Tag Archives: Republican Party

One Problem Facing the U. S. – Indoctrination of the Young Rather than Free Thought

I was involved in a debate today after watching this young lady’s thoughts on the upcoming Presidential elections. On pretty much every count (and sadly), you can see that she has heard her parents say these things and, rather than try to think for herself, she looks for the approval of her parents. In breaking down her comments, you can easily see this for yourself and see one of the problematic issues facing the country.

After you’ve watched the video, let’s take the young lady’s comments one by one:

1) Gun rights

There is literally no possible way for the Democratic candidate for President, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to change the U. S. Constitution and remove the Second Amendment. To do such would require the vote of Congress to push through a Constitutional Amendment (think back to the one that rescinded the ban on alcohol), then it would require that 3/5th of the states – 37 – would have to vote it through also.

Clinton is looking for common sense gun control. She’s not looking for a ban on guns, which has been the mantra of the National Rifle Association for every Democratic nominee since the 1980s.

2) The Wall

While I would love to wax poetic on Pink Floyd’s opus, that’s not what the Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump, is talking about and that’s not what the young girl is opining on. We are discussing a multi-BILLION-dollar plan that would violate the Constitutional rights of people to use their land as they see fit (You’re going to force someone to build a wall that blocks them from their own property? There are plenty of Texas landowners whose property stretches into Mexico…what do you do about that?). The mere thought of seizing someone’s land from them for governmental use smacks of Communism.

3) Illegal Aliens/Drug Trafficking

It isn’t illegal aliens crossing the border that is the issue. More illegals stay in the United States after an expired visa than illegally come over the border into the U. S. These visas are for school, work or familial purposes and, after the visa expires, the holder is supposed to leave. Many choose not to leave.

When it comes to drugs, the “war on drugs” has been a colossal failure. Building any type of wall isn’t going to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country, it will simply force it through other avenues. Furthermore, how deep is that wall going? As we’ve seen on the border in California, tunnels can go quite deep in a way to circumvent it.

4) Clinton’s Senate background

If the young lady in the video is 11-years old, that means she wasn’t even born when Clinton was elected from New York in 2000. She would have been BARELY three years old when Clinton, after her failed Presidential run in 2008, accepted the position of Secretary of State under President Barack Obama and resigned her Senate seat. Therefore, she has no basis to make a claim regarding Clinton’s success or failures in the Senate. This is plainly something that she has heard from her parents, making her commentary massively biased.

5) Hillary and guns

Back to #1, folks. Even if she wanted to, it would be an impossibility.

6) Terrorists/Illegals entering the country/voting

A person in the United States is more likely to be killed by a piece of furniture than by a terrorist attack on our soil. The odds of dying from terrorism on U. S. soil from 2007-2011 was 1 in 20 MILLION. The basic fact is that, more than likely, no one in this country is going to die from ISIS – or anyone else’s – terrorism today.

Looking at voting, it would be another impossibility. Since many GOP-led legislatures have forced through some sort of voter identification law, the likelihood of an illegal having the required documentation is unlikely, let alone their efforts of going to a governmental operation (a polling place) and exposing themselves to authorities.

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For those that believe all the fallacies that the young lady presented in her speech (and was apparently taught by her parents), you should be ashamed. You aren’t allowed to create your own reality and many of the subjects broached here are of that “alternate reality” that makes up the bookshelves of fiction sections. You also shouldn’t be allowed to warp a young mind before it’s had a chance to be able to form its own opinions, especially on something like political beliefs. I know that there are things that arise in parenting where you would like to have your children follow in your footsteps, but it is true parenting (and much more satisfying, even if they don’t agree with you) when you allow them to learn for themselves.

So A Third Party Vote Isn’t “Wasted?” Take A Look…It Is

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With all the turmoil over the 2016 Presidential campaign – and the choice between a duplicitous but highly qualified Hillary Clinton and a raving nutbag of racism, misogyny and xenophobia in the Tangerine Nightmare (that’s right, I don’t even begin to name him – my choice), never in the history of the United States has there been a riper time for a third party candidate to make an impact. Because the two “major parties” have been unable to nominate someone who could, you know, actually LEAD the country, someone like the Libertarian Party or the Green Party could step in and fill the void. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Let’s take the Libertarian Party first. The only other party to actually be on all 50 ballots in the U. S., the Libertarians have reached a crossroads in their existence. Long viewed as the “hippie” party because of their views on legalization of marijuana and policies that put more into personal responsibility than governmental rigor, the Libertarians are actually the only party (other than the two major parties) to actually register a notable percentage of the vote in 2012; in that Presidential election, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson garnered 1,275,951 votes across the U. S. – roughly 1% of the votes in the election (and the best ever showing by the Libertarians).

When it comes to the 2016 Presidential efforts, however, the Libertarians took a page from the GOP playbook instead of…well, being Libertarians. Johnson (who had previously run for President as a Republican in 2012 and, after losing that nomination, suddenly “saw the light” and became a Libertarian), believing that he would be easily nominated again for the party’s Presidential ambitions, instead had to fight off accusations that he wasn’t “libertarian” enough (heard that somewhere before?) and that someone who was a “true Libertarian” needed to be chosen. In the end, however, Johnson and his Vice President pick, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, earned the nomination of the party.

Turning our attention to the Green Party, they have also nominated the same candidate that they chose in the 2012 election. Dr. Jill Stein, a longtime activist with the party, was selected in 2012 and garnered absolutely no attention from anyone whatsoever. How bad was it? In that 2012 election, Stein drew in 469,628 votes, less than the population of Brevard County on the East Coast of Florida.

Fast forward to 2016 and, instead of picking someone who might be a “fresh face” for the party, the Greens picked Stein again. The choice was made despite the factor that she has been viewed by many as anti-science and has tossed her hat in the ring with 9/11 conspiracy advocates (like the Orangutan Mutant). Party officials obviously were looking for someone and, lacking anyone with even the inkling of name recognition that Dr. Stein (who also offered her nomination to former Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders if he would just switch to the Green Party) had, decided to stick with her (these things have pretty much eliminated her from contention, much like Johnson’s Aleppo mistake and, just this last weekend, his contention that “nobody got hurt” during the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the knife attack in Minnesota, dismisses him as a serious contender).

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There’s several problems with looking towards the “third party” option in this or any election, but we will only deal with a few of them here. First, voting for a “third party” option is the waste of a vote (and, as you will see, the statistics demonstrate this); second, that a solid third party has yet to form; and third, that the other parties are not following a path towards success if they are trying to infiltrate the two party system.

First, if you are considering a vote for a third party candidate this year, take a look at the numbers. Of the elected positions in national government – the President and Congress – how many of those seats are held by the Libertarian Party? The total would be zilch. What about governorships in the United States? That, too, would be zero. You have to go to the state legislatures to even find a Libertarian, and that total would be four out of 7383 seats available. In local elected offices (of which there are tens of thousands of elected positions), there are only 145 wielding power.

What about the Green Party? They don’t even register on the national or state scene, with no elected officials in any national or state government. The Green Party does register about the same numbers on the local scene as the Libertarians – an estimated 137 positions – but there’s problems for the party overall. When it comes to actually getting votes, they aren’t even on the ballot in all 50 states FOR PRESIDENT, let alone running in other races.

The second point – that no solid third party has formed in the past 30 years – takes into account those parties that “stood alone” from the two party system, of which none have been successful. The Tea Party was a subset of the Republican Party (in fact, if the Republicans didn’t want to be in the situation they are now, they should have cut the Tea Party loose from the start) and the Dixiecrats were a subset of the Democratic Party after World War II (and they were eventually cut off by the Democratic Party). Those parties that tried to stand alone – Ross Perot’s Reform Party had a nice run in the 1990s before petering out after the turn of the century and there are individuals who choose “Independent” as their party (despite the fact there isn’t a “dedicated” Independent Party) – have never been able to grasp the public’s attention for very long.

The third point – that the smaller parties are taking the wrong approach – is an easy one to correct. Instead of trying to elect one of your members to the Presidency, why not try to make inroads into the local and state realms of government. Remember those numbers presented earlier? The numbers that showed that, of all the state and federal elected positions, that only four seats would be occupied by someone that identified as Libertarian and zero by Greens? The numbers that showed that, of local governments, slightly less than 300 seats were held by someone not affiliated with either major party?

If the Libertarian or Green Party were able to actually make an impact on the local political arena – instead of 300, how about 30,000 elected officials? – then they would be able to spark the changes that they seek on the state and national scene. Even if either Johnson or Stein were elected, do you honestly think that the Congress – dominated by the two major parties – would choose to work with them? It is something that has to grow from the ground up, not from the top down.

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It is thought that pulling the lever for one of the non-mainstream candidates will be a form of “protest,” of “voting on principle,” when it will in fact be a waste of your voice. By pulling the handle for either Johnson or Stein (or any of the other candidates who may emerge on your ballot for President), you are saying that, while you don’t like either of the major party choices, you also don’t want to be involved in the process of choosing from the two most likely choices someone who WILL be the next President of the United States (and yes, it can sometimes seem like you’re getting screwed, but at least you made a choice as to who would be screwing you).

Who do you want making the key decisions, not only for our nation but also for the usage of our military men and women, for the conduct of our foreign affairs, for the security of the nation, for the efficient operation of our government and for raising up everyone instead of a select few? By voting for a third party candidate, you abdicate your ability to make the choice – the compromise that our democracy is built on – and choose the future leader of the country.

With all hope, it won’t have an effect on the outcome of the race. In 2000, the Green Party’s Ralph Nader was able to garner 2.9 million votes, with some saying that it doomed Al Gore’s hopes for the Presidency (and remember that, in Florida, Gore is reported to have lost by 527 votes despite winning the popular vote nationally). In 1992, Perot ran as an Independent (he had yet to create the Reform Party) and earned a whopping 19% of the vote, arguably denying the first George Bush a second term in office (Bush lost to Bill Clinton by roughly 5.8 million votes; Perot earned 19.7 million).

The choice may be an ugly one, but it has to be made. A petulant display of “making a point” by choosing a minor party’s candidate isn’t a protest but an abdication of responsibility. Perhaps someday these parties will have worked to the point where they can challenge the current stalwarts of politics, but that time isn’t now. Thus, we have to choose from the two candidates who represent the major political parties and, after the votes are tallied, WILL provide the 45th President of the United States.

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The GOP: Ready to Party Like It’s 1799

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Despite the fact that more than half of their constituency would rather there be a raging dumpster fire in the middle of Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH, instead of the coronation of a dipshit as the party leader, the Republican Party will open its 2016 National Convention on Monday night. Yes, the Grand Old Party, the Party of such legendary statesmen as Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, will (from appearances) nominate a fascist in Donald Drumpf, devoid of any actual governmental leadership, and his almost-as-fanatical henchman Mike Pence (we’ll get to him in a moment) come Thursday night. What will go on between Monday and then? That promises to be the intriguing question.

Political conventions, by tradition, are about as exciting as having your wisdom teeth removed, but they are also almost as old as the country itself. The first political convention was held back in 1831, when the Anti-Masonic Party (if you can’t guess, they were against the Masonic Order and its influence on politics – and we think we created some of those conspiracy theories!) met in Philadelphia to nominate William Wirt as its candidate for President. The National Republican Party (not today’s brand) also held its first convention in 1831 in Baltimore (nominating Henry Clay for President) and the Democratic Party held their first convention in 1832, also in Baltimore (nominating Martin Van Buren). The eventual winner of that 1832 election? Incumbent President Andrew Jackson, who crushed the opposition in getting 54% of the popular vote and obliterated the opposition in racking up 219 electoral votes (his closest competitor, Clay, received 49).

Since that time, the major parties in U. S. politics have met every four years to go through the process of nominating their candidate for the Presidency. As the years have gone on, these conventions have become a way for the individual parties to put on their best look for the citizens of the United States by showing off their up-and-coming leaders and portraying their ideals as the “future of America.” They have also shown the major problems that can occur inside a political organization, from outrage over the leaders chosen to actual physical battles on the floor of the convention and outside the convention hall.

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In 2016, the GOP didn’t even wait until the convention to fuck things up. They did that from the start following the 2014 midterm elections with a clown car assortment of 17 Presidential primary candidates that basically ensured that whoever emerged from the nomination process would be doing so without even a majority of the votes from PEOPLE IN THE PARTY. For all his crowing about drawing the most votes in the GOP primary, the Orangutan Mutant didn’t get more votes that the three men who followed him – Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich (who will not attend the convention of his party BEING HELD IN HIS STATE). This isn’t even counting the votes that went to other candidates, such as former Governor Jeb Bush, current New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham or “whatever the hell they do” candidates such as Carly Fiorina and Dr. Ben Carson (and this is just a part of the clown car), prior to their departure from the race.

Faced with the potential for a xenophobic, misogynistic and fascist candidate taking the helm of their party, many in the GOP have been looking for ways to get FAR away from Der Drumpf. Adding an intriguing possibility of the proverbial monkey wrench into the engine’s inner workings, these “Never Trump” people are fighting a battle on the platform and probably will stage some sort of demonstration on the convention floor at least one night of the gathering (and hopefully every night). Perhaps they can do it well enough that it will hide the embarrassment of the party for the way they are putting on their very own convention.

Because the convention has been beset with organizations and groups leaving it like rats evacuating a sinking ship, the GOP hasn’t got enough money to be able to pay for the week’s stay in Cleveland. The organizers for the Republican National Convention are groveling at the feet of conservative mega donor Sheldon Adelson for an influx of cash – about $6 million worth – to offset the costs for the convention. As of two days prior to the start of the “great celebration of conservatism,” Adelson has yet to respond to the letter.

Then there’s the actual platform that the GOP has pushed through. Instead of taking the approach that the party discussed in 2013 following the crushing defeat they took at the hands of President Barack Obama – including attempting to reach out to minorities, adjusting their stance on immigration and following a pro-trade path with the international community – the 2016 version of the GOP has decided to follow Drumpf in jackboot step. Some of the planks that have been put into the GOP platform make it look like they’re ready to party like its 1799, let alone 1999.

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First off is the idiotic suggestion from Mr. Oompah Loompah to erect a blockade wall on the southern border of the U. S. The GOP ACTUALLY IS ENDORSING this idea, although they don’t call it a “wall” but a “physical barrier” to be erected. This “wall,” which would cost upwards of $25 BILLION to build (and would never stand to Constitutional review, as Der Drumpf would have to take land rights from their legal owners to do it), is just the tip of the draconian immigration policy that would be pushed by the GOP (including deportation of 11 million people, as Drumpf has desired).

Next is the continued drive by the Republican Party to roll back LGBT rights, in particular marriage equality. This is despite the fact that their VERY OWN CANDIDATE said he would be “the best candidate” for the LGBT community. Also working its way into the platform was the GOP insistence on “bathroom bills” such as the one that passed in North Carolina, HB2, that mandates a person use the facilities of their birth sex. I personally want to see actress Laverne Cox of “Orange is the New Black” looking Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in the eye when they both enter the men’s room at Quicken Loans Arena – I’d bet that platform plank would be removed before the end of the night.

On international trade, the GOP has sucked up to the teats of Drumpf again, calling for “renegotiation of trade pacts” so as to “not allow foreign governments to limit access to their markets while stealing our designs, patents…and technology.” Guess who that little tidbit is aimed at? This is despite the factor that the trade pacts – such as NAFTA (now entering its third decade of existence) and the yet-to-be-ratified Trans-Pacific Pact, which has the support of both Democrats and Republicans – normally help to keep prices down (this isn’t to say they are entirely outstanding; a side effect is manufacturing jobs moving to areas that pay employees less).

The GOP and Drumpf have stated that the Convention with be a cavalcade of stars, including a “Winner’s Night” leading up to Der Drumpf being named commandant…err, I mean, the GOP Presidential nominee. This cavalcade of stars includes such names as Natalie Gulbis, the 484th best woman golfer on the planet (and, if you didn’t notice by the ranking, she hasn’t won much lately), actor Antonio Sabato, Jr. and actress Kimberlin Brown (and if you can name anything they’ve done, you have way too much time on your hands), not exactly the “star power” that you might like to help unveil your highly disliked candidate. Toss in his kids – who’ll be afraid to say anything remotely bad about Herr Father lest he disinherit them – and people Drumpf has been walking on for at least a year now (Christie, Carson and Scott Walker, for example) and it becomes a “who gives a rat’s ass” gathering of nothingness. (The four demon spawn of Drumpf equal the same number of sitting Senators who’ll speak at the convention.)

Then there’s the jewel that is Pence (told you we’d get back to him). Pence has shown himself to be just to the right of Genghis Khan in his ruling abilities. As Governor of Indiana, he led the drive for a religious segregation law that allowed people to discriminate on the basis of their religious beliefs. But when queried about it by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Pence could not say that the new law wouldn’t prevent people from using it to discriminate against LGBT persons and that it was wrong to discriminate against them. EIGHT TIMES Pence was given the opportunity to say LGBT people shouldn’t be discriminated against and EIGHT TIMES he couldn’t bring himself to say those words. (Pence later signed a law that explicitly said the religious freedoms law could not be used to discriminate against anyone “regardless of race, gender or sexual proclivities”…but only after facing the withdrawal of a significant amount of business from the state.)

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Second, Representative Pence (member of Congress, 2001-13) was into shutting the government down over Planned Parenthood while Cruz was still handling the “dildo case” documents in Texas. Furthermore, during his tenure as Indiana governor, Pence pushed through the most heinous anti-abortion laws in the nation, including a law that made it mandatory that the aborted fetus had to have full funeral or cremation rights performed. Fortunately for anyone that is sane, the courts struck down that and other provisions of the Indiana law passed in March of this year before they went into effect.

You wonder why the “Trump/Pence” logo was fucking the United States? That’s what they’d do if they were elected. (They have since switched to just the names of the candidates and the idiotic “Make America Great Again” statement.)

The entirety of the Republican National Convention should be a train wreck, played out over national television as the GOP embarrasses themselves even further. With their unwanted leaders in Drumpf and Pence to their unwanted hangers-on in Christie and whatever D-list actor or politician wants to put their two cents in as to how great Der Drumpf is, it will be another week of embarrassment for the Republican Party. But that’s their standard they are bearing for the 2016 election…perhaps they’ll be ready the next time around, if they haven’t splintered into warring factions by the next election.

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In the 2016 Presidential Election, Only One Choice About Who’ll Get Things Done

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As it is Independence Day or the Fourth of July (however you might look at it or, as my British friends see it, Happy Treason Day), it is time to reflect on the 240th year of the United States of America’s existence. Through a multitude of wars – including one Civil War that threatened to rend the country irretrievably in two – disagreements about leadership, self-inflicted wounds that were corrected and some very dark patches of our history that somehow may still exist today, the U. S. has always been a country that strived to be, at minimum, a country for the people and, at maximum, a successful experiment in the respect of individual freedoms versus governmental controls. In November, the citizens of this country will decide the future of the U. S. and, through examination, there is only one choice to make…one that will be able to get things done.

To say that the 2016 Presidential campaign has been tumultuous to this point would be a grand understatement. Perhaps because of the interconnectivity of people around the world, there has been a great deal of interest generated by the candidates – and most of it not for good. For those of us who will actually choose the 45th President of the United States, we’ve been handed a cartload of rotting produce and we have to paw through it to see which item is the least spoiled and potentially acceptable. There was an old saying in my Marine platoon: “You don’t get to choose the army you go to war with, you go to war with the army you have.” Never has there been a truer statement for U. S. citizens.

Let’s take a look at arguably the top four candidates for the office of President of the United States (and, for the first time, I will do so without using slang names for one of the candidates):

HILLARY CLINTON

Hillary Clinton Begins Presidential Campaign In Iowa

Arguably one of the best prepared candidates that we’ve seen for the office. Can you name someone who sat at the right hand of arguably one of the greater President’s in the country’s history (husband Bill Clinton), was elected in a landslide to two terms in the U. S. Senate (from New York), was tapped as Secretary of State by the man who defeated her in the primary in 2008 (Barack Obama), whose own legacy has yet to be determined, and has championed the rights of women, children, the LGBT community and workers across the country? There is no one that is left in the campaign that can boast a resume such as this.

With this said, there are downsides to the former Secretary. For the past 30 years or so, there have been consistent investigations into activities that she, her husband or both of them have participated in, some with merit and other without. There have been instances where there was the appearance of impropriety (albeit none of it proved) and there have been missteps – to be honest, Clinton has more baggage than the Titanic. It was the esteemed philosopher Reagan, however, who is attributed with saying (this means he also may not have), “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.”

DONALD TRUMP

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In what was viewed as potentially the longest of shots before the GOP primary, Trump was able to outlast a 17-person field (arguably filled with too many fringe candidates for any of those running to garner what could be called a moratorium of thought in the party) to be the presumptive Republican nominee. More because of his name recognition rather than anything that he actually did as a businessman, Trump has coddled together enough support that he (more than likely) will be the nominee for the Republican Party…this despite the factor that no one in the Republican Party can stand him.

From the start of his campaign, Trump has derided virtually every class of human being not only in the U. S. but also around the world. The policies he has presented, of which there are few, are so completely anti-U. S. that they would first off have a difficult time being passed by any sane government and secondly wouldn’t stand the test of the Constitution. We won’t even get into his continued usage of white supremacist Tweets, statements of support from nationalist group leaders that he has to be cajoled into refuting or has never rebuked, inability to understand the military, its usage, its components or the general laws of warfare and a general lack of intelligence, knowledge of geopolitical situations, racially tinged commentary or just general temperament and couth that he seems to have little ability to demonstrate. Misogyny, xenophobia, racism and so much more…it all has a home in the mind of Trump.

GARY JOHNSON

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If there ever were a time for a third party candidate to emerge from the wilderness, it would be this campaign. Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson is trying to be that “third choice” that would be able to throw a monkey wrench into the political system with the Libertarian Party. The Libertarians would seem to be a good choice for those disaffected with the current two-party system:  a political party that is socially liberal and fiscally conservative that believes in the U. S. citizen rather than the status quo.

Johnson, however, is far from Libertarian, I don’t care how many joints he smokes or edibles he partakes, Johnson was governor as a Republican and ran in the 2012 campaign for the GOP nomination. After being shunned there, he reinvented himself and was able to get the Libertarian Party to nominate him for President that same year. There is little to no evidence that he wouldn’t enact some of the draconian laws that he supported as a Republican, other than his word…in this day and age, that isn’t enough. Then there’s the way that the Libertarian Party has treated him, actually booing him during a Libertarian debate because he “wasn’t Libertarian enough.”

On that note, then there’s the party itself. The Libertarian Party advocates for as little government as possible, something that sounds great until it is actually employed (this was also the party the Koch Brothers originally got behind before realizing they needed to steal a real party to have any influence – hence, their move to the Republicans). Abolishing every federal government oversight organization – the Department of Education, Energy, and so forth – would not only decimate the country, it would allow for 50 different rules and regulations to be set across the U. S. The purpose of the federal government is to ensure that there is one set of rules for EVERYONE to play under, not the hodgepodge of beliefs that would explode (if you don’t believe me, just look at the question of women’s reproductive rights – you don’t think that would go to hell pretty quickly?). There is a need for a strong federal government and, while there are some changes that need to be made, it doesn’t require its dismantling.

JILL STEIN

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Dr. Jill Stein, an actual internal medicine doctor with a degree from Harvard Medical School (that snooty elitist!), is the nominee for the Green Party. An experienced campaigner who has been the candidate for the Governor of Massachusetts twice (among other elected offices), she earned almost 500,000 votes in 2012 for President, the most ever for a Green Party nominee. She left the practice of medicine when she felt she could do more in the political word for improving people’s lives through the quality of their local environment, hence her Green connections.

As a general rule, I don’t have an issue with the Green Party other than their myopic vision on the environment. Sometimes things have to be done in the world and it will have an impact on the environment, the key is to make as little an impact as possible. It’s not like we have other choices on places to live as homo sapiens and, as such, shouldn’t destroy the planet we live on, but that also doesn’t also mean that it is the ONLY topic of conversation or the overall guiding light of living.

With every bit of thought and analysis I’ve done, the only choice come this fall to be the 45th President of the United States is Hillary Clinton. If you are looking for a candidate with experience, she covers that mark. A candidate who will enact change without destroying the fabric of what the United States is, she’s the most logical choice (Trump? His OWN PARTY has said they will “keep him in line.”). Clinton has shown, through her past work, that she is a candidate who will be there for all people, not just one segment of the population (Clinton has a close challenge from Stein on this and, to a lesser degree, Johnson). Of these four choices, Clinton is the most logical, the sanest and the one who will be able to maintain the United States’ respected status in the world both diplomatically and otherwise.

 

The GOP Has an Opening…And They Should Take It

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Over the time I took my month-long break, the real reason became evident to me. After the Indiana primary, billionaire charlatan Donald Drumpf became the “presumptive” (and there’s a reason that is in parenthesis) nominee for the Republican Party and my brain basically shut down to be able to comprehend how 13 million people could be that idiotic. After violating every common decency of politics – remember his rant against Megyn Kelly, the “bimbo?” How about his damnation of former Prisoner of War and current Arizona Senator John McCain? (I’d go on, but you get the idea) – the GOP could not put someone up that could defeat a misogynistic, xenophobic fascist and serial bankruptcy whore (who also enjoys not paying his employees yet claims to be running for “the little man”) whose very ideas for “Making ‘Merica Grate Again” (intentional) is to round up 11 million people he views as “illegal,” keeping everyone from entering the United States that comes from a country that has “terrorist activities” (news flash, asshole…that’s pretty much every country in the world) and building a wall (for about $25 billion) that he has no clue how to pay for (you think Mexico’s paying for it? You’re a fool…). It seemed impossible that a party that once had such leaders as Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and even Ronald Reagan could sink to such depths.

Alas, the GOP did. As the last month has gone on – and Drumpf’s statements get more outlandish – Republicans have been doing gyrations on how to balance their “support” for the Orangutan Mutant while at the same time being able to distance themselves from him. Some, such as Senators Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, will basically break into a run to get away from reporters seeking their opinions on something Mr. Oompah Loompah has said. Others, such as Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, can’t even come up with a policy position that they AGREE with Drumpf. Even the leadership of the GOP, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, cannot triangulate their “support” of Trump with the gibberish that spurts out of his pie hole. It has actually gotten to the point where McConnell says at the start of interviews, “I’m not going to be commenting on the presidential candidates today.”

But the Orange Dictator has now given the GOP a way out…

During a rally in Atlanta on Wednesday, Duh Donald gave the Republicans every reason to toss him into the street. In his diatribe at the rally, Il Duce Donald basically said “get behind me or I’ll do it by myself.” He said that the current leaders of the GOP should just “be quiet,” else he plans to “go it alone.” “A lot of people thought I should do that anyway, but I’ll just do it very nicely by myself,” Trump said, though he did not elaborate on what doing it “by myself” would mean.

GOP! You’ve got your off-ramp!

Donald Trump

Now is the time that the GOP ought to look at the Orangutan Mutant and state, “OK, asshole. Run on your own. You’ve shown no interest in helping this party – hell, you continue to denigrate it with every word you utter – and, in fact, are threatening our hold on the Congress, the Senate especially and a large lead in the House. There’s the door, Little Donnie…and don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out!”

Every time that Drumpf opens his mouth, the Republicans have to go on the defensive about what he says. Take, for example, his verbal sewage over Federal Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Curiel, the judge of record in the California fraud case regarding the vilified criminal activity that was Trump University, was basically lambasted by Drumpf over several days. The unbelievable lengths that the Cheeto from Queens took against the judge – stating that him “being Mexican” (despite the judge being a U. S. born citizen) biased him in the case, that a Muslim couldn’t hear the case either because of Drumpf’s idiotic statements – had the entirety of the GOP backpedaling faster than Aqib Talib against a wide receiver. They have to do this instead of pushing their agenda and, if they are able to dump Drumpf, then they could actually get about presenting their ideas than Drumpf’s Fantasyland of Delusion. (We won’t even get into how bullying Drumpf’s BS was as Curiel, as a judge, cannot comment on cases he is hearing or what someone says about him…that is the textbook definition of “bully,” much like Drumpf’s statements were the textbook definition of “racist.”)

When it comes to the Republican National Convention next month in Cleveland, Ryan needs to step to the dais and say, “The delegates have been released from being bound to the candidate of their state’s selection. We are doing this due to the fact that the person who earned the most votes is unfit to be a candidate, let alone to be President. We also have to make sure that the tradition and honor of the Republican Party survives…with the person who received the most votes, we cannot do that.” Failing that, the GOP should just designate that they will not be nominating a candidate for President in 2016 and instead concentrate on something much more important to the RNC.

34 seats in the Senate are currently up for grabs in the 2016 general election. Currently holding an eight Senator advantage, the Republicans would have to win 21 of them to maintain that lead. According to Cook Political Report’s rundown on June 10, seven of those seats are tossups (six Republican, one Democrat), meaning that their margin of error is basically nil. The GOP cannot have a plague on the ballot like Drumpf and expect their advantage to remain unless they abandon the White House and concentrate on the Senate (and, to a lesser degree due to gerrymandering, the House).

Gingrich

If the leadership of the GOP doesn’t do this, then they threaten to bring about the extinction of the Republican Party. Once considered the “statesman emeritus” of the GOP, even former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has succumbed to the sickness that the Orangutan Mutant has inflicted on the organization. In an interview with “Fox and Friends” on Monday, Gingrich – one of the more respected members of the GOP (for some reason) – stated that a new “House Un-American Activities Committee” be created.

Now, for those of you without a history background, the group that Gingrich speaks of was initially founded to go after Nazis in the U. S. Once World War II was over, the committee then moved onto Communism, calling into question the patriotism of virtually everyone in the county. President Harry Truman denounced the committee in 1959, citing it as the “most un-American thing in the country today.” But it wasn’t until 1975 that the “Internal Security Committee” (as the HUAC had been renamed in 1969) was disbanded.

For a former member of Congress to promote the reinstatement of one of the vilest committee’s in the history of Congress – one that ruined lives with no evidence and that could censor anything it felt was “subversive” – it is just a further statement of how far down the rabbit hole the GOP has gone. It has all been because of their presumed nominee, Herr Drumpf, who has repeated the vilest things that can be stated by a presumed member of the human race. The GOP has the opportunity to distance themselves from him – either through not nominating him, nominating another candidate or “sitting out” 2016 – but the question remains whether they have the spine to do it or not. Since they cannot seem to be able to separate being a U. S. citizen from being the member of a political party, the question is a viable one.

Coming Back from Self-Imposed Exile and…Things Are Still the Same

OrlandoClub

Yes, it’s been quite some time since I stepped to the writer’s dais here on my site. Let’s call it a self-imposed exile, one that was required due to the factor that my personal well of outrage over certain circumstances in our nation had reached its dry point. There are times that, when you’ve railed about things long enough, that you have to stop and recharge – I personally used that recharge time to reexamine some issues, some thoughts, and perhaps find some new insight that had previously eluded my vision.

Then Sunday happened…

In Orlando on Sunday morning, a man stepped into a nightclub (everyone wants to say “gay nightclub,” like it matters) armed to the teeth with an AR-15, and handgun and some other weaponry that hasn’t been disclosed. He also must have had a shitload of ammunition because, by the time the Orlando police forced their way into the club at around 5AM, there were 49 people dead, 53 more injured and untold numbers that may have been injured but were able to escape the club before it became a hostage situation and find medical attention. The shooting at Pride nightclub in Orlando took over the dark banner of the biggest mass killing in United States history.

While it should have been the utter idiocy of someone taking the lives of 50 people and injuring a similar number, what was mind-numbing was the speed of politicization of the shooting. The GOP and the National Rifle Association supporters must have hot-keyed their responses to the “next” mass shooting, because they were at the ready with the well-worn dismissals of any such occurrence: “it wasn’t the gun’s fault,” “it was (insert your barely hidden religious or racial screed here),” or, because of the fucking Orangutan Mutant that continue to fire shit out of his mouth, “the Muslims have to go!” While they did this, they didn’t have something that a normal person, being of a halfway evidentiary mindset, had:  the ability to let evidence come in to make a more informed decision.

From all apparent evidence, the shooter was a U. S. citizen, born and raised, who self-radicalized himself. According to his ex-wife and co-workers, he had anger issues that bordered on bipolar disorder. He had been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for some statements he had made to co-workers regarding other people, but the FBI found no crimes to be able to charge the shooter. Finally, his own father said that he had always been anti-gay, particularly outraged two weeks earlier because he saw two men kissing in public.

That last one is particularly important. Evidence has shown that the shooter bought the weapons he used, including an AR-15, within the last two weeks, AFTER the incident that his father reports the shooter was upset over. It is also of interest that the shooter had a profile on a gay dating site and had visited Pulse nightclub; because he was gunned down in the club, it will never be known if the shooter was ashamed of his sexual proclivities or was simply using all tools at his disposal to research his hideous crime.

But let’s get back to the politicization…

None other than the Orangutan Mutant, Drumpf himself, crowed about how “he was right.” He actually accepted CONGRATULATIONS following the attack, letting a couple hours lapse before he even put out his condolences to the families. Then the asshole went a step further, saying that only he could protect the LGBT community, despite the decades that the GOP has spent trying to deny every right to these people across the board.

Furthermore, the GOP as a whole stood up more for the NRA rather than the LGBT community that was mowed down Sunday morning. The Republicans couldn’t even bring themselves to say the acronym “LGBT,” instead just offering that maddeningly pandering “thoughts and prayers” instead of actually doing something about the issue.

Now, in the last 48 hours or so of the discussion, the usual battle lines are drawn. The GOP and conservatives state that there’s “nothing that can be done” to stop such attacks. The Democrats and liberals are once again saying that there should be more controls on weapons (and, let’s add for emphasis here, NOT LOOKING TO ABOLISH THE SECOND AMENDMENT). The extremists on the right want to follow Mr. Oompah Loompah with his ban on “any immigration from a country with terrorist activities” (news flash, asshole:  that’s virtually every other country in the world…you’re going to stop ALL immigration or just the brown people?), while the extremists on the left ARE looking for that ban on all guns.

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As usual with this situation, the answer lies in the middle.

I’m all for the Second Amendment and responsible ownership of weapons. This would entail a license for every weapon owned, no sale of weapon without a properly transferred license, medical and psychological evaluation of gun owner BEFORE obtaining said weapon, a nationwide system of checks against those who shouldn’t have weapons, having insurance on weapon should they be used in an inappropriate way…I can go on, if you like. There is a litany of regulations that could be instituted to ensure responsible gun ownership.

We do more to ensure someone can operate a 3500-pound weapon on the roads of the U. S. than we do a device that can spit hundreds of rounds per minute indiscriminately. If you reach a certain age, you have to either surrender your driver’s license or PROVE EVERY YEAR that you’re not a hazard on the roadways. If you get too many drunk driving convictions, your license can be revoked. If you have certain health issues like seizures, you’re driving privileges can be taken. You also have to have insurance on every vehicle owned, otherwise in many states you can’t even get plates for the vehicle. With guns? Little to none of this is true.

Yes, more laws are sometimes necessary. Did we have laws mandating wearing seat belts? No, but we passed them and auto deaths were reduced. Did we have laws on pasteurizing milk? No, but we passed them and made it to where contaminated milk didn’t kill you. Just saying “you can’t do it” isn’t good enough. You have to be willing to look at situations and say “You know, this isn’t right.” And if you disagree with this, I do believe that you don’t value life (or you find the children of Sandy Hook, the clubgoers of Orlando and the theatergoers in Aurora to be an “acceptable loss”), otherwise you might actually say that some controls are necessary.

AR15

Furthermore, we are not talking the abolishment of the Second Amendment.We are talking taking a military-style weapon off the table in the AR-15. The AR-15, the weapon of choice in several mass killings, is the civilian equivalent of the military’s M-16. Its sole purpose is to fire as many rounds as possible and kill as many people as possible. With some modifications – some legal, many illegal – the weapon can fire hundreds of rounds per minute. There’s absolutely no “hunting” or “sport” involved with this weapon.

We’re not talking about handguns, shotguns, ammunition, none of that. ONE WEAPON whose sole existence is to kill, rapidly and as many targets as possible. That’s a pretty easy elimination. If we enact some common sense legislation, will it stop ALL shooting crimes? No, there’s always going to be gun-related homicides and suicides. But if we can cut the numbers down, it’s a start. And sometimes that is necessary in a civilized society.

Rail Against a Theocratic Government? Start with The GOP’s Vision for the United States…

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when the Republican Party was one that stood up for business interests, be they the street corner “mom and pop” shops or the monolithic companies such as General Motors or General Electric that employed thousands of workers. They stood for a strong defense, a military that was prepared to do battle anywhere but wasn’t wasted on piddling matters that weren’t of our nation’s interests. They also could, at one point in their history, be the spark of what were some of the great movements in the United States, changing what would be the course of our nation.

So what happened to the “Grand Old Party,” the GOP, the Republicans? Religion, and in particular the zealous “Religious Right” is what happened to them. (And this guy? Your guess is as good as mine…)

Over the past few weeks, a couple of states in this country – both with Republican leadership in their legislatures and Republican governors – have passed some of the most heinous laws this country has seen since the Jim Crow days following the close of the Civil War.

Bathroom

In North Carolina, Governor Pat McCrory (who has that same sheepish “look what I got away with” bullshit smirk that President George Bush [Bush II] had) signed into law HB 2, officially titled the “Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act.” Much like other Republican bullshit laws like the “Patriot Act” or the “Troubled Asset Relief Program,” HB 2 was a move by the GOP-led General Assembly to thwart an ordnance that was passed by the city of Charlotte – and only applicable in that city, it must be stated – that allowed for transgender persons to use the bathroom facilities of the sex that they identified with (as such, a man in the process of switching to being a female would use the ladies’ room and vice versa). Calling a special session of the General Assembly to Raleigh (at a minimum cost of $42,000 per day for a state currently running a budget deficit), the GOP felt this HAD to be addressed.

The law specifically outlawed transgendered people from using the restroom of their changed sex, saying that they had to use the facilities of the sex they were identified with on their birth certificate (which of these GOP assholes is going to be the guardian at the gate?). Not only was this an abomination, the General Assembly went further in stripping the rights from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people (LGBT) from state anti-discrimination protections (although they were never mentioned in any discrimination laws previously), including job protection and housing requirements. Finally – and as a last “fuck you” to the people of North Carolina – the General Assembly made it law that no city can raise their minimum wage over what the state deems correct (this is irritating enough on its own).

North Carolina doesn’t take the prize for being the biggest bigots on the block, however. Mississippi voted through the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act (see what I mean about bullshit titling?),” through a bicameral system dominated by Republicans. In that act, the bill allows for the out-and-out discrimination against LGBT people by businesses based on religious reasons. The bill was signed into law by another Republican, Governor Phil Bryant, and is now in effect in the state.

TheProblem

Other states with Republicans running things have gotten wise and decided it wasn’t worth screwing up business dealings with other states for the potential to have such “religious freedom” laws on the books. Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Maine and Ohio have decided that the ability to have businesses welcomed in the state, movies and television shows filmed inside their borders or athletic events contested in their arenas is better than being a social outcast. This is something that North Carolina is learning and Mississippi will probably be learning soon.

In North Carolina, the National Basketball Association is considering the removal of the 2017 NBA All-Star Game and the All-Star Game Weekend festivities from the city, with Basketball Hall of Fame member Charles Barkley seconding those statements. The NCAA is looking at its 2017 and 2018 college sports tournaments, which could host at least 20 games at venues in the state, and whether it will hold those games at those arenas. PayPal has decided against opening a global operations center in Charlotte over the passage of the law (which was to have provided 500 jobs) as Apple, IBM and Google have also lined up in opposition to the law. The streaming television provider Hulu pulled production of its pilot for a new show, Crushed, from the state and, on Friday, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Bruce Springsteen canceled a concert in Greensboro, citing the oppressive new law as the reason. All of these individual items could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues and it is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

The Republican Party enjoys talking about how they dislike the theocratic government of Iran or the hideous atrocities that groups like ISIS inflict on their people in the name of religion, but let’s start with them as a zealous religious group that would look to install a theocratic reign of terror should they be allowed everything they would like to see installed (nullification of Roe v. Wade would just be the beginning). The different “religious freedom” laws are about as ludicrous as it gets as NO ONE is infringing on the freedom of ANY religion in this country. Last I checked, you could freely walk around the streets of Anywhere, USA, with a Bible, Book of Mormon, Qur’an or Torah without anyone accosting you. You can gather anywhere – a park, a home, a school or even an actual house of worship that isn’t taxed by said government – without the danger of having the government shut it down. You can even – shock of shocks – WEAR A PENDANT DECLARING YOUR FAITH openly in public. So quit with this bullshit of “religious freedom” and call it what it is – the new way of saying “racial or personal bigotry.”

Since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the GOP has slowly been eaten away by the “religious right,” and it has been a slow process. It started against those who were “different” – minorities, gays (this was also the time of the Stonewall Riots in 1969), “foreigners” (screw the fact that many in this country were maybe one or two generations removed from being a foreigner themselves) or “hippies” who were against the Vietnam War. As the 70s came along, that “Religious Right” became capitalized as the GOP discovered that it was a sizeable force that presented several things that a political party likes – a solid voting bloc that won’t sway and, in most cases, quite affluent to be able to support the party financially.

That “Religious Right” became the “Moral Majority” that spewed its vile verbosity across the country in the 1980s, perpetuated by President Ronald Reagan and George Bush (Bush I). With such hucksters as Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts (who once famously said that “God would call him home if he didn’t raise $6 million” in a certain time frame – when it didn’t happen, no one called him on his bullshit), Benny Hinn and others piping their drivel across cable networks, their power continued to grow (never mind that they couldn’t keep their privates in their pants if their lives depended on it). While it might seem it calmed in the 1990s, it only changed its face into the Neo-Conservatives.

ReligiousRight

Those “conservatives” (and I will use that term because there are SOME conservatives out there who are aghast that their GOP has been overrun by religious zealots) have destroyed what was once a party that did things, that tried to run a country. These “conservatives” now want to deny everyone anything (including gay marriage and any other rights), put Christianity as the only religion of the land and, in essence, become the same theocracy they say they preach against (they have their “perfect leader” in Rafael Eduardo Cruz). This isn’t a political party, this is a religious movement that is impersonating a political organization, not the Republican Party or GOP that was around after World War II.

Fortunately, the world is changing. There are fewer and fewer of these brain-dead religious zealots pandering to a close-minded bigoted electorate who still want to look in the bathrooms and bedrooms and keep an eye on what people do, but it isn’t dwindling quickly enough. It’s time to let the GOP know that their archaic social stances will keep them from ever being considered seriously as a political entity. Within a generation, either the GOP will have grudgingly entered the 21st century or they will have died a painful death (they may very well be in those death throes now). If it brings an end to this bigotry masquerading as “religious freedom,” then I’m all for it.

The GOP Are Liars or Psychopaths – You Make the Call

Republican-Presidential-Candidates-2016

In what seems like a millennium ago, the top contenders for the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 2016 stood on a stage with one question asked of them. “Will you support the eventual nominee of the party (hell, this was Fox News so they didn’t have to designate), whomever it may be?” Of the ten people on the stage during that first debate, nine raised their hands in the affirmative; only one, Donald Drumpf, chose to not raise his hand. Now either those other people who once were running against Drumpf – and, by extension, the Republican Party as a whole – are either liars or psychopaths and it is up to us to make the call.

Since that first debate, Drumpf has employed a scorched earth policy where he seldom left any opponent unsinged and, in some cases, burned them to the ground. Let’s take a look, shall we? (These are all direct comments on each of his fellow candidates from Drumpf himself, in the order that they dropped out of the race)

Rick Perry – “an absolutely horrible job of securing the border” (never mind that it isn’t the job of a state’s governor to do that), “should be forced to take an IQ test” (pot, meet kettle), “needs a new pair of glasses” (this is a familiar theme – attack the way someone looks)

Scott Walker – “a puppet,” “massive deficit, bad jobs forecast, a mess” (using the entirety of the GOP playbook for running government, it must be noted), “your very dumb fundraiser hit me very hard – not smart!”

Bobby Jindal – “Spent $1000 to register in New Hampshire and dropped out the next day. Such a waste!”

Lindsey Graham – “dumb mouthpiece” who has “zero against me – no cred!” “embarrassed himself with his failed run for President” “So easy to beat!”

George Pataki – “Couldn’t be elected dog catcher if he ran again” (don’t worry, you’ll see this one again…), “terrible governor of NY, one of the worst”

Surprisingly, Mike Huckabee was left unscathed by Drumpf. Guess that means Drumpf never took him seriously as a candidate, which was true as he never got out of the “kiddie table” debates.

Rand Paul – “Why is Rand Paul allowed to take advantage of the people of Kentucky?” “truly weird,” “reminds me of a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain.”

Rick Santorum also dodged the Drumpf attention – unless Drumpf looked up “santorum” and was appalled to the point of silence.

Carly Fiorina – “If you listen to her for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache,” “has zero chance” and basically everything he noted in the Rolling Stone interview about her.

ChristieSubjugate

Chris Christie – “spending all his time in New Hampshire” instead of trying to campaign across the spectrum of states early in the primaries. Then he climbed into the trunk to be “The Gimp” for Drumpf.

Jim Gilmore – nobody paid attention to him. In fact, if you look above, he wasn’t even in the picture when this whole clusterfuck started.

Jeb Bush – WAY too many to even mention, but let’s go with “low energy,” “the bottom of the barrel” and “a pathetic figure” as some of the kinder statements.

Ben Carson – “incapable of understanding foreign policy,” “very weak on immigration” and “many lies by Ben Carson” – and who can forget the pantomime by Drumpf of the teenage Ben Carson knifing a close friend and comparing his “pathological temper” to the “sickness of a child molester.”

Marco Rubio – Again, WAY too many to even mention, but the kinder statements are “little Marco,” “the lightweight from Florida” and “all talk and no action”

Sure, there’s that old adage of “sticks and stones” but, in the case of when you’re looking to draw support for something that you might need some friends to help with, this isn’t exactly the best way to go about seizing that support. About the only way that these people, for the most part, should be voting for Drumpf in any election is if they are either complete liars, psychopaths or masochists who don’t deserve consideration for any political office.

This isn’t even getting into the recent tete a tete between Drumpf and Senator Rafael Eduardo “Ted” Cruz, still battling for that brokered convention in Cleveland (which may soon become known as the “Second Mistake by the Lake”) come July, over their wives, which for those who thought the campaign couldn’t sink any lower suddenly found that it could.

CruzScandal

And here is where Drumpf has made his biggest mistake. In “counterpunching” when he views an attack (and in which another SANE person running for political office would have said “hey, that’s the way the game works”), he has successfully pissed off virtually anyone that would even be an assistance to his candidacy. In addition to this, while he’s been racking up state wins, Drumpf forgot about the bigger picture – keeping those people that you’ve beaten in your corner to help your drive further up the ladder.

Anyone can get the gullible base of the GOP – yes, the racists, the isolationists, the “keep your guv’ment hands off my Medicare” folks, the “God, guns and gravy” constituency – to come to your corner. Just tell them the (many) lies that you’re going to make things “like they used to be” – when the women knew their place, the blacks were off the streets by dark and the police let Bubba go home after he downed a 12-pack and run his car into the entrance of the local chapter of the NAACP. The bigger problem is in getting those that actually have a brain to follow your gruel and, beyond that, getting someone that isn’t a part of your circle to actually believe you have what it takes to lead.

And therein is where Drumpf has lost and will lose the election. While he may be winning the GOP nomination, he is winning it with 30-40% of the vote. As of 2014, approximately 39% of the voting populace in the U. S. identifies as Republican; that is approximately 98 million people in the country. Let’s give benefit of the doubt and give Drumpf 40% of that figure…that’s 39 million people who ALL have to vote come November.

Do you remember the results from 2012? In the 2012 elections, Barack Obama racked up almost 65 million votes while Mitt Romney earned almost 60 million. It was considered a “landslide” victory by Obama over Romney, who was well-liked by his fellow Republican candidates and the GOP as a whole.

Now add in that Drumpf isn’t leading in any demographic outside of Republicans – minorities, Hispanics, women, you name it, he’s failing miserably. If you can tell me where Drumpf can find enough StormTrumpers and Brownshirts to push over 66 million voters (not going to happen), then you need to spend more time picking lottery numbers than presidential hopefuls.

But I digress…any party or person who would, after being subjugated by the slimiest verbosity from the pompous Orangutan Mutant, who has any respect for themselves, their party and maybe even their country, and then still says, “I’m voting for him,” is…well, I think the point has been made.

What’s My Problem? It Should Be Everyone’s Problem…

After one of my essays the other day, someone had the audacity to ask me what was my problem with the Republican Party. “Why don’t you go after the Democratic Party the way you go after the Republicans?” the person asked. I offered a quick, Facebook-friendly reply – which wasn’t enough for that person (it seldom is – Facebook is not an essay-friendly arena) – so I thought that I would take the time to fully enunciate what “my problem” is with the Republican Party, at least the way that it is constituted today. When I reach the end, I think that most people might recognize that it should be everyone’s problem.

I came of age in the 1970s, in the post-Watergate/post-Vietnam Era when we questioned everything that made up the government (in fact, it is why I still question it today). Whether it was the federal, state or local offices, none of them were given a break over the conditions in the United States. Republicans back then were not identified by their blind addiction to denial of social norms – abortion was an issue that was just beginning to bubble – but were more likely to be viewed on their business acumen, foreign policy expertise and respect for the military, things that everyone could get behind including their counterparts. Democrats at that time were looked at as the voice of the “people,” the party who would actually stand with those who needed the help the most when the times were the toughest, and protected them sometimes against those businesses that threatened them.

As the 1980s rolled around – and especially after the mixed results that were the presidencies of Richard Nixon (and, after his resignation, Gerald Ford) and Jimmy Carter – the two parties were still somewhat malleable in that they stood for different things but worked together for the improvement of the United States. The election of Ronald Reagan was something the country needed – a new rebirth, if you will – and it did serve to recharge the nation. I served in the United States Marine Corps during Reagan’s presidency and, while seeing him build the world’s greatest military, I also saw the Republican Party’s treatment of its fighting force in decrepit barracks and base housing, inadequate equipment, improper usage in military actions and other various areas of governance, including the denial of the AIDS epidemic and other societal ills.

Because of the success of Reagan, President George Bush – Bush I, as I like to call him – was a natural choice to continue. But Bush was different:  he was practical, he knew that you couldn’t just force the military anywhere for any reason (perhaps because of his days at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency, he had a bit more “intelligence,” no pun intended) and he also knew you had to pay for the military. Thus, when he paid for the First Gulf War (or military action as “war” was never declared per se) by raising taxes, he was doomed as the 1990s began.

The true segmentation of the Republican and Democratic parties (and there is a segmentation, they are not “the same”) – and the reason for my look at one over the other – came about in the 1990s. When Bill Clinton became President in 1992, the nation took off, arguably because he worked with a Republican-led House of Representatives and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in 1994 and they maximized the “tech surge” of the mid-1990s. It was the second term of Clinton, however, that put the nail in the coffin for me.

Instead of being pleased with making the country work, the rising “neo-con” movement in the Republican Party – not happy to have a military that was sitting on the sidelines, wanting a bolder and more aggressive foreign policy and willing to do whatever it took to regain not only the power in Congress but also in the White House – seized on Clinton receiving a hummer from intern Monica Lewinsky and turned that into an impeachable offense (ever the opportunist Gingrich, rather than trying to staunch this wave, grabbed a surfboard and rode along with it). Fortunately, a more-rational Senate was able to stave off the slathering idiots that were the neo-con Republicans screaming for Clinton’s removal, but it would only be a momentary pause before the truly shitty schism would develop between the two.

The Republican neo-cons weren’t happy with skewering Democrats, they also ravaged their own. First they took down John McCain in 2000 with a bogus “black child” scam, getting their hand-picked puppet, George Bush (or Bush II), into the nomination, then they would turn the targeting on Al Gore as the election hinged on the state of Florida (the “swift-boating” of John Kerry four years later was just icing on the cake). Having seated 10 of the last 12 Supreme Court Justices, the Republicans were able to use the U. S. Supreme Court to shut down any further review of Florida’s recount in 2000, with 538 voters being the determining factor in Bush’s 2000 Electoral College win (Gore won the popular vote) over Gore.

Once back in power – and with the attacks of 9/11 – the Republican neo-con movement was given the proverbial golden chalice of opportunity to sweepingly affect the United States and they took full advantage of it. They enacted the Patriot Act of 2001 – with a reluctant Democratic Senate coming along (only Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat, voted against it) – arguably the worst piece of legislation in the history of the country. They started first an air campaign against the alleged (true) mastermind behind 9/11, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan, but then for some inexplicable reason transferred most of their attention to an air and ground invasion of Iraq and its dictator Saddam Hussein, in essence starting a two-front war.

While making these mistakes, they also spent money like drunken sailors on shore leave. Instead of maintaining steady tax rates, the neo-cons lowered taxes – apparently thinking that there would be a magical money tree that would just drop $100 bills from the sky – while pushing an extreme anti-everything social policy that impeded on the rights on every person that isn’t a white male in the U. S. If that wasn’t enough, then the fiscal collapse of 2008 occurred – and the resulting “bank bailout” that was started by President Bush – before President Barack Obama came to office.

Now, in my entire existence, the Congress may not have agreed with the President, but they at the minimum did their job and attempted to work with the President. They passed bills, put them to the President and it was up to him as to whether he wanted to enact them. They WORKED with the President and/or his personnel. From the start of the Obama Presidency, however – and epitomized by now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s infamous “our job” speech (“Our job is to ensure that the man in the White House is a one-term President”) – the Republicans have done exactly NOTHING to further the cause of the United States (and please don’t try to say the 60 or so votes to end the Affordable Care Act constitutes “action”).

Where I come from – my core beliefs – is that government works the best when it does keep its nose out of the lives of its citizens. There come moments in a nation’s history, however, when it does require the “voice of reason” to step in and make a determination. Slavery, the right of women to vote, civil rights, abortion, equal protection for women and LGBT persons…these are all moments when the federal government has to step in and say, as a whole for the nation, that there is one rule for one nation. Through this method, one area of the nation cannot inflict its ignorance, giving the country a black eye over something that should be settled (as Alabama recently did over the gay marriage issue).

With these issues, the Republican Party seldom seems to be on the right side (slavery seems to be one of those rare occasions). Rather than embracing the rights of people, the GOP seems to kowtow to a small sect (and I use that term in its perfect religious intentions) of people who consistently chop off their leaders’ arms for not trying to be more accepting of people DIFFERENT THAN THEM.

I don’t want to see leaders blaming people for being disadvantaged or poor, I want to see those leaders attempt to help those people (a great program in North Carolina, started by a Republican, encouraged people on public assistance into a two-year program that eventually saw those people get off the dole). I want to see schools given every tool available for the children rather than hear politicians cry about the tax expenditure (education is the only way to ensure that we improve as a country) of simply providing textbooks. I want to see leaders who try to improve life for everyone rather than improve it for a few. I want to see intelligence praised instead of derided, as many in the GOP do when it comes to science.

As to the military (and as a veteran), I would like to see our troops used less rather than more. I’d prefer to see them used only as a TRUE last resort instead of as a “peacekeeping” force (as they have been since World War II). And, if you’re going to use the military, supply them with the equipment they need, pay them well, take care of their families and, when they come home, take care of the veterans and their medical conditions. The Republicans who say that they cannot take care of veterans – calling it an “entitlement” – shouldn’t ever darken the door of Congress again.

This means you have to have money for everything. Paying for a strong military, infrastructure, improvements overall for people’s daily lives, business and education improvements…it all takes money. While it can be streamlined, it also needs funding to function. Taxation for government is a necessary evil and denying that increase in revenue is a death sentence to being a third world country.

This isn’t to say all Republicans are evil, just as it isn’t to say that all Democrats are saints. But, when the scales are weighed, I see one side doing more for people and the military overall and it certainly isn’t the one that is represented by the heavier animal. I’m always open for presentation of evidence to the contrary but, for the Republican Party, that evidence is rather sparse.

Is that answer good enough?

Where’s Loki to Take Care of Business?

I’ve had it. It’s only been a month since the GOP presidential primary began and it’s official…I’ve reached the point that I’m ready for Loki, as portrayed in the film Dogma, to come into the business meeting called the Republican primaries and massacre the room, just to save us all from the utter depravity that the Republican Party is delivering to the citizens of the United States.

You might think it all falls in the lap of Donald Drumpf (and this is what the Orangutan Mutant will be known as from now on here), but there’s plenty of blame to spread around. When in the hell have we heard, during a Presidential debate, discussion of a candidate’s DICK SIZE? Leave it to Drumpf to drag the proceedings further into the gutter, but that is where he prefers to live as does much of the Republican Party. Hell, this is the same conman who, while avoiding the frightful attack of petite Megyn Kelly before the Iowa caucuses last month by throwing a “veterans’ fundraiser” still hasn’t DONATED THE MONEY FROM THE FUNDRAISER…if that isn’t scummy, what is?

He proved that before the debate last night, where he didn’t waste any time espousing about the size of his genitalia to the crowd in Detroit while screaming and yelling with his fellow candidates. Responding to comments made by 2012 Presidential nominee Mitt Romney (more on this in a minute), Drumpf insinuated that he could have told Romney to “get on his knees” to get his endorsement for that year’s campaign (many have read that as Drumpf saying he could have sought a blowjob from Romney and Romney would have done it). Unfortunately, that’s just the latest in a sleazy list of sexual innuendos, lies, obscenities and insults to virtually everyone that Drumpf has dumped like toxic waste in this year’s campaign.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio has proven to be as adept at gutter speak as Trump is, gleefully tossing out his own baneful rhetoric that his minions lap up like gruel at the trough. Rubio, the “boy wonder” who was supposed to be the savior of the GOP, the “future,” so to speak, now shows that he’s just as good at dirty talk as the whores that the GOP has put up for 2016 that have taken the billionaire Johns money and wiped their asses with it.

Then there’s Texas Senator Rafael Cruz who, strangely enough, is trying to walk both sides, sneaking in snide jabs on Drumpf while stepping back, like a WWE heel manager, and throwing up his hands to say “who me?” Then he goes off on his soliloquy on his “honesty” (please, it’s a close race between him and the Mutant as to most devious in this race) and his “affirmation” (as pretty much every deity looking on retches) make him deserving of leadership. The only thing for sure is that, while Trump is scary for his stupidity, Cruz actually believes the bullshit he serves, which actually makes him more dangerous.

Oh, there is still one other person on the stage, but he’s there just to show what a square looks like. Ohio Governor John Kasich isn’t even in the mix for winning the nomination, the GOP would just like people to remember what a normal person looks like just in case they happen to find anyone when it comes down to the next Presidential election come 2020. If it does happen – and the Republican Party still exists – we might see Kasich again.

 GOPLogoBroke

That’s right, if the Republican Party still exists. The list of party leadership that has basically said “fuck off” to Drumpf is…well, everyone that makes up the leadership of the party. 2012 Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, 2008 nominee and current Arizona Senator John McCain, former Nixon speechwriter and economist Ben Stein and a host of others have either encouraged the Republican base to make another choice or have flat out said they will not be voting for Drumpf come November.

The Republican leadership is also possibly looking at the options of a brokered convention (and some sort of situation where, with no candidate with enough delegates to take the nomination, some of those “back room” deals go on that would lock Drumpf out) and Drumpf runs third party, a “real Republican” runs third party to break up Drumpf’s vote or even voting for a Democrat (yes, some have said they’d rather vote for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rather than Drumpf). All of this whirls around while the GOP tries to ensure their tenuous hold on the U. S. Senate (the House of Representatives, thanks to the GOP’s perfection of gerrymandering, is safe…at least until the U. S. Supreme Court has its new member seated by President Barack Obama).

That was what made the end of the debate on Thursday night comical and irritating all at the same time. The final question from the Fox moderators was “would you support the Republican nominee if it is not you?” Each of these men – who for the past two weeks have said some of the vilest statements about a human that you would want to hear in public – lied through their teeth (especially Drumpf) and said yes. Seriously…can you see Rubio voting for Drumpf come November? There’s no fucking way if Rubio has any sense of manhood about him, especially after being derided as “Little Marco” by a billionaire asshole for the last month, that he would vote for such a vile creature (and I could go on with the other candidates, but you get the picture).

Cleared for public release by Lt.Cmdr. Terry Dudley, USS Kitty Hawk Public Affairs Officer

I’ve tired of the constant lies from Drumpf and the others about the “weak” military when the U. S. goddamn military is the strongest fighting force in the world, one that no other nation or even group of “terrorists” wants to even test in any way. I’ve tired of all the discussion of a “weak” economy…what numbers do you assholes want to go back to in 2008? The 10% unemployment? The 8000 Dow Jones ticker? The $3.75 a gallon gas? Want to go back to the precipice of a worldwide financial collapse that would have seen EVERYTHING fall in the shitter?

I’ve tired of the constant barrage of blocking everything the current President has tried to do because “he’s a Communist/Muslim/Atheist sympathizer,” then hear the same assholes complain that “he hasn’t done anything as President.” I’ve tired of hearing both Democratic nominees ripped, one because he considers himself a Socialist (and that isn’t a bad thing) and the other because she just happens to have every fucking page of her life as an open book for the last 45 years under scrutiny (YOU try to live life like that). If you want your candidate to be lily-white, you’re not going to find that person anymore; you might think the Pope would be ideal, but I am sure that there are a couple of skeletons in that closet that we don’t know about.

There’s still eight months to go. I haven’t heard one damn thing from one side about what they will do for the people. All I’ve heard is what they will take away, from their health care to what relationships they can have with their significant others recognized by law to deportations for being a hardworking but illegal immigrant to branding a religion with a scarlet crescent or forcing them out/not allowing them into the county to a multitude of other draconian or ignorant things.

I don’t hear this from the other party in the race, instead I hear about how they would like to help those illegal immigrants become legal, protect the rights of all people – regardless of whatever their lifestyle may be – improve on and extend health care coverage for all U. S. citizens and continue to be the fucking United States of America, the melting pot that has welcomed everyone in the world for nearly the last 250 years. Which side sounds like the one that’s actually thinking and embracing what is now an international community?

Loki, I cede the stage to you…