Early Voting Florida - Primary 2016

I have neglected a duty as a Florida blogger to report that Early Voting for the 2016 Presidential campaigns is already underway. We're coming up to the weekend part of the Early Voting where the single Sunday the polls will be open to vote before the official day of March 15.

Your county Supervisors of Elections should have listings of the nearest Early Voting polls. As I am in Polk County I will list ours.

Remember, Florida is one of the repressive states, so they'll need Photo ID as well as your Voter ID (and maybe DNA samples so bring a vial of blood just in case).

Florida is also a Closed Primary: you gotta be with a Party hosting a ballot to vote for it. So if you're like me - NPA No Party Affiliate - you've got nobody for the Presidential race to vote for. HOWEVER, be aware some cities and towns will host local votes for their own officials during this (most others will do so April 15th, so stay tuned for that) vote, so pay attention! Local elections matter too (Bartow in particular has one candidate who keeps running every election because he wants to go in and close every city office - from Parks to Libraries to Fire Department - down).

On the Primary day itself - March 15th! - be prepared to find your local precinct to vote, because the rules are strict about it: you gotta poll where they tell you to poll (Early Voting and Absentee Ballot Mail-Ins are exempt).

And so the seven readers of this blog are likely to ask "Gee Paul, I'm still kinda in the dark about who to vote for, so what's the sane choices for each party?"

You're asking ME (always sober, never sane) for tips? Aheh. I know up front the Republican/Conservative readers trolling this blog - hi, older brother! - will call me out on my hyperbolic conniption over how bad the remaining GOP field is, and I also know I'll get critics from the Democratic/Liberal readers if I don't back their horse 100 percent. Still, I will try to explain my arguments as clear and effective as possible.

For the Democratic ballot, there's the choice between Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley (he had filed before dropping out). So there's always a possibility of an O'Malley upset (stop hitting me). Seriously, there is a choice here between the Centrist Hillary and the Socialist Bernie. The fighting between the two factions backing both have gotten heated, so I'm bound to offend when I say: If I had to, I would vote for Hillary.

My arguments for Hillary come around to these points. She is experienced as both a legislator - twice elected Senator - and as administrator - serving as Secretary of State. For all the horror stories and hatred she receives - regarding her secrecy, her ambitions for higher office - I think her years of service have mellowed her. While I've cataloged her as an Active-Negative personality, that Aggressive side of her world-view to get things done may be key to breaking any Congressional opposition if the Republicans retain control of that branch (Obama's greatest flaw has been - until this last year when he no longer needs to deal - too sincere a need to get bipartisan work done, which allowed far too much obstruction to stall our public sector).

The Bernie backers - if any show up here - are likely going to rip me apart for ignoring Sanders' True Leftist bona fides. Please remember, I view myself at heart a Moderate: my Progressive leanings only lean so far. I respect Sanders' arguments against the Big Banks and I know damn well income inequality is a serious problem. And I know Universal Health Care is where our nation needs to go for our basic health care spending and costs to be better controlled. However, I worry about Sanders' numbers regarding his health care proposal: the math isn't working. There's every likelihood implementing such a massive shift in policy and costs will raise taxes higher than most Americans are willing to pay. And a sudden shift from one system to another will be difficult to pull off, creating more costs and damage to the health care infrastructure our nation can't afford at the moment. We just started ObamaCare, and need to give it a few more years of reducing the costs and increasing insured enrollees - and getting Red States to swallow their pride and accept Medicaid funding - to show that a regulated market system can be effective and expanded upon.

I know there's one big argument against Hillary: her controversies. A good number of Bernie supporters - and far too many fence-sitters - are worried about Hillary being a big target for scandals that could hurt her in the general election. Here's the thing: many of those "scandals" are mythical BS stories that have been dumped on her for 20-plus years by a proven faction of Far Right wingnuts who fear her more than even her husband Bill (and he's been President). Even the current "big" scandals surrounding Benghazi and her private email server... are turning out to be overblown, manufactured affairs.

Here's the thing: that damn Far Right Noise Machine is going to screech and throw fits at the Democratic nominee no matter who it is: Look at how they shredded John Kerry with BS stories. The wingnuts are going to attack Bernie for being a Secret Commie traitor as much as they'll go after Hillary for being a witch (NI!). I don't even count the possibility of a breaking scandal to hit or hurt Hillary in any way. Hell, I view it as a plus now: If Hillary has truly been this evil, this manipulative, all these years with a body count to rival Stalin's... and her attackers STILL haven't found any evidence that will stick in a court of law, then she's got the competency and Machiavellian skills to lead our nation.

Now, to the other side.

For the Republican ballot, it's still stuffed with the names of most of the candidates from January, meaning a lot of dropped candidates to disregard. Unless, if you like, you want to vote for Lindsey Graham bwhahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. :) Ahem. Okay. As of right now, the serious names to consider are Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump (Ben Carson has suspended his campaign but not officially ended it, but he's pretty much done).

I admit I am not a fan of any of them. My apostasy for the current mindset of the Republicans has me in a foul mood towards the whole party, so I know I'd be making a bad decision no matter what. If I had a choice on the ballot I'd fill in None of the Above on a blank space. If you put a gun to my head and demanded I make a choice... I still wouldn't, because you're making me choose either a quick death or slow death.

There are degrees of unlikable factors for me regarding each candidate.

Topping the list is Trump. I've got it as a Label hashtag: Trump Is a Con Artist. Of the remaining candidates, he is the one lacking any elective or political experience at all. To me as a Moderate that alone is a disqualifier: I want someone with experience and competency. Making him even worse has been his blatant racism against Mexicans, Muslims, Mandarins, and other Minorities. His statements are disprovable to the point of being lies. His attitude and willful ignorance are horrifying to see in someone positioning himself to represent this nation to the rest of the world. He's a bankrupting opportunist who cuts and runs the second he's not making any money on anything. Trump IS a con artist, whose con is selling himself and nothing else. In all seriousness, for the Love of God, DO NOT VOTE TRUMP.

The next scarier candidate for me is Rubio, in that he's the hometown "favorite son". Florida is his home base - as it was for Jeb? - and Rubio has got to be counting a lot on the local voters keen on having a Florida boy win the nomination. I know my brother - having lost Christie to support - was in a toss-up between Jeb and Marco a few weeks ago and with Jeb dropped out it likely means my kin is voting Rubio.

I wouldn't. Not on sentiment, and certainly not on Rubio's (lack of a) resume.

Whatever charm Rubio has to make the Beltway mainstream media treat him like a winner, he doesn't have it when it comes time to impress voters. He's flat, bland, or at worst robotic: Getting caught mimicking his speech cues as debate answers was a devastating blow to him. There's a reason Rubio is THIRD PLACE, people...

As for his record, his state legislative history is one of a hard-core Far Right Republican with little of a moderating, bipartisan stance. He won the Senate seat in a three-way race where the Democrat and Independent knocked each other out instead of him. And as a Senator, he did more grandstanding than he did any actual work. The one piece of legislation he IS known for - trying to set an Immigration Reform package that his own party quickly scuttled because their own wingnut base HATED IT - is one he dropped like a hot potato and fled from in horror, which doesn't impress a damn soul. He lacked the courage of any conviction there, save for his own future plans to run for President.

Anyone who thinks Rubio can appeal to a general electorate is overlooking the facts that Rubio has no solid record that moderates would respect, that Rubio is fully on-board with a Republican platform that is far more extreme Right than anything pitched since 2000 2004 2008 2012, and that Rubio's speeches cover a lot of talk about revamping the Constitution itself by purging the amendments most Americans view as vital to our civil liberties.

If any thought comforts me, it's the knowledge that if Rubio can't win Florida - which is Winner-Take-All - he's doomed to lose the delegate count. The polling tells us Rubio is almost half the percentages behind Trump, which is good except for the fact that Trump is leading WHICH IS BAD.

And then there's Ted Cruz.

No. Just. No. THAT. Should not happen.

That leaves Kasich as the fourth and final option, and pretty much the only one I would - if I really really really REALLY had to - check on the ballot. And this is me damning him with the faintest praise I can muster.

Where Kasich impresses me is the fact he has the solid resume of experience across the board: years in Congress as well as serving as Governor of a large state of Ohio. He has shown signs of brain activity. Of the remaining Republican candidates, he's the one most likely to actually respect the Federalist system of national governance with its checks and balances, and one who might - maybe - pursue a bipartisan approach to his administration if he ever gets to the White House. Essentially, he's the least-scary guy on the GOP hit list.

This doesn't excuse the scary things about him, though. Kasich is openly anti-abortion, a stance which centrists/moderates view with dismay. He's anti-Union to the point where you can't trust him to push a Jobs Bill agenda this nation STILL sorely needs. And he's still a full backer of the Republican platform of cutting taxes, cutting regulations, and cutting everybody off at the knees who's not already in the One-Percent Club.

So, there's my suggestions for the Closed Primary balloting. Hillary for the Democrats, Kasich for the Republicans, a night-time supply of crafted microbrews for everyone else watching the election results on the eve of March 15th. Oy.

If Republicans REALLY Want to Stop Trump

The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote - Kosh, Babylon 5

Update: Thanks for the link, Infidel753!

Today in half-assed attempts by the Republican Establishment to stop Donald Trump from driving their clown car over the cliff, former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney came out and lambasted Trump using the most direct words yet aimed at the primary front-runner. Openly pointing out Trump's many bankruptcies and personal failures, as the report notes:

Romney then went on an epic take down of the Republican frontrunner, point-by-point, issue-by-issue, critiquing his business acumen, the amount he's worth, his ability to understand foreign policy and his temperament and his honesty...

"Dishonesty is Trump's hallmark: He claimed that he had spoken clearly and boldly against going into Iraq. Wrong, he spoke in favor of invading Iraq. He said he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11. Wrong, he saw no such thing. He imagined it. His is not the temperament of a stable, thoughtful leader..."

"Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less than noble purposes. He creates scapegoats of Muslims and Mexican immigrants, he calls for the use of torture and for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit first amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss..."

With honest regard, everything Romney points out is true and troubling. Problems with this, and I'm not the only one who noticed, are many:

• Mitt Romney, being a rich kid who inherited into wealth and built on that into a clueless oligarch himself, isn't the best candidate to trash Trump on those same grounds.
• Romney lost in 2008 for the nomination because the primary voters didn't view him as Conservative enough, so why would they listen to him now?
• Romney won the nomination in 2012 but wasn't the real choice the Far Right primary voters preferred: they kept voting for any Not-Mitt candidate they could until it was inevitable that Romney would win that nomination.
• As such, the Republican base were NEVER convinced - and there were elements of the Far Right media who pushed the Narrative on it - that Romney was ideologically pure enough to "win" against a "weak" Obama. So when Mitt did lose, it was easy for the GOP to say with sour grapes "well, if we had a pure candidate we'd have won for sure."

So if the Republican Establishment is thinking that Romney's speech is going to shame the Trump voter bloc into stepping back and switching their support to the likes of Rubio, forget it. Romney's not the guy qualified to do it.

It doesn't help that the tone and attitude behind Romney's speech is akin to a stern parent trying to lecture wayward children about that friend of theirs, the one with the bad attitude and smoking habit who hangs out in the woods all afternoon dealing in an illegal Pokemon card trade. The voters backing Trump had already gone to him because of the disdainful, patronizing way the Establishment had been treating the Far Right base - the low-income, low-education people who make up an unhappy plurality of the Republican faithful - and this kind of lecturing is just going to drive them to back Trump even more.

If the Republicans really want to stop Trump, the party leadership and their billionaire backers are going to have to do something they've never done in the last 40 years: they are going to have to end, right here and now, the Far Right Noise Machine they've been using to stir up that voting base into a frenzy of irrational fear and hate.

That is, of course, impossible. That Noise Machine - led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes and the inheritors of Breitbart's legacy - is still making too much money and generating high ratings pushing Trump every minute of the day on the electorate. And the message - that damned Narrative - of "Obama is evil and must be stopped" can't be pulled back, can't be toned down. You kept telling the Far Right Tea Party base for seven years they needed a strong, bullying SOB to lead the Republicans to glory, and now that they think they have one in Trump you can't take that away from them.

A possible alternative - although it may be too late for that as well - is for the Establishment to actually listen to those angry voters and find out exactly what it is - outside of the crazy racist sh-t - that would placate the mob.

While the Trump coalition of voters are mostly stirred up by the race hatred towards illegals and Muslims as well as railing against the "political correctness" regarding Blacks and women, a good number of those voters are driven by other fears. Linking to this Atlantic article, there's a set of results showing the core identifiers of the Trump Voter:

The single best predictor of Trump support in the GOP primary is the absence of a college degree. In an analysis of Trump's blowout win in New Hampshire, Evan Soltas determined that the factor explaining most of the variance in Trump's support in New Hampshire was education...

...Although white men without a college education haven’t suffered the same historical discrimination as blacks or women, their suffering is not imagined. The Hamilton Project has found that the full-time, full-year employment rate of men without a bachelor's degree feel from 76 percent in 1990 to 68 percent in 2013. While real wages have grown for men and women with a four-year degree or better in the last 25 years, they've fallen meaningfully for non-college men...

If I had to word it, I'd say the average Trump voter is a white male whose employment options shrank during the Great Recession - when Manufacturing and Construction jobs took a major nosedive - and didn't see any employment help forthcoming from either a government in Republican-driven gridlock or a private sector of major corporations shipping jobs overseas.

Told to blame Obama for all that, they did so dutifully. But they're also aware of - and angered by - how the corporations and banks are screwing the poor over regardless of the Democrat in the White House, and they're not about to buy into a Republican leadership being bought up in a Citizens United era by billionaires (despite the irony of Trump himself being a corrupt billionaire) who are eager to keep trading jobs to China in exchange for global market access. There's a reason why Trump's call for a trade war against China is as big a hit with his voters as his call to build a wall along the Mexican border.

And there's another reason: the more the Party Leadership rails against Trump, the more he gains and retains his followers. Because those followers - the hard-core voting base of the GOP - view any attack on Trump as an attack on themselves and what they hope to gain through a Trump ascendancy.

The base of the Republican Party doesn't really care about massive tax cuts for the rich - there's enough of that base that hates those plans as much as Democrats do - and they don't care about deregulation for banks and investment firms and they don't care all that much about gay marriage or abortion restrictions or half of the social conservative agenda (they kinda do but they don't prioritize it the way the Bible Thumper crowds do, which is why Trump's blase attitude towards abortion hasn't hurt him). The base - well the ones backing Trump - are afraid they've lost their political power and their ability to live within their means, and so their backing of Trump in open defiance of the party leadership is an attempt to show "they" still have power to control their fates.

This is the faction that the Republican leadership needs to placate, the ones they need to swing back to their side of the fight. If it means outright buying their support - like the way that same leadership keeps accusing Democrats of "buying" the support of minorities - then that leadership needs to do it.

If the Republicans want to neuter Trump's support with something they can control - they can't stop the racist stuff for now: that particular avalanche overwhelming the Republican campaign has to end when that Far Right Noise Machine turns itself off - they should head into Congress with their House and Senate majorities and do something to bring manufacturing and construction jobs back to the United States. That means the Congressional Republicans are going to have to drum up a Jobs Bill covering such projects as Bridge and Highway Restorations and Upgrades, and coming up with tax credits to corporations that keep jobs stateside and/or boost their workers' wages back to where the Middle Class can thrive again (or levy massive tax penalties on those companies who won't).

Despite the horror that they'll be handing Obama a Jobs Bill they've spent years denying him, the Republicans have to realize that their partisan obstruction on this aspect of domestic policy has killed them more than it's hurt Obama. Because denying those jobs in the Blue Collar arena has hurt the non-college white male working class more than any other ethnic and economic group, and this is the big sin that has come back to bite the Republican Party's leadership on their collective oligarchical ass.

It may be yet another "win" to Obama, one that may anger the racist element backing Trump, but it should alleviate the worries of the more open-minded Trump supporters, and lessen the odds of Trump winning over enough states to secure the delegate counts for the nomination.

There's no other honest way to stop Trump. You have to take away his voters and do so in an open, legitimate way. All other solutions - Staging a "brokered" convention to deny his delegates? Forcing a Third-Party run? - are suicidal and likely to kill the Republican Party for real.

Suck it up, Ryan and McConnell. Give the nation a Jobs Bill that brings hope to the poor working class. You might be able to hold onto your jobs - and your Republican Party - if you do.

Super Tuesday 2016, As Midnight Nears

Keeping up with the politics from the noisy side of the hotel overlooking Highway A1A (hello, Florida Library Association conference!), I'm seeing the results pour in from the big bag of Primaries known as Super Tuesday, and am drawing certain conclusions:

Why did they have to have Biker Week the same week as Librarian Week in Daytona?

Ahem.

I hate it when the news channels immediately call a state for a candidate when barely ONE PERCENT of the votes are counted. Dammit, people, at least give us the illusion that the state's elections supervisors are doing their damn jobs before you go slamming around proclaiming a winner. I don't care how good the polling science is - and it usually isn't - you ought to wait an hour or something. I mean, sheesh!

Trump is inching higher in the percentages for the states he's won/is winning, which means that at least within the party ranks itself his Unfavorable numbers cannot cap the Big Mo that happens when the still-undecided or uncaring voters just side with the candidate in the lead. Getting around 49 percent in Massachusetts is scary-looking, even with people telling me that the overall Republican presence in that state is weak.

For my birth state of Georgia, DAMMIT GEORGIA YOU HAD ONE JOB and that was to sane relatively sane and sensible amid a sea of Deep South craziness. Now here you are giving Trump a huge blowout lead and there's no way this boy from Albany GA is going to explain or excuse away this BS. What you doing to a poor boy like me?

Rubio can conceivably win Minnesota tonight. In which case the Establishment wing of the Republican Party will declare victory and end the entire primary season before Trump or Cruz win more states.

For Cruz to win Texas is kind of a given, as that is his home state and that among the non-Trump candidates Cruz was likeliest to remain popular within the party ranks back home (Rubio and Kasich are having problems). The surprising thing is Cruz's performance in Oklahoma, which gets him a third state win and some more delegates, and the likelier chances of making Trump's nomination win harder to reach. Will more of the Establishment backers side with Cruz over Rubio? ...Nah, messing with ya. Cruz is THAT unpopular in the elite circles.

On the Democratic side of things, Hillary as expected is cleaning up most of the states and by significant numbers. Oklahoma is breaking for Sanders, which is surprising, and was an easy win in Vermont his home state. Massachusetts is currently too close to call, but if Hillary clinches what was expected to be a Sanders state might be a huge blow to the Socialist Senator's campaign.

Just remember, this is all good for Marco Rubio, who in his THIRD PLACE position among Republican delegates is clearly going to be the next President of the United States. Which will be a historic win as nobody ever won the White House from THIRD PLACE in his Primary cycle before. Kind of makes the entire general election cycle from August to November anti-climatic, you think?

The Schoolyard At Tarpon Springs Middle Was More Dignified Than This

And the sixth graders were more thoughtful and scathing in their insults. Then again, this was back in the 1980s, so I can't be certain of the quality of schoolyard taunts in the 21st Century. Still, it has to be better than the lame attempts Rubio tried to deliver on Trump this weekend. Per the Atlantic:

...After Trump won three straight contests and looked to claim the nomination on Super Tuesday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio decided to fight slime with slime. He taunted Trump over his made-in-China ties and his spray tan. He mocked Trump’s spelling. He called Trump a pants-wetter. He questioned Trump’s manhood.

“You know what they say about men with small hands,” Rubio smirked, “you can’t trust 'em!” Rubio knows that’s not what they say about men with small hands...

Yeah, Rubio pretty much questioned Trump's manhood. Just remember, this is where the Republicans are hoping to elect someone to "bring back dignity" to the Oval Office after eight years of Barack "If We Keep Calling Him a Failure Maybe People Will Start Believing Us" Obama.

Personally, I don't think attempts to bully a bully work out: it merely makes the bully fight on, especially when ego and public image are on the line. Trump is likely to punch back, and in frightfully painful ways that would make Rubio curl up into a fetal position and beg "no more."

Rubio is not a paragon, or virtuous figure he thinks he is. One joke about his credit cards and I'm sure he'll be crying to the referees about his hurt fee-fees.

In the meanwhile, Rubio's taunts border between incredibly juvenile and incredibly crass. Jezebel even tries to rank them - as though we're judging for a contest - but they're all pretty much the kind of insults that leave you shaking your head. Except the joke about Trump selling broken watches, that is cutting to Trump's con-artist persona. Problem is you have to remember the context in which Rubio tries to set it...

In the meantime, if anyone wants to settle this entire Primary race with a dodgeball fight on the outdoor basketball court, I think the middle school closes at 3:20 pm.

Note: Okay, so I survived Tarpon Springs Middle with a few emotional scars. On the bright side, I learned a lot of curse words in Greek...

Before Super Tuesday 2016, Some Notes

In the Primary schedule, there's a big block of states that all Primary/Caucus the same Tuesday, most of them for both parties. It creates a pretty big hurdle day where if one candidate dominates most of the states, it pretty much ends the race and drives all the has-beens from the field even if a lot of other states - hi, California! - haven't chimed in yet.

It is called Super Tuesday. It is the next Primary on the calendar, this March 1.

These are the things you'll need to know:

For the Democratic race, Super Tuesday is the likely point where Bernie Sanders drops out.

Last night's South Carolina Primary for the Dems turned into a metaphorical bloodbath where Hillary Clinton garnered about 74 percent of the turnout to Sanders' 26 percent. While Hillary was poised to win, the scale of it was mind-blowing. Hillary cleaned up two key blocs - women and Blacks - in such a way that went against Sanders' aggressive pandering in those communities.

Hillary's (soft) delegate count is around 530 or so with Bernie around 83, where the needed delegate count to win the nomination is over 2300. Even in the hard delegate count, Hillary's leading. After this Tuesday, if Hillary wins the states she's expected to carry -  Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas (!), and Virginia - and garners wins in places that are toss-ups - Colorado, maybe Minnesota, Oklahoma - that is 9 states out of 11. Only Vermont is a lock for Sanders, and while Massachusetts was seen as a Sanders lock that's been turned into a toss-up as well (don't forget, Hillary won Massachusetts in 2008 despite Obama's support in MA).

Bernie has to win over Massachusetts, Colorado and Minnesota to have any conceivable chance to continue into May or June. He might not even get a chance to challenge the March 15 Primaries where five major states - Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, Missouri - plug in nearly a quarter of available delegates into the math. And Ohio is the closest one he's got: Hillary is just stomping him across most of the Primary states.

And now to the Republican side of the aisle...

The weekend has mostly been the noise buzzing about Trump starting to receive endorsements within the ranks of the Republican Party itself. The party elite had been desperately anointing others like Jeb and Rubio with those pats on the back, but Trump still cruised along to big Primary wins without them.

Now, with the likes of Chris Christie openly advocating for Trump, we're seeing a shift in the back-room struggle by the Establishment to try and maintain a semblance of sanity in the nominating process. With Christie - and various Congresspersons, and just recently Maine governor LePage - providing political cover, we're going to see more and more influential insiders telling each other the delusion of "ya know, we can deal with Trump, he's not that bad..."

Because this same weekend saw Trump getting endorsed by Klu Klux Klansman David Duke... and when asked about it Trump refused to denounce the KKK support.

Considering how the Republicans keep marching out there saying "oh we're not really racist" and then have a well-known racist organization like the KKK back your banner-carrier... well, at this point I doubt there are any desks left in one piece at the RNC headquarters after all the headdesking that's been happening since June 2015.

This coming Super Tuesday vote will be yet another test, but this time a test of Republican Establishment fortitude. All things being equal this election cycle, anything Trump has done that's been controversial and horrifying has done NOTHING to stop him at the primary ballot box.

The Republican voting will take place in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Vermont.

Of these states, Ted Cruz has a lead in Texas, Arkansas, and that's it. Marco Rubio leads in Minnesota. Carson leads in Colorado (!). Trump is leading everywhere else, especially in states that should know better (I'm glaring at you Georgia, dammit how's a boy gonna defend his birth-state when you being this stupid? It's not crazy, it's STUPID. VOTE KASICH YOU IDIOTS...).

There may yet be a quick change in the votes among undecided or remaining party moderates offended by Trump's open bid for Klan votes, but that's unlikely (outrage does not kill Trump). What we should look at are the results and see if Trump gains any on the 35 percent or so average he has within Republican ranks. With Jeb out of the race and the Establishment trying to rally to Rubio, we ought to be seeing a three-man race between Trump, Cruz and Rubio balancing between the 30-to-35 percent ranges. But if Rubio is still wobbling around 18-to-20, and Cruz is wobbling around 20-to-25, and yet Trump is still around 35 percent... that's good news because that will be proof that Trump has a support ceiling, that he's capped out. Granted, it won't be good news that Rubio can't garner more support to beat Trump, and that Cruz is still able to justify staying in the race. But this means that Trump's Unfavorable numbers are legit, and that in a general election Trump is gonna get his ass kicked.

However, if Trump's numbers go up... if Trump clears the 40-to-45 percent hurdle, if he even wins a state outright getting 50 percent or more... that means he can shrug off his Unfavorables. Stopping Trump in the Republican Primary is a tall order, and growing unlikely in the face of the RNC's ineptitude. If Trump can win over support well enough into the moderate bloc of voters... Ohhhhhhh SHHHHHHHIIIIIIII------

(psst, for the love of God don't vote Trump (as well as don't vote Republican in the Senate and Congressional races, and state races, and...)

I'll be busy at a library conference this March 1st. I will try to check in, but no guarantees. P.S. SUPPORT YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

Why Trump Is All the Fault of Republicans

Even with the 2016 Primary season starting up, the finger-pointing has already started among the pundit and GOP Establishment figures about how someone as toxic as Donald Trump became the front-runner for the Republicans.

We've seen the National Review crowd denounce Trump in toto, but that broadside did nothing to stop Trump's winning most of the early states. Driftglass has been documenting the likes of David Brooks trying and failing to understand what's happening here. Some of the more hard-core columnists like Robert Kagan are openly calling this situation for what it is - a massive failure by the Republican Party to stop its darker impulses - and openly denouncing Trump as a Frankenstein Monster of the GOP's making.

If there's been one constant in the Far Right pundits' stages of grief, it's been the denial that Trump's rise is due entirely to the mindset of the modern Republican/Conservative movement. Brooks can't seem to bring himself to use the R-word when describing the angry forces marshaling under Trump's banner, as though somebody else is responsible for the mess. Even Kagan, who at least owns up to where Trump is coming from, can't stop himself from bringing Obama into the argument by calling the President's administration a failure as though that could alleviate some of the guilt.

But no, if anyone's to blame for Donald Trump's rise to the top of the Republican Party ticket, it's the Republicans themselves. And I can point to four easy and unavoidable observations to justify this claim.

1. It's been the Republican Party that promotes the belief in the All-Mighty Businessman as Savior/Genius/Leader, and the party that argues "government should be run like a business" which gives the likes of Trump a chance to "run things" like they run their corporations.

I haven't seen too many people bring this up, but it's a valid argument to make. Which party lionizes the "self-made businessman," props itself up as the defender of the "small business owner" against harsh regulations and taxes? It's not so much that the GOP is firmly a pro-business political party - such origins reaching back to their Whig-Federalist roots - it's that they border on worshiping business leaders and CEOs as flawless, "job creator" heroes. So of course, the Republicans have no problem with these CEOs tossing their names into the Presidential campaign.

Back in 2012, the Republicans promoted Romney's record as a CEO and venture capitalist more than his tenure as a Governor. Dubya ran in 2000 as Governor of Texas, but his resume was mostly his career as a not-that-successful businessman. And Trump is not the first pure businessperson to run for the Presidency: Carly Fiorina got into the race before he did this year, and in 2012 they had Herman Cain, in 1996 and 2000 they had Steve Forbes, and in 1988 there was Pat Robertson (ostensibly a televangelist, but owner of a religious cable channel). I could go back further - Hoover! Wendell Wilkie! - but I place the modern Republican Party emerging from the rise of Reagan in 1980, so we'll stop there. Essentially, this is a political party that's ripe for Trump's kind of con game.

2. Building on that point, it's the Republican Party that looks to non-political people as "experts" and spokespersons. The GOP is the party that expresses disdain for elective or administrative expertise in government: Worse, it expresses hatred for a functional working government period. It's a party that makes it easy for novices like Trump and others to run for high office.

We're talking about a Republican Party where their own elected officials express that disdain for expertise on any issue. Scientists arguing about climate change? Mock them. Economists arguing against austerity to get a nation out of a crippling recession? Ignore them. Military experts warning about getting involved into too many overseas wars? Accuse them of hating America and send the troops anyway.

We're talking about a Republican Party that made heroes out of the likes of "Joe the Plumber" as much as they promoted the likes of Sarah Palin, a relatively minor elected official - she never even finished her term of office as Alaska's governor - who ended up as a Vice Presidential nominee and converted her error-prone ascension into a self-promotional never-ending book tour.

Political competency is NOT a requirement to run as a Republican. Granted, incompetent and even crazy people run as Democrats as well, but Republicans seem to thrive on incompetency...

We're talking about a Republican Party whose hatred for a well-regulated functioning government pushes them to elect people into office who will sabotage that functioning government from within, who once in office will slash budgets and cripple social services all in the name of "reform" and then sit back as people rail against the lack of any aid or support, content in proving themselves right. We're talking about a party whose unelected leaders like lobbyist Grover Norquist seek to "starve the beast" and shrink the federal government down to something that Grover can drown in his goddamn bathtub.

This is a Republican Party that would have no problem with someone like Trump - no elected experience, no experience working within a public sector administration, whose only interaction with government has been to wheedle into property leases and whine his way out of bankruptcy hearings - barging into the White House with zero political wisdom and even less understanding for how things in government really work.

3. It's been the Republican Party that opposes immigration reform the last twenty years, giving Trump an easy hate-driven agenda to rally voters to him.

This is the thing the Republicans and their apologists are going to have to answer for over the next twenty years.

It's easy to point out our current immigration system is broken, but next to impossible to agree on any rational solution. The last major reform effort in 1986 did little to stop illegal immigration as the legislation contained enough loopholes to make it toothless. Arguments to simplify or make it easier - to have guest workers and "paths to citizenship" for younger illegals able to attend secondary education systems - run into political opponents who bring up fears of criminal behavior among the illegals (which are overstated) as reasons to make immigration harder to achieve.

Support for immigration reform is there: overall, Americans know we're a nation of immigrants and so would support the means to make it legal for most of the people moving to the U.S. However, among voting groups - Dem, Indy, GOP - the Republicans are the ones who least support such reforms. Republicans are also the group that wants to change the definitions of citizenship to make it harder, and the ones most eager to build a giant wall between the United States and Mexico.

What's not mentioned in the statistics is the emotional impetus behind the Republican anti-immigrant bent: the fear of The Other - not just Mexicans and Hispanics, but also Muslims - that underlies a lot of the Republican political platform. It's been there for years, intermingled with the overall social conservative anger towards minorities, and only now exposed to daylight as Trump jumped onto that issue as his signature agenda.

And the reason why Trump opened up his campaign with a blatant anti-immigrant hater agenda is because his utter lack of a political resume gave him nothing else he could use to run. To his advantage, Trump is running with a clean slate uncluttered by questionable policy decisions that his opponents have to excuse or ignore: To everyone else's horror, he dumped a lot of trash onto that clean slate and still found a willing audience eating it up.

4. It's the Republican Party that let Donald Trump f-cking file to run as a candidate in the first f-cking place.

Well, yeah. Duh. If Trump were really a librul, he'd be running against Hillary and Bernie.

You'd think a political party would have a filter or review process for their candidates at the national level. I know the state party ranks do: they require filing fees and an interview/vouching process. It's what stopped Stephen Colbert from running as a Republican oooh no wait he tried filing as a Dem and they had a committee block him a few years back. So at least the Democrats have a review process in place. The Republicans were just too expensive to file a campaign with. Ah well.

So, there you have it. Four easy, solid reasons why Republicans are to blame for letting Donald Trump destroy the planet like a fully-realized Bond villain. Thanks, Republicans. Thanks a bunch.

(psst. Vote Democrat, everybody)

Update: Driftglass - ever vigilant for any "Both Sides-ism" coming from the conservative commentariat - spotted a feral Ross Douthat and documented the atrocity. When Douthat gets to this line "But Trumpism is also a creature of the late Obama era," you know Mr. Douthat is trying to blame others than himself. This was your party, Ross, this was your conservative movement, and YOU let the con artists scam you on multiple occasions. And you welcomed them in with your eyes open and with willing greetings arms. And now you don't want to pay your bills.

The Clown Car Campaign Comes to the Crazy... Damn, There's No C-Word Synonym for State of Florida.

I've been wondering for awhile when they were going to poll for Florida's primary, as it's almost two weeks away and the last poll was in January. That January poll had the numbers for Trump, but people had dropped out, and things had changed, and I was thinking once Jeb* dropped out that the polling numbers might shift in favor of - yeah, I know I shouldn't - Rubio, the Sunshine State's remaining Fortunate Son.

Well, Quinnipiac finally came out with one today. And oh boy, we're screwed:

Marco Rubio is getting trounced by Donald Trump in his own home state, according to a new Florida poll released Thursday from Quinnipiac University. The results show frontrunner Trump holding a 44-28 percent lead over second-place Rubio...

Part of me is enjoying the schadenfreude of watching Rubio lose his own state, but the other part of me is utterly horrified there is 44 percent of the Floridians around me recklessly ignorant enough to vote for a damn bankrupt fraud. Then again, this is the damn state that voted for a Medicare Fraud for Governor. Twice. /headdesk

The RealClearPolitics site has been tracking the polls, so there's a way to follow the trends up and down for the remaining victims:

Polling Data

Poll	Date	Sample	MoE	Trump	Rubio	Cruz	Bush	Carson	Kasich	Spread
RCP Average	1/17 - 2/24	--	--	38.7	19.3	17.7	8.5	5.3	4.0	Trump +19.4
Quinnipiac	2/21 - 2/24	705 LV	3.7	44	28	12	--	4	7	Trump +16
CBS News/YouGov	1/18 - 1/21	988 LV	4.6	41	18	22	4	5	2	Trump +19
Florida Times-Union	1/17 - 1/17	838 LV	3.3	31	12	19	13	7	3	Trump +12

All Florida Republican Presidential Primary Polling Data

Interesting to note how Cruz's numbers inverted downward while Rubio's went up. Also interesting is that with Jeb out, Kasich's numbers went up as much as Rubio's has.

Thing is, the numbers do not look well for Florida or America or the world. Trump right now is cruising to a solid win in a Winner-Take-All state. If Rubio fails to garner a single delegate (there are a handful still available even in the WTA format) for his OWN STATE, he might as well drop out.

I dread what will follow.

Right now, the only sane solution is don't vote Trump at all, and just don't vote Republican either. But sanity is no longer an option. I should know: I'm a Florida Man...

Obama Blogs About SCOTUS, And the World Is Better For It

I envy the people who manage the SCOTUSblog website. They got a guest writer for their blog today, and damn...

Barack Obama writes about his Responsibility as President to nominate a Justice to fill the vacancy at the Supreme Court!

DAMN DAMN DAMN. I am coloring the word ENVY with the appropriate tint right about now.

As for what Obama writes:

A Responsibility I Take Seriously

The Constitution vests in the President the power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court.  It’s a duty that I take seriously, and one that I will fulfill in the weeks ahead...

...Needless to say, this isn’t something I take lightly.  It’s a decision to which I devote considerable time, deep reflection, careful deliberation, and serious consultation with legal experts, members of both political parties, and people across the political spectrum...

First and foremost, the person I appoint will be eminently qualified.  He or she will have an independent mind, rigorous intellect, impeccable credentials, and a record of excellence and integrity.  I’m looking for a mastery of the law, with an ability to hone in on the key issues before the Court, and provide clear answers to complex legal questions.

Second, the person I appoint will be someone who recognizes the limits of the judiciary’s role; who understands that a judge’s job is to interpret the law, not make the law.  I seek judges who approach decisions without any particular ideology or agenda, but rather a commitment to impartial justice, a respect for precedent, and a determination to faithfully apply the law to the facts at hand...

The whole article is brief enough that I shouldn't quote more. You should click the link and read the rest.

So the good news is, Obama is going to fight for making a nomination in spite of the Republican Senators being a big bag of d-cks right now. I love how Obama frames the article as "A responsibility I take seriously." A huge shiv to the gut of a Republican Party that isn't doing their duties in the Senate at all right now: McConnell and his allies could have easily kept their mouths shut, waited for a nominee from Obama, and then reject the nominee and claim they did their duty. This way they're going with straight-up blocking, the GOP Senate is doing two things: Jack and Sh-t. And voters can tell which side of this issue are the ones losing it: the Republicans, who AREN'T playing by the rules of the Constitution.

The bad news is, I haven't gotten a chance to get Obama to guest-blog here. ARGH. I know, a lot of bloggers are also feeling the same thing.

Okay, so, just get the word back to the White House that there's an open invite here at You Might Notice a Trend in case Obama wants to write up an article about, oh, Mad Max or Star Wars or comic books or baseball or the political ramifications of the missing comma in the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Any topic as long as it is relevant to this blog's focus, I guess. 

This invite to President Obama is only good until January 19, 2017 before the inauguration of the incoming President, the real and official moment that Obama doesn't have to fulfill the duties of the Executive office.

(begins tapping foot, waiting alongside John Cole and Digby and Rude Pundit and Crazy Eddie and driftglass and Emily L. Hauser and that guy at Stonekettle Station and...)

Modern Republican Motto: Obstruction Now, Obstruction Tomorrow, Obstruction Forever

As mentioned last weekend when Scalia passed away, the Republicans started rolling out - before the body was even cold, people - the Narrative that Obama should not be allowed to nominate Scalia's successor.

Their argument was that, well gosh, since this is an election year leave it to the next President to pick somebody. As though Obama stopped getting a paycheck for being President some time back in December 2015. As though they refuse to respect the fact that the Constitution's only deadline to an elected President's tenure is the day he officially leaves office.

The Republicans keep bringing up the time in 1992 when Joe Biden was quoted as saying for then-President Bush the Elder to not, you know, consider nominating anyone for vacant seats during his re-election bid. Ignoring the fact that in the same speech Biden said it was still the Senate's duty to advise and consent if Bush did bring such nominees to their chamber.

The Republicans are also ignoring the facts that previous times any President dealt with Supreme Court - or any judicial - vacancies in his last year of office those Presidents did indeed proceed to nominate replacements and the Senate did indeed considered and voted on them (except for one, Fortas in 1968, under unusual circumstances).

And yet, despite history and tradition and Constitutional requirements, here's our Republican-led Senate flat-out telling the nation that if Obama comes to them with a Supreme Court nominee that they won't even let him in the front door (per The Atlantic):

“The election is well underway, so I believe the overwhelming view of the Republican conference in the Senate is that this nomination should not be filled, this vacancy should not be filled by this lame-duck president,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday afternoon. McConnell’s second-in-command, Senator John Cornyn, said members of the Judiciary Committee were “unanimous” in their view that there should no hearing for Obama's nominee. “The reason for that is, it’s not about the personality, it’s about the principle,” Cornyn said. Taking matters a step further, both McConnell and Cornyn said they were not inclined even to meet with the person Obama picks—a traditional first step in any nomination process.

So by the Republicans' own logic that a "lame-duck President" shouldn't do anything, since this is an election year for 24 Republican Senators their decisions and their votes shouldn't even matter because "the American people" back home should decide if those 24 Senators should even come back.

The way these 24 Republican Senators are acting - ignoring their oaths of office, ignoring the need to fill any and all vacancies in our Judicial system to the best of their ability - none of them deserve to come back.

Oh, and for the record, these same damn Republicans have been treating Obama like a "lame-duck President" since January 2009. They're just being blatant and openly disrespectful now.

If there is truly a Just and Loving God in this world, Obama will continue to review his nominee options, select the most qualified Left-Center candidate he has, and make the announcement. Play this game. Force the Senate to look like whiny babies refusing to do their job while you bring up an accomplished and qualified jurist while doing yours.

Take this on tour to every state where a Republican Senator - even the solid Red ones - is up for re-election. Point out the necessity of having a full bench on the Supreme Court (that the possibilities of 4-4 ties throws legal decisions back down to the lower courts and into confusion). Point out the requirements of the oath of office a Senator has to uphold (you should speak from experience as a former Senator yourself).

Point out the fact that current polling of "the American People" - that the GOP Senate is using as an excuse to do nothing - is fully in favor of Obama doing his job nominating Scalia's replacement and for the Senate to do theirs by considering that nomination (the Senate still has the right to say No after the hearing).

Meanwhile, if the Republican Senate is waiting on the next President to nominate a candidate for the Supreme Court, the American People should make it their duty and obligation to vote this November 2016 for a Democratic President just to f-ck these Obstructionist Do-Nothing Layabouts in the Senate. Let's see Mitch McConnell choke on the reality of Hillary Clinton nominating Scalia's replacement, and better yet with a Democratic Senate in charge and more than willing to do their damn jobs.

For all the yelling and screaming from the Beltway Media Elites about the breakdown of "bipartisanship", this current conniption from the Republicans is full proof of where the damn breakdown came from, and who is responsible (hint: NOT Obama), and who deserves to suffer for it when the voters make their decisions this year (vote the damn Republican bums out).

What If: Day One of a Trump Presidency (w/ Post-Election Comparison)

(Update: Thank you for the link, Infidel 357!)

(Revision to the Update 12/22/16: I am submitting this as the year-end Jon Swift Blog Memorial that Batocchio hosts. As such I am going to add post-election observations of what I guessed right, what I missed, and HOW MUCH WORSE THE SITUATION IS TURNING OUT TO BE, DAMMIT AMERICANS 62 MILLION OF YOU GOT SUCKERED BY A CON ARTIST /fume  Okay, okay. Just give me a few hours to get this updated by tonight.)

So let's game this out: what exactly is going to happen if Trump actually wins the whole thing?

I mean, given how about eleven or twelve Republican-controlled states are issuing voter suppression laws - thanks, Scalia! - there's a possibility in some of these closely-challenged states that went for Obama in 2012 would not be there for Hillary in 2016.

So let's say Trump overperforms, and Hillary underperforms, the voter suppression states like Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina break Red against the demographics... Rather than the hoped-for Democratic blowout that will humble the Republicans for decades the way 1984 humbled the Democrats, we end up with a close one:

And Trump gets the Electoral College. Even if Hillary gets more than 2 million votes with the popular count with places like California and Illinois and New York, the Electoral is all that matters.

And we get a President-Elect Trump.

Okay, deep breaths. Try to remember this is just a game, we're just trying to figure out how this could play out. It hasn't really happened. We're just thinking it. Just in case. Don't Panic. Settle. Breathe... breathe... Okay, you good? Okay.

So, what exactly would we expect to get on Day One of a Trump administration?

Election Night is November 8.

We'll get an immediate response by November 9th before Trump even gets into the Oval Office. Because I get the feeling Mexico is going to recall their ambassador and kick ours out of their country as soon as humanly possible.

Given all the crap things Trump has been saying - that he'd throw out all the "illegals", that Mexicans coming to our nation are a bunch of "rapists", then build up a massive border wall with Mexico, and force the Mexican government to pay for that wall - the only sane response that Mexico has will be to cut off diplomatic ties with the U.S. It won't even matter if Obama is technically still in office until January 2017: Mexico will rightly be angered by a United States population that gave Trump enough support to become President by campaigning on such a gross and insulting platform.

If Mexico goes that route, expect a large number of Central American and Caribbean nations doing the same thing, regardless of any threats of trade embargoes or sanctions by the incoming Trump administration. Because Trump's anti-immigrant tirades are a collective slap in the face to the entire Latino community be it Mexican or Honduran or Peruvian or Jamaican or Puerto Rican or Chilean or Cuban or otherwise.

Part of me figures the European and Asian allies - from Germany to France to the UK to Spain to Japan to the Philippines to India and across the Middle East - will hold off on any open hostility, but I get the feeling that NATO nations will bring up early and often how they'll refuse to assist on any of the more outlandish foreign policy proposals - which boil down to "bombing everybody" - and may well bring up war crimes talk towards any of the neocons bound to worm their way into a Trump White House. We may well have our first Secretary of State unable to even travel abroad for fear of arrest by international tribunal.

I am loathe to guess how Iran will jump, but considering how they went from "possibly warming up to the US" after 9/11 and helping us fight the Taliban in Afghanistan to switching back to anti-Yank mindset when Bush the Lesser labeled them one of the "Axis of Evil", I'm guessing Iran will risk breaking their nuclear disarmament deal with Obama the second it becomes clear Trump and the Republicans won't respect one word of it. And that the allies that helped us make that deal might not argue against them doing so.

And this all before Trump gets up to the podium to swear like a drunken sailor uh to swear on the Bible to uphold a Constitution he has no intention to uphold.

Day One itself is probably going to look like this: Trump issues an Executive Order suspending ObamaCare until Congress acts on "repealing and replacing" it. Given that Congress under Republicans - who likely will remain in power in this scenario - so far has a repeal in mind but nothing to replace it, that will likely mean millions on Medicaid coverage and hundreds of thousands on federal-level exchanges are sh-t out of health care luck.

Day One will also include Trump introducing a Republican Cabinet made of up of some of the nastier remnants of the Bush the Lesser administration - neocons in foreign policy, tax-cutters and deregulators in domestic policy - still eager to re-establish the bad habits and disasters of 2001-2009 they never answered for.

And if the Republican Senate carried through on their threat to obstruct Obama's attempts to fill Scalia's Supreme Court spot, that means Trump will be there on Day One to offer his own nominee, most likely a pro-business anti-government anti-civil rights anti-abortion type in the Scalia mold (as he'll have promised as much to the GOP leadership). Think of the worst possible conservative judge out there capable of filling a SCOTUS spot - Roy Moore comes to mind - and you've got an idea what Trump will give us.

And it will be our damn fault if he does so.

Because for him to get into the White House in this scenario means millions of fellow Americans voted for this con artist. The Republicans are to blame for letting Trump get on the ballot. The conservative media, hell media in general is to blame for giving Trump the microphone to shill his hate platform. But if there's 50 to 60 million voters out there willing to get suckered by this bankrupt fraud of an overhyped landlord, and there's not enough Democratic or moderate voters willing to cast a ballot against him - so what if it's Hillary? You think Hillary is a problem? TRUMP IS WORSE, so get the damn vote out - then we as a nation are truly screwed.

We can be better than this as a nation, America. Just... goddamnit, stop voting for Trump. Don't ever vote for Trump. Just don't vote for any Republican this year, considering their platform of tax cuts, mass deregulation, killing off Planned Parenthood and banning abortion, ending gay marriage rights, carpet bombing... I'm with the guy over at Stonekettle Station: the Republicans are horrifying as a party this election cycle, worse than ever, and they're still getting this much voter support?! /headdesk

WE CAN BE BETTER THAN THIS, AMERICA.

Update 12/22: Apparently we weren't better than this. DAMMIT.

I did suggest that a Trump win would only be the Electoral count by state, that Hillary (as the Democratic candidate) would likely gain most of the votes in solid Blue states like California, Illinois and New York. I said "Hillary could get 2 million more votes than Trump" and I was under the actual differential at 2.9 million. It's still the largest deficit between the Popular Vote winner (Hillary) over the Popular Vote loser (Trump) where the Electoral College still went to said loser. We must be the ONLY elective government where the guy who LOSES still wins the office. More on that another time...

In the meantime, how did my predictions for a Trump transition and inauguration go?

I was apparently exaggerating the bit about Mexico likely reacting by cutting all diplomatic ties the day after the election. Like the rest of the planet, it seems our neighbors and allies are holding their breath and keeping their distance, as though our entire nation is on quarantine watch.

There's been a bit of saber rattling towards Iran, but the pundit consensus is that there's little Trump can do regarding the Iran Nuclear deal that Obama set up. Too many other nations have a hand in that arrangement for one thing, for another the deal didn't lift all sanctions meaning our nation has few other things it can use as leverage against Iran.

The problem is that Trump is filling his Cabinet with hawks - a sizable number of retired generals, and neocons from the Bush the Lesser years - who prefer a hard-line stance vs. Iran, meaning a high likelihood of military action or even war against that country. We're still dealing with hotheads among the Far Right spoiling to finish off "the Axis of Evil" and have few worries about how messy an Iranian war would be for us. This is not good.

Speaking of that Cabinet, I suggested the likelihood that Trump would fill it with leftovers from the Bush the Lesser years. I was partly right: there are a few from the previous GOP administration taking other Department positions - such as Chao - but there's a shocker in that Trump is picking a lot of CEOs and lobbyists who have almost as much experience with government administration that he has. That is, NONE AT ALL. Instead of getting people with even a semblance of knowing which door to knock on to ask for directions to the bathrooms at the State Department, he's putting in people who are the least qualified to fill those duties. Trump's made it a requirement to pick those - such as Betsy DeVos for Education, or Andrew Pudzer for Labor - who are utterly opposed to that Department's responsibilities. He's bringing in people most likely to DESTROY the jobs they're asked to do.

Word to know when dealing with Trump's administration: Kakistocracy. About nine-tenths of the people he's selecting to work with him are either incompetent or incompatible for the duties he's selecting them for. This is going to be a mess on a scale far greater that Harding or Grant's tenures (and THOSE were bad).

In terms of destroying things, one thing I didn't realize Trump would do is destroy any semblance of world order. I really didn't realize he'd do so before he's even sworn in.

I had no idea - I didn't think it - that Trump would go out of his way to be a pain in the ass towards Mainland China so soon and so bluntly. I did crow - back when things were optimistic - that I had been predicting Trump's disasters before the Boston Globe was predicting them. But at least the Globe got the China mess front and center. Neither of us figured Trump would press China's buttons over Taiwan, but then again nobody did what Trump did going out of his way to call Taiwan (without State Dept. awareness) and stirring up the animosity the mainland has against their island-based foes.

As a result, China's belligerency towards the U.S. has increased, and threats to the South China Sea (and neighboring nations) have gone up. It's not healthy for regional diplomacy or stability...

And this is even before getting to the potential disasters a trade war with China would cause.

Oh, and the other clash Trump was threatening to impose? That Trump Wall against Mexico?

Promises about the Wall - and about the mass deportation of Latinos that would go with it - fluctuate from day to day. The best guess anyone can make is that Trump will keep promising to build that Wall but never will. Trump will likely press for an arrest-and-deport program of a scale and brutality that will still ruin millions of innocent lives (not just the illegals but the LEGAL Hispanic population now threatened by a sloppy and racist enforcement agenda).

The biggest thing I missed, although I touched on it regarding Trump's potential corruption in office, was exactly what it was Trump will violate the second he's sworn into office. I never knew about the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution, only because it's so rarely mentioned: every other politician who could violate it always avoiding the scandal by selling off their affected business holdings and making sure they didn't cross that line. Trump is the first to ignore that line, whole-heartedly skipping towards it like it doesn't apply to him.

And what IS the Emoluments Clause? It's Article I, Section 9, Part 8: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. That means no one in political office can profit from - without Congress allowing it - any kind of gift, title, or salary/monetary gain coming from a foreign state.

Considering Trump's property holdings overseas, his many hotels and golf courses that he eagerly shills, and the fact that nearly every phone call or meeting he's made to foreign leaders has been about getting better deals for his properties, the likelihood that a foreign nation will pay Trump favors via those holdings either through a quid-pro-quo or favorable deal is too obvious to happen. This is why nearly every legal expert on the Constitution is screaming that Trump should sell his properties (or at least put them in an honest Blind Trust not held by his children, because they're too tied to him and his incoming administration).

Here's the thing: Trump's refusing to give up his business dealings. Oh, he keeps promising he'll put it all in a "blind trust," but he still hasn't done so, and he's still acting as though he's doing everything to benefit HIS businesses at the expense of everybody else. The potential that Trump breaks this law hard-wired into the Constitution itself is close to 100 percent. The questions become 1) who will enforce it and 2) how bad will it get?

One thing I did predict that's likely now: that Trump's victory is only half the problem. The other half is that a Republican-controlled Congress is still in power. Everything THEY can do to destroy the United States - Ryan's slash-and-burn budget, gutting social aid, killing ObamaCare, attacking Medicare AND Social Security, eliminating civil liberties for minorities, women, gays and transgendered - will easily kick in (depending on how fast the Democratic minority in the Senate rolls over and plays dead) and cause the whole thing to blow into the sea.

Still don't know who Trump is going to pick to fill the Supreme Court vacancy - BURN IN HELL, MCCONNELL, BURN! IN! HELL! - but it won't be pretty.

There's one other thing I predicted: we're screwed with Trump in office.

Past that, I have no idea how bad it's going to get. Every time it looks like things might settle, or stabilize, Trump goes and does some other stupid-ass thing... LIKE NOW, TWEETING ABOUT GETTING BACK INTO THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE. Son... Of... A... BIIIIIIII...

Top Ten Legal Ways Republicans Can Stop Donald Trump

Right now, they and this nation are running out of options...

10) Dig up any evidence that Trump committed some form of fraud during a bankruptcy proceeding that would be a violation of 18 US Code s157.
9) Hire the best hypnotist to zap him into speaking Mexican for the rest of his life.
8) Tell him he needs to tour overseas as part of building up foreign policy cred, ship him to a country that promises to keep him there. (problem: Which country WOULD?)
7) Dig up any evidence that Trump is really DB Cooper.
6) Get him to start a land development deal with Mitch and Murray over some properties called Glengarry and Glen Ross. Forget it, the way Trump operates land deals, everybody but him gets screwed.
5) Get him to drop out of the Presidential race by promising him the CEO position at LexCorp.
4) Dig up any evidence that self-proclaimed "New Yawker" Trump was really born in Buford Wyoming. His shame would crush himself.
3) Trick him into signing away his campaign funds in an elaborate sting involving Robert Redford, Paul Newman, an all-star cast of c... whadda ya mean, it's been done?
2) Take him out into the woods of Washington State on a snipe hunt, leave him there without any cell phone, and don't tell anyone where you went.

and the Top Legal Way Republicans Can Stop Donald Trump:

1) STOP VOTING FOR THAT CON ARTIST RACIST MOFO