Day: March 4, 2016

Thanks, America!

My previous post gave me an idea for my last post of the day before I start my weekend and some really important pursuits……… I want to leave my readers with a thought that I saw in an article for Salon.com……

If all the speculation is anywhere close to accurate then the voters of the US will have to choose between two desperately bad candidates…..thios is setting up to be the worse election in our fairly short history……

And we have no one to blame but ourselves and our apathy and ignorance…..

Two corrupt parties and an angry, fearful and ignorant electorate are about to create the worst election ever……..

Source: Thanks, America! Our broken political system is about to give us a terrifying campaign between a vapid huckster and a war hawk – Salon.com

I really need to get back to international situations….as screwed up as those are they are still better to understand than the direction of this country and the lack of rational thought in our elections….for the winner will determine what and how we are seen across the world…..and so far it is looking pretty damn…..DISMAL!

2016: What About The Enthusiasm?

We have about 15 of the primaries behind us and a long road ahead…..but the big story that has lots of speculation tied to it is that of voter turnout…..

The Repub turnout seems to be breaking records…..lots of good feelings a about the election to come……sadly that enthusiasm is not the same on the DEMs side….in this case the turnout is well below that of say 2008…..the MSM is scrambling to analyze this occurrence……but the answer is simple…

Democrats might have a serious problem on their hands heading into the 2016 general election, the New York Times reports. In the 15 states that have held primaries or caucuses already, approximately 3 million fewer Democratic voters turned out this year than did in 2008. According to the Huffington Post, this year’s Democratic presidential candidates are getting about two-thirds of the votes the candidates got in 2008, and party leaders “should be very, very worried.” Democratic voter turnout was especially bad in some Super Tuesday states, including a 50% drop-off in Texas and a 40% drop-off in Tennessee. And as HuffPo points out, it’s become far more important in presidential races to turn out your own voters than win over independents.

Democrats are blaming everything from Republican-backed voting laws to poor debate scheduling for the low turnout. But HuffPo has a simpler explanation: “Republicans are psyched; Democrats are demoralized.” NBC News reports the primary voting numbers are about the same as they were in 2008, but the parties are reversed. Republican voters outnumbered Democratic voters by 2.7 million on Super Tuesday, and the GOP has set turnout records in 14 out of 15 states so far. Even worse, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders aren’t bringing out the huge numbers of young, new, and minority voters Obama did in 2008. “Barack Obama without that surge is John Kerry,” one pollster tells the Times. Or as HuffPo puts it: “It’s time to start worrying about President Trump.”

I believe this situation is the making of the MSM themselves…..they all but crowned Clinton as the nominee back last Summer and the voters just cannot work up any excitement for her or Bernie…..

Then there is the GOP….no matter how hard they try to counter the Trump rise they just cannot seem to find the right line through the maze….

If you have ever been involved in something that made you grieve then you understand the stages of grief that a person must go through….well the way it appears is that the GOP will just have to deal with their grief……

Source: The five stages of Republicans’ grief over Donald Trump – Al Jazeera English

I would say skip 1-4 and go straight to 5, acceptance, they have no other choice other than an ulcer…..

2016 is anything but exciting, at least for me, it illustrates just how completely f*cked up our election process has become….and it appears that there is very little on the horizon that can make the change……this country is so screwed!

Thanks, America (a good title for another post)

This Is What I Am Talking About

Appears I will be posting today on the candidates for the 2016 races……there is so much to cover and so little time……

Remember Honest Abe?  That was when the people wanted a candidate that was honest and trustworthy…..those days are long GONE!

Fast forward to today…….

Experience is a good thing….but does that make for a good president?

The American keep voting for the wrong people….but why is that?

Basically they are voting for the person with the most celeb cred……not the person that has a good moral character (if that is possible)…….

But why is that?

What Americans don’t know and don’t understand is an obstacle to progress…….

If you think the widening chasm between the rich and the rest spells trouble for American democracy, have a look at the growing gulf between the information-rich and-poor.

Earlier this year, a Harvard economist’s jaw-dropping study of American’s beliefs about the distribution of American wealth became a viral video.  Now a new Pew study of the distribution of American news consumption is just as flabbergasting.

Source: You will be shocked at how ignorant Americans are – Salon.com

There you have your answer…..low information voters…..when a voting population is uninformed then the result is that we elect those that are least capable of handling the job of president……

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.”
“Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.”
“The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.”
“The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence.”
And there is one of my fave quotes of all time…..”Stupidity is the Deliberate Cultivation of Ignorance”…….
That pretty much covers the ignorance that is sucking the life out of our republic…..I will step down from my soapbox……
PERIOD!

The Donald On Foreign Policy

I may not like many of the presidential candidates but I will try to be fir and write about what I see……..of course commentary will be extra…..

If you are a Trump supporter then please tell me what are his views on foreign policy….please building a wall is not acceptable or we will defeat ISIS….that is a slogan not a plan or an idea…..

There is my problem…..he makes statements that are slogans not real ideas….I am not saying that he has no ideas just I have not heard anything that would lead me to be confident on his slogans……

But that may be coming to an end……it seems he does have an adviser in his camp….one Gen. Michael Flynn……

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, former chief of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, is advising the Republican frontrunner on foreign policy.

Source: Trump Being Advised by Former Top US Intelligence Official | News | teleSUR English

Flynn does have the chops to be an adviser……..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_T._Flynn

After reading up on this guy…I do not see any change in Trump’s attitude or any change in his rhetoric…..I will be watching and reading to see if there is any change in tone or in knowledge…..

 

Donald Trump’s prejudices may become Republican policy

The speculation is running rampant on what will be the future of the GOP if Trump wins the nomination…….one pundit called it a “cadaver with finger nails still growing”…..

The big question is will trump , if he wins, govern from the center or will his ideas from speeches become the new policies of the GOP……will the GOP become a new party with new ideas?

I found an article that tackled this question…..GulfNews.com

The horrifying outcome of Donald Trump’s victories in nine out of 11 states in Tuesday’s primaries is that he is almost certain to become the Republican candidate for the presidency. This leaves the Republican establishment with a terrible dilemma of whether to back a rogue candidate that has mocked most of their policies, or fight him to the last ditch in a national convention, which would be bizarre.

Source: Donald Trump’s prejudices may become Republican policy | GulfNews.com

Okay sports fans….what do you think?  Is the GOP we know today dying a slow death?  Will it change?  For the better?

With those questions asked…..there is a new one that emerges…..are the neocons doomed?  Is the War Party of the GOP dead?

March 1, 2016, will go down in history as the day the incubus of neoconservatism was banished from the Republican party – and, in effect, destroyed as a viable political force. It’s the day Donald Trump swept the GOP’s Super Tuesday primary, taking – as of this writing – Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Vermont, […]

Source: Super Tuesday Funeral: Neoconservatism, An Obituary – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

Take some time if you are a supporter of the GOP and consider the future of the party……what is the future of the party?

A good question?

Sitting in the ashes of Super Tuesday, what do Republicans see? Donald Trump, the reality-show Le Pen, carried seven states. Marco Rubio, darling of the party establishment, won just one. Several conservatives have started threatening to bolt to a third party if Trump gets the nomination; Trump keeps reminding everybody that he might run as an independent himself if the GOP denies him the crown. With the apocalyptic tone that now comes naturally to political reporters, some pundits are predicting not just a three-way race in November but the collapse of the Republican Party.

Source: In the Age of Trump, Republicans Are In for a Reckoning—Or a Realignment – Hit & Run : Reason.com

What to do…….what to do…….