Day: October 5, 2016

2016:  An Election About Nothing

As the political circus known as the 2016 election for president draws to a merciful conclusion….there are a few things that need to be said about this process.

I have long stated that this election is a true silly season…..that the debate is about insults, platitudes and slogans…..all policy has taken a backseat to ego driven contest between two absolutely worthless candidates.

Rather than policy, we debate tweets and emails.

I have a different explanation than Richard Wolffe for why this is a Seinfeld election (a show about nothing). Wolffe cites some economic and crime statistics to demonstrate that, much like in 2000, we’re living through a time of peace and prosperity and therefore the stakes seem so low that we can focus on Trump’s tweets and Clinton’s emails without having a serious conversation about policy.

What this misses is the degree to which Red America is missing out on the prosperity. The booming areas of the country are almost all in either blue states or in the blue areas of red states. The phenomenon is only getting more pronounced as almost all the movement among the electorate that’s headed to the right is coming from working class whites in hollowed out towns who used to be Democrats. Trump is picking up steam in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio even as suburban women around Cleveland and Pittsburgh flee his party.

Source: Washington Monthly | Why This Is An Election About Nothing

Voting is a decision made by the person and NO good decision has ever been made in anger.

And another thought about your choices when voting…..

There is no focus on the issues that face Americans in their daily lives…..instead of the major issues of the day we are bombarded by emails and tax returns (let it go!)…..these are the issues that should be front and center of this election……

Source: Election 2016 and America’s Future | Brookings Institution

But sadly these issues get a little lip service and then back to the playground mentality of the candidates…..the closer the election day gets the less issues are important…….the voter is losing and NO one gives a crap.

VP Debate Low-Lights

If you watched the Veep debate then you will not need this synopsis….but if you we like me and decided that anything other than the debate was important then this will help you understand the night.

Moderator Elaine Quijano did her best to keep the candidates in check at Tuesday’s vice presidential debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., and it was a night of plenty of interruptions, aggressive challenges, and spirited defenses as Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine finally met head to head, the AP reports. Some of the night’s highlights:

  • Both candidates came out of the gate ready to rumble, with each one playing the role of defender for their respective running mates. The AP notes that the “usually easygoing” Kaine went after Pence right from the get-go, to which the “unflappable” Pence did a lot of head-shaking, laughing, and lobbing accusations of a Kaine-Clinton “insult-driven campaign.”
  • Kaine did get in zingers (or what Pence at one point called an extension of the Democratic campaign’s “avalanche of insults), including saying that Donald Trump “loves dictators”—”He’s got like a personal Mount Rushmore: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Moammar Gadhafi, and Saddam Hussein”—and claiming that Clinton would be a “you’re hired” president, while Trump would be a “you’re fired” president, tapping into Trump’s oft-used line from The Apprentice. Pence dismissed Kaine’s lobs as “pre-done” lines, per ABC News.
  • Trump’s tax returns were broached, with Pence noting his running mate had faced some “pretty tough times” in the mid-’90s (including apparently taking a $1B loss in 1995), but that he worked the tax code “brilliantly” to his advantage. Kaine, however, said Trump should release his tax returns, audit or no audit, noting the GOP nominee should at least meet the “Nixon standard,” per CNN. (Nixon tried to keep his tax records from the public for similar auditing reasons in 1973.)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin also entered the conversation, with Kaine accusing Trump of calling Putin a better leader than President Obama, and Pence deflecting those accusations. “Putin’s run his economy into the ground, he persecutes LGBT folks and journalists,” Kaine said, per the Los Angeles Times. “If you don’t know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you have got to go back to a fifth-grade civics class.”

But if you do not want someone’s opinion then watch the thing for yourself…….

http://nyti.ms/2dv2weu

After a week of terrible news for the Trump campaign there is now a little something for them to celebrate…..the consensus is that Pence won the debate……..

Like him or loathe him, choosing apprentices appears to be one thing Donald Trump definitely excels at. Numerous pundits are calling Trump running mate Mike Pence the winner of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, thanks in part to his calm demeanor in response to an aggressive, interrupting Tim Kaine, though Pence failed to land any knockout blows on his rival. According to a CNN poll, 48% of debate watchers consider Pence the winner, compared to 42% for the Democrat. A round-up of opinions:

  • Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post declares the “cool, calm, collected” Pence the winner over Kaine, who was “trying to load so many Trump attacks into every answer that it made it virtually impossible to grasp any one attack.” But Pence probably made a better case for Pence 2020 than he did for Trump 2016, Cillizza writes—and overall, the debate was like “watching two kids throw mashed potatoes at each other,” only less entertaining.
  • At RedState, Caleb Howe sees Pence as the clear winner and Kaine—who “tried to be an attack dog but came off more like a yipping pup nipping at the mailman’s heels”—as the clear loser. But another loser, he writes, is Trump, partly because “Pence winning only shows how truly terrible Trump was during his debate.”
  • Dan Roberts at the Guardian also says it was a bad night for Kaine. When “he should have calmly shredded the inconsistencies between Trump and the rest of planet Republican, he came across as the nervous and jittery one,” Roberts writes, calling it a missed opportunity because “so much of what the vice-presidential nominee had to say in defense of his boss did not pass the smell test.”
  • Pence succeeded in giving the Trump campaign a calm face after more than a week of turmoil, writes Errol Louis at CNN, who credits the Indiana governor’s years as a radio talk show host for the smooth performance. Pence, he writes, has “demonstrated to other Trump supporters how to defend their candidate without doubling down on his abrasive style.”
  • The big loser here was the truth, according to Politico, which notes that the facts “started taking a beating” when Pence called Longwood University “Norwood University,” and takes a look at inaccurate statements from both candidates on issues including foreign policy, taxes, and immigration.

I say good news because the Trump supporters do not have to make crap up to put a positive spin on their worthless candidate….Pence saved the day.  (the peasants may now commence to dance)

On a side note:  Pence just made the case for him to be the presumptive leader of the GOP in 4 or 8 years….maybe that was the plan all along….thoughts?

Christians, Can You Hear This?

When some obscure iman or Muslim leaders says something awful the media makes it a story for a couple of days, depending on what is happening, but yet when some prominent Jewish leader has something foul to say….IT IS IGNORED!

AS if NO one wants to believe the worst about this toad and his group dimply because they are in Israel and Israel would not do anything against the US, right?  (Ask survivors of the USS liberty attack)

Sorry but an intolerant prick is an intolerant prick NO matter the religion or the country.

Time for Israel to sack up!  If it is truly a democracy then this should be publicly chastised and this a/hole needs to be held accountable.  But that will NOT happen because he is a JEW and we know NO JEW can do anything wrong.

Of course some well meaning toad will reference “Freedom of Speech”…well that would be a good argument if it help for all the citizens but in this case it does NOT!

Fuck this PIG and Fuck Israel!

US Foreign Policy–Yet Another Hiccup (Or Two)

The US has been making some terrible foreign policy decisions in the last couple of years…..Libya, Syria and the rush to demonize Russia….just to mention a few.

Syria is a f*cked up mess…there is NO telling who are the “Good guys” and who are the “bad”…..but there was a bit of a chance recently when the US and Russia and a few of the combatants attempted a ceasefire…..that lasted about a week before the US gunned down some of the participants and Russia attacks a aid convoy and a hospital (of course no one is giving the straight story all they can do is blame the other)…..

Syria: The US, meanwhile, suspended contacts with Moscow in regard to Syria. The decision means the US will no longer negotiate with Russia over the resumption of a ceasefire or move ahead with plans for joint military operations, reports the Washington Post. The White House has been exasperated over the continued bombing of Aleppo and of humanitarian shipments. “Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments,” says a spokesman, “and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.”

The US and Russia after trying to make a go a diplomacy has ended…….

Plutonium: Vladimir Putin suspended a pact with the US in which the two nations agreed to dispose of surplus plutonium that could otherwise go into weapons. The ramifications of this specific pact are limited, explains Reuters, but it carries “powerful symbolism” and could signal trouble ahead for more sweeping nuclear arms agreements. Moscow said the US “has done everything in its power to destroy the atmosphere of trust which could have encouraged cooperation,” citing among other things sanctions placed on Russia over its role in Ukraine.

Oh goody…..the world has gotten a little less predictable…..and with all the nuke talk around this election….the voter should be worried and be concerned for the future.

Appears as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) will rear its ugly face yet again…..ignore foreign policy at your own peril…..me?  I’m looking for a more peaceful world where the money is spent where it is needed.

Deep State America

I have been writing for a long time about our foreign policies…..that the last couple of presidents are serving no national interests by all the war they have plunged us into………

I located an article in the Unz Review, a notably Libertarian slant, about this very subject……

On September 9th the Washington Post featured a front page article describing how the Defense Department had used warplanes to attack targets and kill suspected militants in six countries over the Labor Day weekend. The article was celebratory, citing Pentagon officials who boasted of the ability to engage “multiple targets” anywhere in the world in what has become a “permanent war.” The article did not mention that the United States is not currently at war with any of the six target countries and made no attempt to make a case that the men and women who were killed actually threatened the U.S. or American citizens.

Actual American interests in fighting a war without limits and without an end were not described. They never are. Indeed, in the U.S. and elsewhere many citizens often wonder how certain government policies like the Washington’s war on terror can persist in spite of widespread popular opposition or clear perceptions that they are either ineffective or even harmful. This persistence of policies regarding which there is no debate is sometimes attributed to a “deep state.”

Source: Deep State America – The Unz Review

These types of reports should make the voter sit up and take notice and stop being in awe of slogans and applause lines……a better idea would be to find the candidate with the most far sighted foreign policy and place your trust in them…..

Me?

I’m thinking GREEN!