Tag Archives: Titanic

White House has Mastered the Lie, Now Working on the (Mis)Information

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We’re barely a month in to this charade that acts like a leadership group for a country and there are several things that have become apparent. Potentially the most important is that the people staffing this team – the Confederacy of Dunces arranged like deck chairs on the Titanic – have utterly no problem with lying their asses off should the situation arise. All one has to do is look at one area – terrorism – to see that it is their raison d’etre to lie.

First there was a person who does not even have an OFFICIAL position in the leadership group, Kellyanne ConJob, spewing her idiocy about the fictitious Bowling Green massacre, in which agents of al-Qaeda supposedly did this, that and…guacamole. Not only did she repeat this blatant lie once, she did it THREE times before finally coming out and admitting she was wrong. This came after ConJob coined the phrase “alternative facts” that accurately describes every fucking thing that comes out of the mouths of the conservatives involved with this fraud of leadership.

Then there was Sean Spicer, the current White House press secretary, who doesn’t seem to have the ability to speak the English language without fumbling the words. During a presser not a couple of weeks ago, he used the “terrorist attacks in Atlanta” as a reason for the unconstitutional travel ban enacted by the cabal. Once again, after great derision from pretty much anyone with a functioning brain, he admitted he was wrong and that he meant “Orlando” (which was a mass shooting by a U. S. citizen, but still a domestic terrorism attack – that part was left out…DOMESTIC).

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Finally, there was Orange Julius Caesar himself topping them all. During a party rally/Hitler-esque display in an airplane hangar on Saturday – complete with the brainless, the spineless and the soulless expressing their admiration and devotion to Herr Twitler –he noted the terror attacks “in Sweden last night. Sweden, of all places.” The problem is? There were no such attacks. When it was pointed out that he was once again wrong, he simply played it off as “something he saw on Fox News,” which was two editorialists positing about the situation in Sweden, not the actuality. It was simply the latest lie in the pattern of this governance to create fear of a certain religion – Islam – so that they could run roughshod over it.

Watching the conservatives justify this would be high comedy if the goddamn stakes weren’t so high. Supporters have contorted themselves into positions that would rival anything you’d see in a circus sideshow and, once in that position, cannot seem to extricate their brain to be able to have a cohesive thought – hence their silence over these blatant falsehoods. Add in the continued attacks by The Resident on the media, falsely accusing the Fifth Estate as the “enemy of the people,” and it is obvious that they’ve mastered the lie.

Now all they need to do is work on the information…and they are starting in on that end.

Recently the campaign sent out an e-mail to its “followers,” asking for their opinion on the media. As someone who is close to a person who does opinion based research (my lovely wife), I’ve seen enough questionnaires created to demonstrate what is supposed to be done with these quizzes. Usually – and to get the clearest based information without biases showing up in the research – these questionnaire surveys are very balanced in their approach and lack any guidance towards a particular side of the discussion. This one? Not even close!

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These geniuses seem to have forgotten about the usual approach of “research” questionnaires. EVERY ONE of the questions posited to the respondent is slanted towards the response that those in charge of the survey want to get. Don’t believe me? Here’s a sampling of some of the questions from the very survey:

“On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? ” Possible replies (and the respondent can choose as many as they please) include immigration, economics, pro-life values, religion, individual liberty, conservatism, foreign policy, and Second Amendment rights. Note that the original question did not ask “Does the MEDIA do a good job of representing Republicans?”…that would at the minimum be a non-leading question.

Then we get to where they attempt to use a “push poll” technique, in which The Resident’s lackeys state, “Were you aware that a poll was released revealing that a majority of Americans actually supported (The Resident’s) temporary restriction executive order (another blatant lie)?” It hits every high point of the conservative dogma – taxation, faith, the Second Amendment and more – to rile up the base and give them shitty evidence (with this “garbage in, garbage out (GIGO)” biased poll) to be able to say, “Look, this is what THE PEOPLE want!”

So why haven’t we heard anything about this? Why haven’t we heard the results of this awe-inspiring poll that will show that The Resident is a GOD that should be worshipped for his knowledge? Part of that is because The Resident’s people are using their campaign mailing list. This list, in which people provided their e-mails to be able to receive updates during the 2016 campaign, saw many FROM THE OPPOSING VIEWPOINT sign up to keep an eye on what this shitstain was doing. As such, when they try to gather bullshit information for some pseudo-scientific poll, The Resistance rises and, by the droves, throw off the results of the poll by answering the questions as a rational fucking human would. This was actually the SECOND effort and, with hope, it is being fucked with accordingly.

When leadership attempts to twist reality in this manner – to blatantly lie to the people in the hopes of advancing their agenda – then it isn’t leadership at all. It becomes a conspiracy of criminals, a cabal of kakistocrats that are neither interested in the well-being of the people of the nation nor of the nation’s welfare abroad. It becomes everything we were taught about that third-world countries led by hammer-fisted dictators were – and that this country should never become.

If it isn’t the lies, it is the continued deprecation of the media, the bastion that can have a slant to their presentation but are there to be the WATCHDOG of the government and point out its errors eventually. If it isn’t the continual battering of the Fifth Estate, it is the castration of our intelligence services, who risk their lives to ensure that some fuckhead sitting at a desk in Washington has the best information to make decisions on what could perhaps be thousands or millions of lives.

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Ask yourself…do these things sound like the operations of a “democratic” government? Or does it sound like the dictatorial rants of a fascist? I can recall President Barack Obama mildly rebuking Fox News on occasion and their slant to particular stories…I don’t recall him ever saying it was “the enemy of the American people” as this asshole has stated.

It is only through the constant vigilance of those on the side of truth that these villainous swine will have their agenda exposed. It is time to stand against them for their misdeeds for, if you don’t, then you fall for the lies they present on nearly an hourly basis. It’s time to expose The Resident for the fraud that he continues to perpetrate on the people of this great nation.

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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.

 

What The Hell Happened in Iowa On Monday?

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After more than a year of pandering to Hawkeye voters – quite honestly a state that in no way represents what the United States of America looks like but gets to set the tone for what a political campaign is supposed to look like – the Iowa Caucuses took place on a cold, wintry Monday night. Both the Republicans and the Democrats met in schools, town halls, churches and homes across the Iowa plains to decide how to divvy up the delegates for their respective parties at their National Conventions come this summer. Everyone thought that, for all practical purposes, that it was going to be triumphant marches to victory by both billionaire idiot Donald Trump and millionaire double-talker Hillary Clinton – so what the hell happened in Iowa on Monday night?

For the Republican Party, it always was going to be a bit of a clusterfuck. After starting the process with 17 candidates – and going to the Caucus with 12 candidates still officially running – the process was going to spread the votes across a wide swath of the candidacy. Even Jim Gilmore, who has only participated in one of the GOP debates (the sixth one right before the Caucus), received 12 votes from Iowa’s Republicans…not 12%…12 VOTES. Thus, whoever came out on top was going to have had to made an impression on the Iowa Republican constituency.

Even though he claims differently now (more on this in a minute), Trump was at the forefront of the Iowa race pretty much from the time he announced his candidacy in June 2015. According to some polls, he had built a double-digit lead over fellow candidates as varied as Dr. Ben Carson, Jeb! Bush, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as the Republican Caucus approached. In fact, Trump was so confident of his place in Iowa, he chose to poke Fox News in the eye at the final GOP debate before the Iowa Republican Caucus and not show up, instead running his own “veterans’ fundraiser” (by the way, jackass…as a veteran I ask where and when is that money going to be dispersed?) to “compete” with the debate.

That move might have been something that tipped the scales. Iowa voters don’t like to be neglected by the candidates and both Cruz, who made a great deal of noise about going “full Grassley” (hitting every county in Iowa with a campaign stop, something that Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says is critical to winning the Caucus, hence its name), and Rubio, who had an outstanding performance in that final debate, surged at the end by making the Iowa voter feel as if they were important. The result? Cruz defeated Trump by a rather comfortable margin and Rubio almost clipped Trump for second place, which would have been an even more devastating blow to Trump’s campaign and ego.

Trump, defeated for the first time in the 2016 campaign, played it off as if the resounding setback didn’t affect him. He said he was “honored” to have finished second, mentioning that he “had been told to ignore Iowa, that he didn’t have a chance” and that he was “way behind from the start,” a lie if there ever was one. But there was a menace behind his words and his body language spoke volumes, almost like he was telling wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and bland sons to “get to the plane so we can get the fuck out of this hellhole.”

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Meanwhile, Rubio and Cruz were positively giddy over their performances. Predicted to not even garner 10% of the Caucus vote, Rubio more than doubled that in earning the support of 23% of Caucus-goers and nearly upended Trump. Cruz was also proud to see that his “ground and pound” game had supplanted Trump’s “dazzle them with bullshit” approach and he didn’t miss the chance to point this out to “The Donald.”

That seems to be the biggest thing that Iowa voters looked at. After several months of listening to the candidates, it didn’t seem that they bought the Trump bullshit in the very end. Perhaps it was that misstep at Liberty University when he called it “Two Corinthians” rather than “Second Corinthians” (even as a heathen I know what it is called); maybe it was the inability for Trump to have admitted a time when he prostrated himself in front of God; perhaps it was his inability to come up – or even enunciate – what was his favorite Bible verse. While these things might not be important to some, it is important to Iowa and its evangelical voters.

That is an important factor to the voters in Iowa. From the conservative, religious values voters after eliminating Trump, it was a simple step to which candidate did people want to follow, someone viewed as an “establishment” figure or someone who would “shake up” Washington, D. C.? Cruz has prided himself as someone who doesn’t follow the “establishment,” while Rubio has picked up that mantle (after the failure of Jeb! Bush throughout the early campaigning). That they were separated by only a few thousand votes indicates how close that fight may yet turn out.

On the Democratic side, you couldn’t ask for a better fight. Whereas former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thought that she would have a cakewalk over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (and let’s pause here to “pour a 40” for the campaign of former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, which never had a snowball’s chance in Hell; he suspended his campaign after the votes were in on the Iowa Democratic Caucus), it has been Sanders’ virility on the campaign trail that seems to have shocked Clinton. Sanders barnstormed Iowa, making it a fight, where Clinton thought she could throw a couple of token appearances and walk away with an easy victory.

Sanders’ message has found an excited audience, but just who is it? It would be easy to say that it is the young people, college students and the “hipsters” under-30, but that doesn’t explain the 50/50 split that came between Sanders and Clinton on Monday night in the Iowa Caucus. Sanders had to convince some of the adults in the room that his ideas and plans for the future of the United States were viable and that he is a viable choice for the Democratic Party. It may not be what Sanders is doing that is drawing in the crowd.

I’ve said it before…despite being arguably the most qualified candidate in the field (hey Republicans…if you had a candidate that was a former Secretary of State, a former Senator, had a position with a former President of the United States that helped to set national policy during one of the most prosperous periods in U. S. history and also worked with that person as a former Governor, you’d be championing that candidate like they were the Second Coming), Clinton is carrying more baggage than the Titanic and she is trying to navigate through a glacier field that would sink a weaker politician. Although there isn’t an indictment against her for the myriad of alleged transgressions she has made (and I’m not even going to count the e-mail situation, but that is a story for another time), there are those not only with the opposition party but also in the Democratic Party that will not support Clinton. Thus, they are throwing their support behind Sanders, which might explain the 50/50 split in Iowa on Monday night.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Democratic Party of Iowa has still not declared a winner between Clinton and Sanders. In reality, though, Sanders is the big winner while Clinton walks away with a slight victory. Sanders is showing that he can actually bring in voters to his supposedly “socialist” way of thinking – that people are ready for the progressive mindset that he espouses – while Clinton can say she held her ground and took a victory that eluded her in 2008, when she was upended by an upstart named Barack Obama.

So, when will President Cruz or President Sanders take office? Not so fast, bucko. The Iowa Caucus didn’t do a damn thing, in reality. Because the Iowa Caucus hands its delegates out by percentages (what is called a proportional allocation) and not a “winner take all” (as the March “SEC primaries” will be), this is the way that the Republican Party breaks down:

Ted Cruz                     8 delegates
Donald Trump            7 delegates
Marco Rubio               7 delegates
Ben Carson                 3 delegates
Rand Paul                   1 delegate
Jeb Bush                      1 delegate

(no other candidates received a delegate)

And for the Democrats:

Hillary Clinton            26 delegates
Bernie Sanders            21 delegates

(and don’t ask me how they can be 50/50 and Clinton get more delegates…must be that superdelegate thing)

As you can see, nothing has been decided.

The carnival now moves onto New Hampshire, where the barkers are already hawking their wares to the voters of The Granite State. Trump, licking his wounds after the Iowa disappointment, also is projected with a double-digit lead there, but it is supposedly thought a sizeable voting bloc that isn’t fascinated with the Circus of Trump is waiting in the wings to take him down. The reality is, however, that Trump has paid little attention to New Hampshire and has little “ground forces” there…just like what he did in Iowa that eventually doomed his candidacy. Rubio and Cruz, energized by their performances, and other candidates, such as Chris Christie, John Kasich (with the endorsement of the New York Times in his pocket) and Bush, seem to think that they can take Trump down a few more notches in New Hampshire.

For the Democrats, Clinton seems to have ceded New Hampshire to Sanders, in his Northeast backyard, and while she will contest it a bit seems to be pushing onwards to South Carolina and the March “SEC primaries” in the South, a traditional stronghold of the Clintons. She also has come to the realization that, unless she can put together a crushing set of wins in a row, she is facing a similar “delegate fight” to that which is going on in the Republican Party.

It’s just the beginning, political junkies, and it isn’t showing any signs that it will come to a close soon. Short of a seismic shift – something along the lines of Trump saying “fuck this, I’m out” (something that could conceivably happen…or his move to an Independent campaign), an indictment on Clinton, the Hellmouth opening up and sucking both parties into the Abyss – it’s going to be a battle all the way to Cleveland (Republican) and Philadelphia (Democratic)…and the fight may still rage on at the convention floor once they reach those cities.

It’s Tough to Give the GOP the Benefit of the Doubt

Here we are, six months from whence the primaries for the 2016 election of our next President will be taking place, and I’ve yet to find some candidate to get behind. In the past, that person was pretty much self-evident and I could step into the ballot box on Election Day with a clear conscience as to whom I was voting for. Recently, however, it has been a difficult road when it comes to picking that one candidate.

When it comes to the Democratic side of the equation, it looks more like the Republican side has looked like for most of my life. In the past, the GOP normally had a hierarchy that ran as such:  if you lost to a Republican who became president in the previous election, the next time the office was open without a Republican incumbent, it was your turn to take the nomination. This has happened in the Republican Party for virtually the last 50 years.

In 1968 it was Richard Nixon (defeated by Kennedy in 1960, won nomination in 1968); 1980 brought us Ronald Reagan (a half-hearted try in 1976 to topple incumbent Gerald Ford, who took over after Nixon resigned) and 1988 brought us George Bush (or Bush I, lost to Reagan in 1980). In 2000, George Bush (Bush II) was an outlier in that he didn’t show any interest in running in 1996, but John McCain (defeated by Bush II in 2000) and Mitt Romney (defeated by McCain in 2008) picked up where he left off.

On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats normally throw a donnybrook when it comes to choosing their own nominee for President of the United States. 1968 saw a reluctant Hubert Humphrey step up after the incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, decided not to run for a second term (by law, he technically could have; he served the remainder of John Kennedy’s term from 1960 and only was elected once himself in 1964) and another bright star from Camelot, Robert Kennedy, gunned down in Los Angeles just as it looked as if he were to win the nomination. 1972 saw six different candidates enter with George McGovern capturing the hearts of Democrats over Humphrey, George Wallace, Edmund Muskie, Henry Jackson and Shirley Chisholm. This occurrence of multiple choices – and viable ones, not half-assed efforts – has repeated itself pretty much every time over the Democratic Presidential nominations since…except for this one, where it seems the parties have flip-flopped.

There’s very little choice in 2016 if you examine the Democratic nominees. While everyone might grouse over Hillary Clinton and the Titanic-load of baggage she has, the other candidates lack the ability to forge a way past her as Barack Obama did in 2008 (there’s also the instance that this is the Democratic Party’s payback to Clinton for being a “good soldier” in losing to Obama in 2008, something as shown previously to be something the GOP did often). Even the person most likely to have some power to go against Clinton, incumbent Vice President Joe Biden, doesn’t seem to have the heart for a drawn out campaign battle (understandable after the death of his son). Anyone thinking that Clinton won’t be the nominee when the Democrats hit Philadelphia next summer would be considered out of their mind, even with the problems hovering over her.

The 2016 GOP field is the one that is reminiscent of the Democrats in the “come one, come all” approach they’ve used in throwing the door open and allowing anyone to come to the party. In total there are 17 candidates as of September 2015 and, in theory, there should be something there for anybody in the election even if the candidate themselves aren’t viable. The actions of the candidates since the campaigning has begun full bore this summer hasn’t exactly shown that “something for anyone” feel and makes it very difficult to give any member of the GOP the benefit of the doubt going forward, however.

Over the past week, there were a couple of instances where members of the Republican Party could have made great inroads into showing that they were someone who could lead all citizens of the U. S., not just those from one party or the other. First there was the shameful assassination of a police officer in Houston, TX that, instead of being a chance to not only unify people behind law enforcement but also a chance to have a moment of commiseration with their Democratic opponents, some members of the conservative movement chose to attack. These attacks were picked up on by some of the Presidential nominees who, in trying to make inroads into Donald Trump’s lead, came up just short of insinuating that the “Black Lives Matter” groups were the spearhead for the number of police shootings.

If you are going to piss off about 35% of the population (and their supporters), that seems to be the way to do it. Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly stated, “Every time there is a controversy about an officer shooting a black person, they’re out there stirring the pot.” Conservative radio “host” (I’ll be nice here) Rush Limbaugh has out-and-out called the “Black Lives Matter” organizations “hate groups.” Meanwhile, some on the GOP slate of candidates are following this lead with their rhetoric as a way to get back in the good graces of the Trump-mad acolytes. (And this doesn’t count Trump’s previous insulting of the Hispanic community, which he continues to do; count another 15-20% of the electorate out there the GOP can’t count.)

While there have been some tremendously stupid rallying cries heard during these “Black Lives Matter” rallies (anytime you advocate for the killing of a segment of society, your rally should be shut down), there has actually only been one proven and one possible case where a black person gunned down law enforcement individuals due to prior grievance against law enforcement’s treatment of blacks. In December 2014, two New York officers were executed in their squad car by a maniac who actually stated that was his goal (the proven case) and the Houston case mentioned previously, where Shannon Miles “allegedly” (I say that for legal reasons; when you have videotape, it’s tough to debate) executed Deputy Darren Goforth while he fueled his squad car (the possible case). That is two out of the 85 deaths of law enforcement officers in 2015, not exactly an indicator of rampant incitement of the masses against law enforcement.

Second, there was the controversy regarding Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue ANY marriage licenses due to her religious objections to same-sex marriage. If there was a point for the GOP to demonstrate that they weren’t beholden to religion or religious groups, the opportunity to point out that Davis was violating her duties and should be jailed or fined was the one to take. Instead, the GOP fumbled over itself trying to placate the Religious Right.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was the worst, calling Davis’ jailing the “criminalization of Christianity” and the latest attack in the “War on Christianity,” insisting he will go to Kentucky next week to hold a rally/campaign stop at the jail where she is currently incarcerated. Senator Ted Cruz stated he stood with Davis “unequivocally.” There were some surprises such as former Senator Rick Santorum, who stopped short of criticizing Davis’ arrest but commended her stand on her “principles” and Scott Walker, who hemmed and hawed on both sides of the issue, as did Trump. No one on the GOP slate, however, held up following the U. S. Constitution, a familiar battle cry for the Republicans, instead kowtowing to the small religious wing of their party.

If they were to have shown some chutzpah, the GOP had a chance here to capture someone in the center, the “independents” that have to be captivated in order to win an election. If the GOP candidates had just stepped away from the religious question – as they are supposed to do with the separation of Church and State in the U. S. Constitution – they would have stated outright that Davis was violating the laws as they are on the book. They could have said, “Despite (my) personal feelings on the issue, the law of the land is the Constitution and, as such, she has to follow it.” How many did that? Exactly zero.

Instead of demonstrating that they are a party with 21st century ideas and people who can bring those ideas to the forefront, the candidates for President from the GOP instead fell back on mid-1900s (at the minimum) philosophy, when blacks “stayed in their place” and the addition of “In God We Trust” to our currency and the Pledge of Allegiance was allowed to fight off the “godless” Communists. Unless they can actually demonstrate that there are some original ideas left in the party, that there are those who can embrace the future and attack its problems with science, education and thought – and they have people who aren’t afraid to leave those that cling to the past with the intent on bringing it back – the GOP will not encourage me to pull the handle for them.