has ticked me off for awhile and with the recent months my flame has been fanned about this. Trade acts. In 1993 then President Clinton signed into law N.A.F.T.A. which was a Republican backed idea that a Democrat President not only signed, but worked at selling it to the public. By 1999 millions of textile industry jobs were lost to foreign lands, many of them to Mexico. I pick that year and that industry because 1999 was the year a woolen mill I was a shift supervisor at closed it's doors putting roughly 350 local workers in a small rural area out to pasture. Trade agreements seek to even the playing field between multiple countries. The problem for America in this theory is that it comes at our blue collar workers expense. Bill Clinton said that these agreements would encourage people to get higher education and better jobs. Encourage is a fancy word for force by the way. The problem with that theory is aptitude. If a persons aptitude is not one that is geared for college, then where does that leave them? In a job market that now has less good paying positions that's where. Plenty of these folks put out of work ended up in the service industry for less pay and less benefits. Not long ago, I was shopping in WalMart and ran into a fellow that I had worked with at the mill. Seventeen years later he was just catching up to where his pay had been at the mill. Seventeen years! I myself took a two dollar an hour cut in pay so I could work somewhere with decent benefits for my family. I'm still at this job seventeen years later. It's fair to say that if the mill was still open I would be there and would have gotten similar raises through the years. So that two dollars becomes four thousand dollars a year more I would have made over the last seventeen years. That's 68,000 dollars less spending power and quality of life I have had. Now times that by however many manufacturing jobs that were turned into service industry jobs and that becomes a lot of money. We just signed a Pacific trade act that as I understand it, could hurt the airplane builders and auto builders in this country. So not only did we sign away textile and other manufacturing jobs over the past decades, but now we are going after the airplane and auto workers. Didn't we toss billions of dollars to companies to "save" the auto industry? Did we do that only to turn around and tear that down as we have other forms of manufacturing? If our politicians want to strengthen our country again, they should look to reversing the power and effects of the trade acts, before we completely paralyze our work force and turn us all into needing handouts. We need a President who will work to bring jobs back into our country. People don't want handouts, they want a job they can survive on and be productive in society with. So yeah I don't like the trade acts, I have 68,000 personal reasons not to.

Who I am

Ok so a little about myself. I'm a blue collar guy with a beautiful wife and four kids that I absolutely love to death. In fact, having the great relationships with my children and my wife, is what I count as my greatest accomplishment in life. As an undeclared voter I have voted both Republican and Democrat in the past as I tend to vote my conscience and convictions. Like most Americans I have a great love of my country. In recent years I have become disenfranchised by how our country is being torn down and weakened by the political machine. I feel there is enough blame to go around to both parties. I have no degree, I'm not a student of politics but I care deeply and have opinions of my own on where we need to improve our nation. So I started this blog. You may not agree with my views and that's okay we all have different perspectives on things. If you wish to comment and post here its allowed, I am happy to defend my point of view in a civil but possibly spirited debate. I think I bring the perspective of the working person to the table, the person who needs to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, the person who has to juggle bills to get by. I hope something I write along the way makes someone somewhere go hmmmm. If that happens, then I guess I can feel good. Have great day and enjoy the blog. John

Moving Ahead

On to South Carolina for the Republicans and Nevada for the Democrats. Both races will be decided Saturday Feb. 20th with the polls at this point showing Clinton with the lead in Nevada and Trump with the lead in South Carolina. While it is early and things could change, I think Sanders will have a harder time in Nevada than he did in New Hampshire because of regional issues. He was known in New Hampshire and the Northeast but how well known in Nevada before this week I have no idea. His win in New Hampshire and loss by just a coin toss in Iowa give him a good momentum and something to build on for his constituency. He hasn’t had to run negative ads which goes in his favor, but let’s face it, he hasn’t had to. The media coverage of the emails and the reminders from the Republicans have done a good job of casting a shadow over Clinton and her trustworthiness if not her out right bad judgement. Let’s face it a private email server was not the brightest way to go when you’re head of the state department. Trump on the other hand does not face issues of region. He is as well known, if not more so to America as any politician out there. He boldly says what he has to say and thus far, defends himself strongly. He is the anti-politician in this race. Cruz and Rubio are at this point second and third respectively in the polls there. Cruz is basically GOP establishment and therein lies what I think is his downfall if what is happening in NH is happening all over, anti-establishment sentimentality. Ted seems to me to be made of wood. He seems almost expressionless and emotionless so if he doesn’t warm up and distance himself from the political machine, he could be in trouble. Rubio is a rookie senator with a bad voting record that comes off as out of his element. Sound familiar? That’s what we have now as President and let’s face it it’s been a less than stellar seven years. I’m pretty sure that at least part of the insider disdain comes from the fact that how Washington works was not changed as promised. After Feb. 20th the parties will flip flop with Democrats heading to South Carolina for a vote on the 27th and Republicans to Nevada with a vote on the 23rd That’s where we stand now with ten days to go to the next results. I do want to mention that the NY Daily news called the New Hampshire voters "Mindless Zombies" for voting for Trump. While I am a fan of the Walking Dead I have two words for that rag mag they call a newspaper, but I will refrain from posting them here.