Things We Learned From the Final Presidential Debate of 2016

1) Trump thinks he should have won an Emmy.

2) Trump still can't stop himself from interrupting people. Not just Hillary - which he clearly does out of spite - but also the moderator Chris Wallace, which Trump did out of narcissism.

3) The turnaround time on making t-shirts, buttons, posters, and other marketing materials is close to magic today. Within HOURS, Hillary's fanbase was selling tees of "Nasty Women" to crow against Trump's tin-eared attempt to insult her.

4) Thank God for the baseball postseason.

4a) Cleveland Indians are in the World Series. Chicago Cubs tied up with the Dodgers and may be back on track to win the NL title. We may be facing a World Series in which one sad-sack team FINALLY WINS.

This is, of course, the Seventh Seal harkening the End Times.

5) Trump kept lying last night like an unrepentant muthafu.......

6) Saturday Night Live is kinda at the point where they don't have to write a script, they just have to read the original transcripts of the debate and react accordingly. For example, there's a specific moment last night where Kate McKinnon should just break out the celebratory wine bottle during the inevitable cold open skit.

7) Trump is still an idiot.

8) Trump is still incredibly scary on foreign policy issues, especially Putin and other dictators he admires.

9) The biggest fallout from that debate has been Trump's refusal to accept the results of the November 8th election night if it goes against him. This ties into the last week or so of Trump yelling that the election "is rigged" in a direct attempt to undermine the entire process. When asked about if he will concede if he loses during the debate, Trump's vague answer was "I will look at it at the time. What I’ve seen, what I’ve seen is so bad."

And during today's rallies post-debate, Trump added with a horrifying condition: "I will totally accept the election results... if I win."

He's essentially saying the only legit result of the election should be HIM winning, even if he loses by 7 percent of the popular vote and with Hillary trouncing him in the Electoral College 342-196. And he's encouraging his voter base to think the same way.

This is insane. Trump is taking a flamethrower to the entire integrity of the electoral process, which he can't prove is that corrupt and broken - rigging a Presidential election is actually so large-scale and complex that it's next to impossible - but he still tries to sell as such.

10) Hillary essentially won all three debates by presenting herself as informed, composed, confident, and prepared. They weren't the best debate performances of all time - Hillary still tries to talk to people like a college professor and can't really be as relaxed in her presentation - but compared to the sniffling, bloated, rude, ill-informed mockery of a candidate next to her, she hit home runs all three nights.

Get the damn vote out, America. Early voting is already starting in some states and should be going on everywhere by next week (Florida's starts on the 24th).

Vote Hillary for President. Don't vote Republican for ANY office if you can help it.

This election matters.

Things To Do For Tonight's Final Presidential Debate for 2016

Tonight is the last televised debate between Hillary and "Screw You Guys I'm Going Home" Trump.

Here are your options for tonight's viewing:

1) Find a writers' group meeting to attend tonight and get prepped for your upcoming NaNoWriMo writing effort for November.

2) There's playoff baseball on tonight, I think.

3) Are hairstyle salons open at 9:00 PM EST?

4) Find a pro-Hillary debate watch party in your area and bring enough booze to endure the Trump-shitshow but not enough to prevent you from safely driving home. Either that or make sure there's a designated driver to come by after the debate to pick you up. I doubt anybody at the party is going to want to stay sober watching that draft-dodging tax-dodging tiny-fingered Cheeto-faced ferret-wearing shitgibbon.

5) You might wanna start shopping at the local CostCo for your winter survival supplies and tonight might as well be the time to do it.

6) Read a book. I've got some lovely books you can purchase and download to your Kindle... (ow stop hitting me)

7) Watch sober, and then get on your knees and pray. BEG FORGIVENESS FROM THE ALMIGHTY that we as a nation were fools to let Trump anywhere near the Presidency and BEG BEG BEG a thousand times for the Good Lord to show Mercy upon us by gifting enough voters with the wisdom to NOT VOTE TRUMP when their time in the ballot booth comes.

7a) And for the Love of God don't vote Republican, period.

Keep your head down and survive, America. We're going to get hit by the eye of this Trumpstorm...

Republicans Don't Give a Rat's Ass About the Constitution Anymore

(Update: Thank you Batocchio for the link on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! To everyone visiting, hello again. Please stay and check out my other rants about Gods help us everything about this election cycle. And please, sign up for NaNoWriMo and write your damn novels next November!)

You lost me, McCain, a long time ago, but this just really hurts:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) suggested Monday that the Republican party’s months-long refusal to fill a vacant seat on the Supreme Court could extend into the next administration if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

"I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up," McCain said on WPHT Philadelphia radio in an interview first flagged by CNN. "I promise you. This is where we need the majority.”

McCain essentially promised that the Republicans in the Senate will not uphold their oath of office to the Constitution.

He promised to put party partisanship ahead of the needs of the United States to have judicial offices filled in order to ensure our legal system is working.

He promised to ignore the constitutional powers of the President to nominate people to fill vacancies in the court system. He promised to ignore the reality that a President Clinton would win election with a sizable number of American voters.

He promised that if Hillary Clinton wins with lets say 60 million votes to lets say 50 million Trump votes, he and his fellow Republicans will tell those 60 million voters that their vote did not ever count, that their choice wasn't legitimate, that they will never listen to or respect those voters.

He promised to continue the obstruction that this current Republican-controlled Senate has been carrying on for almost a year now, refusing to even LISTEN to Supreme Court nominee Garland, operating on a laughable and possibly illegal argument that the Senate should "hold off" on allowing a lame-duck President during his last year in office from filling any vacancies: That the Senate should "respect the wishes of the voters during an election year." Yet if those voters go with Clinton, well they'll just ignore THIS YEAR'S promise and move on to this new promise of NEVER advising and consenting to a Democratic nominee ever again.

That's what this promise is about: McCain is laying out in public the truth that the Republican Party will never accept any Democratic President as legitimate, no matter how many people vote for that Democrat, no matter how the Constitution requires them to at least respect the Office of the Presidency.

This is absolute partisanship. McCain and his fellow Republican Senators are kicking their Constitution duties into the dumpster. It won't matter if Hillary wins by three percent or double-digits. The Republicans in Congress will obstruct her for as long as they possibly can.

THIS is why I've been screaming for the last 8-10 years to never vote Republican. Doesn't matter the office, if it's Dog Catcher or State legislator or US Congress or the Senate or President. This is the attitude of the entire GOP: THEY must rule or else everything will be in ruins.

THIS is why it's just as important for people to get out the vote to kick every Republican out of every elected office. It's not just the Presidency at stake, America: EVERY office needs purging of obstructionist Republicans who WILL NOT DO THEIR JOBS.

Every Republican Senator up for election this cycle needs to lose. Every Republican Congresscritter up for election this 2016 needs to lose, to hell with their gerrymandered safe zones. If the GOP retains majority control of the Senate, we will never see ANY vacancy - not on the Courts, not in the Cabinet - filled as required by the Constitution. If the GOP retains majority control of the House, we will never see ANY sane federal budget and will likely see series of government shutdowns by a Far Right Congress insisting on their godless tax cuts for the super-rich.

You wanna know why government's not working? JUST LISTEN TO THE REPUBLICANS. They will tell you: THEY DON'T WANT IT TO WORK. They would rather let it rust away, block every fix, block every qualified candidate. They would rather let the nation suffer for their self-serving needs than compromise or do their jobs.

For the LOVE OF GOD, stop voting Republican. They sure as hell have not earned your vote.

But That Was Another Country, and Besides That Party Is Dead

Me: Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen, lend me your ears.

Pinku-Sensei: What happened to the ears we lent you last week?

Me: Well I stuck them to my chariot.

Dinthebeast: But why?

Me: 'Cause they're chariot ears.

(much pummeling commences)

Fine, fine, I'll get serious here.

I come to bury the Republican Party, if to praise its worth before the madness struck in 1992 um 1980 okay 1968. It's at the point in our history now that with Trump sinking in the polls with no sign of recovery, and with growing likelihood that the Democrats regain the Senate and may even regain the House, we need to start wondering just what the hell the remnants of the GOP is going to do post-Election Day.

If I can hedge my bets, if Trump does indeed pull of an upset now - unlikely, not enough states will vote for him - the Party is still screwed because the twisted mindset Trump brings to the table would honestly bankrupt the party (and the nation).

If Hillary wins with a solid Republican Congress, the Party is still doomed because their ongoing obstructionist habits can't last (the demographics are finally turning against them).

And a big reason the Republicans are doomed happens because - for what I see of the party today - there is no sound or diverse leadership that can lead the party out of their blind obsessions. Whatever you think of Paul Ryan as Speaker, he's doomed. The same wingnut faction within his own House that ousted Boehner is going to want his scalp for "lack of fealty" to Trump and his failure to bring Obama (or Hillary) before them in handcuffs. And then things get nasty: Who can you picture among the elected leadership in the GOP taking control of this rampaging beast? Trey Gowdy?!

Don't take my word for it. Let's ask Bruce Bartlett at the Washington Post:

I was wrong. I now see that Trump’s candidacy has exacerbated the Republican Party’s weaknesses, alienating minorities, fracturing the base and stunting smart policy development. The party’s structural problems are so severe that reform is impossible. Even if Trump loses and the GOP races to forget him, the party is doomed. And very few of our leaders seem to care.

In the short run, it will be easy for Republicans to convince themselves that nothing needs to change. The establishment believes that Trump is an anomaly, an aberration. GOP leaders think the party’s next nominee will be a more typical politician who knows the issues, has well-developed debating skills and who will appeal to the elite and the Trumpkins. Someone like John Kasich or Marco Rubio...

You can already see the problem of leadership: Kasich and Rubio are NOT sound options for future leadership. Kasich doesn't appeal to the base (which is crazy because Kasich is a solid Right Winger) and Rubio's an empty-suit no-show at the job. And Trump is not an anomaly: He fit exactly what the Republican voting base wanted. You can't ignore that fact, not ever...

Back to Bartlett:

Many leaders also assume that Hillary Clinton is an automatic One-Termer. They think she’s incompetent, scandal-ridden and hell-bent on destroying the economy. They know, too, that neither party has held the White House for more than three terms in the post-World War II era.

Incompetent, no. Scandal-ridden, only because the GOP leadership made her so. And despite their differences in ideology, nothing Hillary promises will crash the economy the way the Republicans' Supply Side obsessions have done.

Let's take a serious look at history for a moment: the possibility of Hillary as a One-Termer. That is likely: Historically speaking there's been few back-to-back Two-Termers. However, those back-to-backs happened at a time - Jefferson, Madison, Monroe - when the two-party system died as the Federalists slid from power. And the Federalists died because - as the Republicans are finding out now - they failed to adapt and alienated a majority of voters outside of their regional power-base.

The Republicans came into this election cycle thinking that it was normal for parties to switch control of the White House like clockwork. It's not. Historically, parties retain control of the Presidency due to two things: 1) solid economic growth/stability or 2) terrible opposing parties. The Democrats stayed in control from Jefferson to Jackson thanks to the fall of the Federalists. The Whigs beat Van Buren because of the first major economic Panic caused by Jackson's bank-breaking. Republicans held onto the White House from 1860 to 1884 thanks to the Democrats being associated with treason (except for a stolen 1876 election, which still spoke to a weak Democratic Party unable to fight it out). Republicans retained the White House after Grover Cleveland's interruptions from McKinley to Taft due to the Yukon Gold Rush, Teddy's Progressive movement, and Taft's judicial sensibilities. The Democrats held on through an unheard-of four terms of FDR because the Great Depression was that huge an economic crisis and because of the Second World War, with Truman continuing that control on his own terms only getting kicked out because of a mismanaged Korean War and major recession at the time.

Basically, there's no predictable cycle of party control of the White House. For the Republicans to buy into that myth highlights part of their myopia.

Okay, enough side-track. Back to Bartlett:

But Clinton’s chances of being reelected in 2020 are better than Republicans think. Already, Democrats have a virtual lock on 18 states, giving them an almost automatic 242 electoral votes. States such as Virginia, Colorado and Florida routinely vote Democratic, too.

The Republicans wanted to fight their electoral battles using Demographics and Geography instead of the Issues. Well, now that's killing them. They've done such a wonderful job trying to sell their Southern Strategy to states that can't condone that kind of mindset that the Southern states are the only ones they might have left (and they're losing Georgia either this cycle or the next).

I've pointed out earlier that when it comes to guaranteed, lock-down states the Democratic Party (California, New York, Illinois with 104 EV) has a massive advantage over Republicans (Texas at 38 EV) that by the time you throw in the mid-sized states - Massachusetts (11), Pennsylvania (20), Maryland (10), Washington (12), Virginia (13) and Michigan (16) guaranteed for 72 additional EV to Democrats - that the next guaranteed state for the GOP with Tennessee (11 EV) doesn't help one bit.

There is currently no way for Republicans to break the strangleholds that the Democrats have on those Solid Blue states. The only way to do that is to change their messaging and ideology: The platform the GOP is selling now - anti-Immigrant, anti-women - gets them NOWHERE in California at all. (edit) Conversely, the Democrats can break the stranglehold Republicans have on Texas - their last main Electoral College anchor - simply by waiting for enough Latinos and women voters to ragequit the GOP over the Republicans' terrible ideology. And that can happen now or 2020. It's already just a matter of time...

Okay, just one more visit to Bartlett:

Eventually, of course, Democrats will become corrupt, will overreach or will bear the blame for things beyond their control, like a recession. They may foolishly nominate someone too far Left for the country, giving a Republican another shot at the White House. A strong leader could change the GOP’s trajectory, like Dwight Eisenhower did after five straight Republican presidential losses from 1932 to 1948. He put the party, as Conservative then as it is today (just read the 1952 platform) on a more Moderate, technocratic path that continued for a quarter-century through Richard Nixon (note: snerk) and Gerald Ford. A leader like Eisenhower might help right the GOP, attracting moderate voters and enhancing the party’s crossover appeal.

Wouldn't it be pretty to think so? That the Republicans could eventually lose their Far Right mindset and find another Eisenhower? If there is a GOP Savior to be had among the pandering Tax-Cut Slashers leading the party today (hint: there isn't)?

It's just not any time soon. Here's blogger PM Carpenter looking at how deluded the "rational" conservative leadership among the bloggers are going to be:

...What, then, is next for the GOP? Fortunate it is that Erick Erickson, formerly of RedState.com, troubles to offer a template. Most unfortunate, however, is that his articulated vision as a fresh model is damn near incomprehensible.

Erickson's vision for his erstwhile party? It's the old Get-Washington-out-of-our-lives trope. "Voters are being held hostage by hollow promises … [that] Washington power will make their lives better," he writes. Washington was never meant "to be the center of all solutions. Republicans need to focus less on Washington and more on fostering local community..."

There's a slight problem with that: The Republicans have been shilling this "End Washington Control" snake-oil for 40 years. There is nothing new here. It's the same bland marketing ploy without even a fresh coat of paint on it.

Okay, back to PM trout-slapping Erickson:

One point he's inarguably missing is that, prior to the federal government's being what it is today, neighbors and churches and communities found themselves abjectly incapable of providing needed help in tough times. Prior to minimum wages, prior to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the entire panoply of federal safety nets, local communities and state governments were far too strapped and overburdened to be of service to the acutely burdened themselves...

All this, Erickson dismisses, probably more from - I'll be charitable - willful blindness than innate fatuity...

Our former RedStater goes on to propose that a new Republicanism be "the party of religious liberty," as though religious Democrats and confirmed atheists aren't all for that...

And of course Erickson throws in the old Republican bugaboo of yet "lower taxes," which would of course would further gut the inarguable effectiveness of all the federal government does, which of course Erickson chooses not to see.

In short, little to none of what Erickson proposes is realistic. It's the same, old, unworkable model of reactionary smallness - the very refusal to cope with modern civilization that has plagued Republicanism for decades...

If Erickson's model for recovery is the only thing the Republicans have to work with, it's going to be the same damn mess that will fall apart again in 2020. No lessons learned, the same mistakes played over and over again expecting better outcomes. And most likely another con artist candidate trying to sell it all.

This is why I've called the Republican Party mad for years. And incompetent to boot.

Infidel753: Well, that wasn't much of a spectacle!

Batocchio: That wasn't even a monocle! Ho-ho-ho-ho!

Blog Status October 2016

Just saying:

I wanna thank everybody visiting my blog to read up on the Florida 2016 General Election info. Damn, you are just blowing my stat numbers out of the water.

Now if I can just entice you all to buy my b... no wait come back! I want more visits! Please... /sniff  It gets so lonely sometimes...

What if I try to find my bad comic strips from my USF student days of 1992 and scan them in? Will you all come back for that?

What If: Hillary Wins AND Gets a Friendly Congress for 2017

I've speculated already about how it would look if Donald Trump won the Presidency.

It wasn't pretty. And my speculation wasn't the only one.

So, with Trump now stuck in polling below 40 percent and the likelihood Hillary secures all of the Obama 2012 states (plus Arizona and North Carolina and MAYBE Georgia, Texas and Utah!), we now need to speculate about what it would look like if Hillary won.

I will keep Texas - barely - on the Republican side, but if Latino
turnout rocks that house, it would be an epic GOP collapse.
I REALLY want Georgia to flip Blue...

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Okay, Republicans, deep breaths, stop panicking, oh c'mon for the love Flying Spaghetti Monster you SURVIVED Bill and Obama for decades, settle the hell down...

Anyway, previous prediction of post-election posing was that if Hillary wins but Republicans retain control of Congress, we'll likely be in the same obstructive gridlock the GOP has enforced on this nation since 2010 (and in a lesser form in 2009 when they abused Cloture rules in the Senate). Given the outright hatred the Republicans will have towards Hillary - and their belief that they have enough "criminal" charges on her - the possibility of constant Congressional investigations into every little move she makes is a near-lock.

On the bright side, the likely scenario is that the Republicans can lose the Senate - out of 34 seats open, the numbers suggest the Democrats can pull off a 52-54 seat majority - giving Democrats a chance to break the gridlock on Supreme Court nominations and other Judiciary/Executive vacancies that are in dire need of filling.

While the polling doesn't reflect any serious victory for Democrats in flipping the House, this is a "What If" scenario so let's go there: What if Trump's anger towards the GOP Establishment convinces his voting base to reject the down-ballot tickets to where Republicans lose a lot of seats? What if, thanks to a divided Republican party, the House goes from 234 Republicans over 201 Democrats and goes 220 D - 215 R?

It's not much, it'll be a slim hold on the House of Representatives, and there's always a chance some Democrats will vote against the party line - in this situation the backbenchers will have disproportionate control on some issues - but this version of the universe will give Hillary a Congress basically willing to grant her as much of her agenda as she'll want.

What does that actually mean?

Hillary's platform would be called a standard "liberal" agenda. She's on record supporting a Public Option fix to the ACA (Obamacare), a massive infrastructure budget to repair our aging highways and bridges, closing tax loopholes for the rich and for corporations, protecting Planned Parenthood, and boosting public education. Her biggest controversial issue is over gun safety laws that the NRA would never accept.

What we'd likely see in 2017 with Hillary and a Democratic Congress is a sweeping stimulus package covering massive construction projects - road, bridges, transit systems, schools, power grids - combined with moderate hikes in the tax rates for upper income earners (and possibly forcing the megacorps into bringing back all those tax dollars they're hiding overseas) to pay for it. While the Republicans will squeal in outrage over it and may try to block it in the Senate, there's every likelihood Hillary - using that Johnson-esque A-N worldview of hers - will get it pushed through.

The question will become "what impact will Hillary and the Democrats - no longer restrained by conservative austerity anti-spending efforts - have on the overall economy of the next four years?"

This is key, because economic performance is ALWAYS the best way for a sitting President to win a second term. As long as the economy works or improves, the incumbents are safe. Only during economic uncertainty - especially major downturns like a Recession similar to 2008's - will the sitting party get hit with electoral losses.

As long as Hillary can build on the slow rebuilding that Obama oversaw and lowers the unemployment down to a health 4 percent while seeing gains in wages and reductions in personal debts -THIS is what Hillary and the Democrats should focus on - then she's a lock to win a second term in 2020 (despite the fantasies of the GOP, more on that later).

So I would totally predict a Hillary administration is going to see a long, stretched-out battle against the banks by the Democrats to work on cutting back on debt-causing matters like college loans, mortgages, and the like.

There's also the likelihood of long, stretched-out battles against any Republican-controlled state government over state-level funding issues and economic cost-of-living issues surrounding city/county zoning laws (that last part might even involve a few Democratic states too).

In terms of domestic policy, the Pro-People agenda that Obama solidified in 2011-12 will made concrete. Gay Marriage and other Gay/Transgender rights under a full Democratic federal government will be made moreso, even against any Republican state-level obstruction like the "bathroom safety" and "gay cake" laws. Hillary is bound to fill more court vacancies - even Supreme Court ones - with Left-leaning progressive justices, adding to the Right-leaning (but not wingnut) judges already placing small-c conservative rulings on these issues. There's also increased odds of better pro-Women rulings on birth control, health care, child care and job protection/wage improvements. As well as the likelihood civil rights for Blacks, Latinos and minorities in general will be safe for the next decade (and one day permanent).

On foreign policy, Hillary will deal on fair terms with her allies without fear of a Republican Senate trying to knee-cap her. She is more aggressive on foreign issues which may mean an increase in direct interventions with land troops, but she may be tempered by a more Progressive Congress - especially in the House - that would seek to clamp down on any military misadventures.

Whether Hillary continues some of Obama's more questionable practices - especially drone "warfare" and the surveillance state - depends entirely on Congress. It is up to Congress to set the laws on these matters, and one hopes that a more Left-leaning legislature will set stricter guidelines and oversight. But let's be honest: every President - even Obama, and he's a good guy - cannot willingly give up such legally grey powers. It's going to be a fight if the Progressives push this issue.

While all this happens, you can guarantee the Far Right media will not roll over and play dead. Fox Not-News, Rush, Drudge, every wingnut with a video stream and a book deal is going to be at DefCon 1 claiming Hillary is destroying America. The other media outlets - CNN, MSNBC, ESPN - may find themselves at war with conservative talking heads trying to dominate for air time on the nightly roundtables, but if they have any sense or decency the major outlets need to ween themselves off that Far Right Noise and invite actual experts to their shows anymore. If we're lucky, a Democratic sweep this November might wipe out every favorite Congressional Republican guest - sorry, McCain - and force the networks to invite more elected Democrats for a change.

To anybody who thinks a Hillary win combined with a Democratic Congressional win is going to lead to the End Times: yeah, stop listening to the wingnuts. We've seen years of Democratic control - 2009 to 2010, 1993-1994 - and we never had A) massive arrests of all citizens, B) alien takeovers, C) the Rapture. Lighten the fuck up, wingnuts. Hillary may be talking about gun safety laws but that doesn't mean SHE'S COMIN TO TAKE OUR GUNZ. Hillary can't abolish the 2nd Amendment - that takes Congress, two-thirds of both houses, AS WELL AS two-thirds of the states - so take that fantasy off the list. At WORST you gun-nuts, Hillary is going to press for a re-interpretation of that amendment to recognize gun safety ("well-regulated") outweighs unlimited gun usage ("shall not be infringed"). What Hillary's gonna do is make it harder for the NRA to turn a profit on our kids getting shot.

The concerns about militia violence are legit, but we should recognize that a mass majority of Americans are not THAT violent. Losing the Presidential race may cause a lot of sound and fury, and of course losing Congress will make it worse, but it will only go so far. The wingnuts will talk about coups and secession and whatnot, but most of them will just go home and gripe about how bad it all is and wait for the next scandal to prove themselves right (note: there may be certain circumstances that might escalate that from talk to action...). That said, I hope the FBI and Homeland Security redouble their efforts on tracking and shutting down the homegrown terror militia groups already waging war on our nation.

So that's how it will kind of look once 2017 rolls onto the computer clocks.

It also depends on if that year's summer blockbuster lineup will be actually any fun. For that I will blame Obama, though.

As We Head Into the Round of Early Voting for 2016

Just in brief, a few things:

It's nice to see Hillary is still ahead of Trump in the polls - we should look at the four-way numbers since Johnson is pulling enough of a percentage to cause a dent in the results - but just remember, polling is one thing TURNOUT is what matters.

Here in Florida, things are looking up: Democrats are doing better with absentee ballot filings and with voter registration. Again, TURNOUT MATTERS. Get the damn vote out, people, we need to stop Trump and slap the Republicans down a few notches in Congress and state offices.

There's this growing feeling both online and in the Real World that people may be tired of this circus, that it's gone on for far too long with this clown Trump ruining many a life. But there's also this sense that people will show up to vote because they know this will put a stake into this vampiric nightmare and let most of us sleep easier after November 8th.

GET THE VOTE OUT.

They Hit That Iceberg Three Months Ago. This Is Where the RNC Trumptanic Is Breaking In Half

I wrote this back in March:

On the other hand, this dynamic clearly can no longer exist. The people in control of the Republican Party - the financial donors, the seasoned consultants, the elected veterans of too many Congressional terms - are no longer in sync with their actual voting base of low-education poor White Males. It turns out all the fearmongering and Establishment-bashing the party elites kept telling their followers via the Far Right news channels and websites made those followers fear and hate their own self-entitled party bosses. It's all leading up to the near certainty of a thin-skinned, narcissistic con artist pitching the basest form of race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by the name of Trump winning enough delegates this week to clinch a commanding lead for the Republican nomination for President.

This is the kind of personal betrayal in a relationship that ends up with both sides in tears...

All said and done though, I doubt the GOP really blows apart. Neither side of this potential break-up will last long outside of the existing organizational charts...

Well, color me optimistic.

Donald Trump declared war on the Republican establishment Tuesday, lashing out at House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and other GOP elected officials as his supporters geared up to join the fight amid extraordinary turmoil within the party just four weeks before Election Day.

One day after Ryan announced he would no longer campaign on Trump’s behalf, the GOP nominee said as part of a barrage of tweets that the top-ranking Republican is “weak and ineffective” and is providing “zero support” for his candidacy. Trump also declared that “the shackles have been taken off” him, liberating him to “fight for America the way I want to...”

...But (the Republican leadership) are suddenly dealing with another problem: an impulsive and bellicose businessman with an army of loyal supporters willing to exact retribution against elected officials they feel have abandoned them. The rift could have profound ramifications for the Republican Party as a whole, shattering any sense of unity and jeopardizing its chances of holding onto the Senate and even, potentially, the House...

The logic Ryan and the other senior Republicans are working from is trying to isolate themselves from the sinking ship that is Trump's Presidential hopes. The polling after the first two debates have swung wide towards Hillary. The 2005 Hollywood Access tape where Trump boasts of sexually assaulting women and getting away with it for being a rich celebrity was a shocking rebuke to the Republicans' failed attempts to sell themselves as the high-ground moralists.

The public response to that video has been harsh, and among women voters it's been the final straw to dump Trump. Considering women voters make up the largest voting bloc in terms of turnout, the Republicans who take polling serious are trying to find a safe spot to keep their cushy incumbent jobs.

Problem is, in the process Ryan and the others risk alienating their own Republican voting base. Trump's not thrilled about the "betrayal" from Ryan or McCain or any of the others, and Trump's staffers and proxies are all selling the idea of ignoring the down-ballot seats... meaning no votes for the Senate and House candidates up for election.

Given that their gerrymandered districts are skewed in order to exploit their Far Right voting base, having that base refuse to show up and vote for you - which is what Trump is asking them to do - makes such "safe" districts useless to House Republicans. The 55 percent "safe district" advantage over the Democrats' 27 percent disappears and every Red district is in play.

The Ace of Spades - Far Rightist blogger - site is already calling on Ryan's Wisconsin voters to tab the Democratic candidate in revenge.

As long as the Democrats can encourage voter turnout greater than Republican turnout, the odds of winning the Senate alongside Hillary winning the Presidency become much likelier. If Trump voters stick to their anger against ANY Establishment figure that failed in their fealty, the odds of Republicans losing the US House (and a lot more state legislatures) also becomes likelier.

This is where the sinking ship isn't just with Trump at the helm, it's with half the Republican Party queuing for the lifeboats as the good ship RNC Trumptanic snaps in two during the sinking. (Yes, I am totally stealing this meme from The Daily Show)

The only thing that can save the Republican Party entirely is the ingrained partisan nature of their own voters to habitually vote (R) no matter what. Ryan may be counting on that to pull out enough support to eke out their survival and remain as incumbents.

But all it takes is a big enough drop in turnout to kill the incumbents.

And they're already booing Ryan at his rallies. Their own Speaker.

Eric Cantor probably should call Ryan in a few weeks to offer his condolences.

In 28 Days, We Vote For Real. In the Meantime, Here's Women Beating the Crap Out of Trump

I think I kept warning people about alienating the largest voting bloc in the nation. But nooooooo, the Republicans just HAD to keep ticking them off.

And now we're seeing the results in the polling. Per the Atlantic:

That’s the bad news for Trump. The worse news is that this poll likely does not include the full impact of a video, published Friday afternoon by The Washington Post, in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women. The poll was conducted Wednesday through Sunday, meaning some respondents were interviewed before the video’s release and some afterward. It also does not take into account the second presidential debate, in which Trump’s performance drew widely varying reviews (hint: the pundits liked it, the polled viewers sided with Hillary)...

...Clinton also continues to lead Trump by hefty margins among women, with a 33-point gap separating the candidates. Just 28 percent of likely women voters intend to pull the lever for Trump, a five-point drop from one week ago, while 61 percent plan to vote for Clinton. The lewd video of Trump might lead to an even greater gap in the home stretch toward the election.

Even more remarkably, Trump’s support has collapsed among white women without college degrees. Until recently, they formed Trump’s largest bloc of support. In 2004, they voted for George W. Bush by 19 points; in 2008, they backed John McCain by 17 points; and in 2012, they went with Mitt Romney by 20 points. This poll finds them evenly split between Clinton and Trump, with each drawing 40 percent support.

Here's Sober Nate Silver with his take:

But while we’re in something of a wait-and-see mode, one demographic split caught my eye. That was from a Public Religion Research Institute poll conducted on behalf of The Atlantic. It showed a massive gender split, with Clinton trailing Trump by 11 percentage points among men but leading him by 33 points among women. To put those numbers in perspective, that’s saying Trump would defeat Clinton among men by a margin similar to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s landslide victory over Adlai Stevenson in 1952, while Clinton would defeat Trump among women by a margin similar to … actually, there’s no good comparison, since no candidate has won a presidential election by more than 26 percentage points since the popular vote became a widespread means of voting in 1824. To get to 33 points, you’d have to take the Eisenhower-Stevenson margin and add Lyndon B. Johnson’s 23-point win over Barry Goldwater in 1964 on top of it...

Silver then postulates what the numbers might look like on a map. If you just went with ONLY Women voting this cycle, the map would look like this:

The ONLY Men map goes the other way, obviously, with Trump winning...

So obviously the solution is we need more women voters.

Granted, polling does not equal actual results: You gotta play the game to see who wins. But the data leading up to Game Day is all pointing towards more voters turning away from Trump, and with voting groups turning in great numbers that suggest a nationwide trend. Meaning that most the states - where the Electoral College retains its power - are in play for Hillary, unlike previous election cycles where certain Red States would stay Red due to the Demographics no matter what.

As such, the Electoral College map we're looking at for November 8th should look like this:

And the math is tight in places like Arizona and Georgia (and yes Texas) so this map is still a bit... conservative in predicting the Electoral votes. And there's also the bit about the Mormons finally in open rebellion against Trump's vulgarity. so there's a good chance Utah is a Toss-Up for once.

So barring massive voter suppression efforts - which hopefully doesn't affect enough states, and may not happen on large enough a scale if the Democrats' ground game is ready to roll - or outright refusal to vote, we should be looking at a massive Trump loss for the Presidency. If there's any justice in the world, Trump's sinking ship will be an epic enough collapse that it will drag enough Republican Senators and Congresspersons down with him. Which is looking likelier - even for the gerrymandered House! - by the day.

JUST GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, DEMOCRATS.

We have 28 days to survive this.

I Had to RageQuit a Debate Watch Party Last Night

The local organized Hillary office was hosting a watch party for the town-hall format debate this Sunday night, so I decided to be sociable.

I brought an apple pie.

Sat around with about 20 people to watch the Internet stream of CNN. Sat solemnly while the debate organizers spent about half an hour explaining the rules and need for decorum. A lot of attention was paid toward showcasing how these debates "demonstrate to the whole world how a democracy operates."

And then they let Trump out to show how he'll tear it all down.

Dear F-CKING God. Trump could not answer the questions straight. He'd go off on tangents, jumping to talking points that didn't relate, and ending up pointing at Hillary going "she's worse, people. She'll wreck all of it, believe me."

The opening question on campaign decorum turned into Trump attacking Obamacare. It went downhill from there.

And he lied, sonofabitch did Trump lie during this town hall. He couldn't even keep the number of "deleted e-mails" straight.

When it got to the part where Trump went off on his taxes "Oh I pay millions in taxes" I was thisclose to dropping every F-bomb I had and punching out the walls. It was either that or walking out of the watch party in a rage.

So for that, I apologize to my fellow watchers.

It was just... GOD DAMN TRUMP.

Here's the biggest takeaway I got from last night:

If he's elected, Trump is going to jail Hillary. He openly declared this on the debate floor. I think this is a first in all of American History. Granted, we haven't had many years of head-to-head debates - we really started with Nixon vs. JFK in 1960, and didn't make these debates official until 1976 - but I can't recall in my studies ANY other Presidential candidate threatening to arrest his political opponents as a campaign pledge.

That's something dictators do. That's not at all representative of the Democracy Experience we're supposed to be displaying to the world.

Damn Trump. And Damn US if enough of us voters back this con artist into the White House. We're getting every warning red flag possible about the damage Trump can do if he's in power, and he's STILL getting 40 percent support?!

/ragequit

Just Keep Digging That Hole, Republicans

This whole day Saturday was spent rooting for college football teams to win or lose according to the Grand Design of the Football gods. It was also a day where the Republican Party attempted damage control over yesterday's bombshell about Trump getting caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women. Per the Washington Post:

The fallout from the tape published by The Washington Post - in which Trump bragged in obscene language about forcing himself on women sexually - threatens to endanger the party’s hold on both houses of Congress in addition to the White House, which many Republicans now fear is lost. The episode also comes ahead of Sunday’s second presidential debate in St. Louis, which was already a crucial moment but could determine how widely the damage spreads.

When it comes to Trump, the Republicans have nowhere to go but down.

They can't force Trump off the ticket. For one thing, the voting has already started with some states, and with absentee ballots already being shipped. Their calls for him to step down will never happen: Trump's entire existence has been defending his name (tm), and doing that would admit failure. Any attempt to block him on the ballot will be a useless gesture. Rumors of trying to get his Veep candidate Pence to quit the ticket in shame can easily backfire on everybody but Trump...

In that regards, the party's stuck. Any move now against Trump - the GOP is risking even this just by chastising Trump for his sexist behavior -  would piss off the 40 percent of the Far Right voting base supporting Trump no matter what, and they'll take their revenge by voting JUST for Trump and then no other Republican candidates on the other races. Even just a two percent drop in Republican turnout in certain states can ruin the GOP chances of retaining the Senate. ANY attempt to alienate, isolate, quarantine, or deny Trump is going to hurt the down-ballot races... even though the party can still suffer in those down-ballot races just by the association to Trump. In this regards the party is dreading the congressional and state-level results: they're either going to lose their mainstream voters who will refuse to show up for Trump, or their going to lose their wingnut voters who will only show up for Trump.

They can't stop Trump from campaigning. This is a guy who lives for the cameras and the mobs and the attention. And like it or not, he is going to speak his mind, whatever twisted thoughts are going to bounce around that self-indulging brain of his. The possibility of Trump uttering more offensive statements is high: the likelihood he's going to attack Hillary by way of attacking Bill's infidelities is close to 100 percent now. And the Republican party has to know that Hillary is waiting for that attack: it's been building since the 1990s, and she's bound to have mastered the response since 2008 during her first attempted run at the Presidency. Any attack Trump thinks he can pull off is going to turn out badly, because Hillary (and Bill, and the Dems) have a way of coming out of that scandal more popular than before...

All the Republicans have left right now is taking their lumps from the beat-down they know is coming: Women voters across ethnic lines have to be refusing any support for Trump and the GOP right about now. And never forget this bit: Women voters turn up in greater numbers than men. It's a voting bloc you're NOT supposed to insult or deny. And yet the Republicans keep doing that over (Akin's attitude towards rape) and over (Limbaugh slut-shaming Sandra Fluke over birth control), and Trump is just the latest nightmare for women.

Yet I wouldn't be surprised if the Republican elites - within the party and within their chummy circle of friends of the Beltway media - are going to tell themselves this election cycle was just an aberration, that Trump ruined what was supposed to be a "change" election, that all they have to do is regroup for 2018 midterms like they've done in 2010 and 2014, that they can find a savior candidate for 2020...

Just keep digging that hole, Republicans. Just keep ignoring the fact that your party base only wants assholes - racist and sexist - for candidates, and that your candidates are more than obliging to fit that role. Just keep ignoring the fact that it's not 1985 anymore and your tax-cut trickle-down bullshit doesn't sell, that your anti-abortion anti-birth control anti-women's health outrage is too extreme for most Americans, that your hopes for another Reagan to rise from the ashes of your disasters are foolish and futile.

Helping Haiti

I'm gonna try to end this day on a positive note:

Trying to get aid sent to Haiti. That poor country has been devastated by Hurricane Matthew, and still hasn't fully recovered from their earthquake and other natural disasters over the decades...

United Way has a charity going you can contribute to if you want. Operation Helping Hands. Thank you.

Vulgar

There is no other word to describe this:

Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone — saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it” — according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.

The video captures Trump talking with Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” on a bus with Access Hollywood written across the side. They were arriving on the set of “Days of Our Lives” to tape a segment about Trump’s upcoming cameo on the soap opera.

It's this bad:

“I’ve gotta use some tic-tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says.“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful -- I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.

“Grab them by the p-ssy,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

Trump is basically claiming acts of sexual assault. Any woman he wants.

Another part of the interview is him talking about how he tried this on a married woman he talked into going with him for "furniture shopping". His words:

“I did try and f-ck her. She was married,” Trump says. (Note that Trump had just married his third wife Melania three months before this interview)

Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

We've known for some time Trump is lewd towards women - the number of stories about women fleeing from him in tears have been out there for decades - but this is in his own words. His own honest-to-God view of women as his objects of lust and acquisition.

He talks in the language of the rapist. Uncaring. Self-absolving. Everything justified because he's a "star" and he can do anything.

How is this abomination of a lifeform even allowed to go out in public to meet people?

I have friends who have endured sexual assaults, unwelcomed advances, moments even in public where guys attack them in variations of what Trump brags about doing (please note: TRUMP IS BRAGGING ABOUT THIS). As a guy who will never have to go through this hell, the best I can do is understand the pain my friends go through every time this shit happens to them, all because there are other guys out there who are sexual predator assholes who don't give a fuck about how women actually feel.

Update: Ezra Klein over at Vox.com pretty much sums up what is wrong with US, with America, allowing this inhuman shitgibbon to even come with 100 miles of being President:

He has done all this in public, and he has done all of it repeatedly, almost gleefully. If we elect him, there will be no excusing our actions to future generations, no pleading ignorance in the face of threat. It was all here. It was all obvious. It will all be visible to our children, and to historians.

Trump told us who he was, showed us who he was, again and again. The test here is not of his decency, but of our own.

What. The. Hell. America.

Any of you think of voting Trump, there is no excuse. None. Not party fidelity. Not your hatred of Hillary or Bill (neither of whom were ever this bad, even Bill despite his own sexual arrogance was more charmer than predator). Not the issues he stands for, which are racist and idiotic on their own terms.

A vote for Trump is a vote for vile vulgarity. It is a vote against every woman who ever lived. It is a vote against every kind and decent thing any American has ever done for others.

Damn you forever if you vote for THAT.

Links Page

Well, after losing my Links app over on the right-side of this blog, I decided SCREW IT and created a new page to Tab at the top here.

So if you wanna see what other blogs I read, click the Links tab and check it out!

...also, click my Writings Tab and please please please buy my books! Help a writer/blogger out a little... ;-)

Just What Is Going On In the Georgia Legal System?

I'm not talking about anything like corruption or denial of basic civil liberties or stuff - although that likely is happening somewhere in the Peach State - I'm talking about the crazy-ass criminals and the judges going crazy on the bench.

Seems there was a shouting match a few months ago between a crazy-ass defendant - already in jail awaiting trial and freshly accused of committing murder while behind bars - who thought he was his own best lawyer (even Stephen King notes when you do that you "have a fool for a client") trying to throw every legal idea he'd picked up from Law & Order re-runs at the judge to see what would stick. When the presiding judge started to shoot him down, the defendant went nuclear, going off on a profane, crosses-the-line-times-infinity rant that would be epic in its own right. Except that the judge flips out over losing control of his courtroom, and sinks down into the mud pit to make things even more twisted.

While the judge did get reprimanded (the jurist did get homophobic there), the transcript of the breakdown became an Internet viral sensation, so much so that a twisted cult Adult Swim cartoon Rick And Morty (think Back to the Future but where Doc and Marty were psychotic dicks) went and made a straight-up animated version of the meltdown.

There should be an easy YouTube of it to embed here:

Good Lord. This is more disturbing than that Florida Woman who tried to warp all of reality to get out of a Georgia trial last year... Remember her?

I think Florida is starting to rub off on our neighboring states in the worst way.

Couldn't Stand the Weather

So here I am facing the oncoming storm of Hurricane Matthew, hunkering down while my library closes tomorrow with hope that the damage in central Florida is minimal and that things will be normal by Saturday.

And here's Rude Pundit yelling and screaming because Matt Drudge - one of the founding members of the Far Right Noise Machine from the 1990s - is being an idiot about hurricanes:

Because, see, in his Twitter feed and on his website of the godforsaken, Drudge has said that the National Hurricane Center is hyping Matthew and lying about wind speed because they want to "make exaggerated point on climate" change. He has also declared that the winds in Haiti weren't as intense as reported so we shouldn't be as worried because, apparently, meteorologists get off on gridlock and panicked people, I guess...

Drudge's original Tweet:

Here's what Drudge is selling. The Far Right has long accused the scientists pushing a political agenda - a Communist-inspired New-World-Order - to hurt our energy producers by going after the negative effects carbon-based pollution has on our global climate. Rather than accept the slight possibility that 98 percent of scientists who study and research this stuff are actually freaking out that our planet is artificially heating up into a civilization-ending extinction-level event, the media elites of the Far Right alongside the Republican party leadership try to convince enough people that global warming is a myth and that every warning of environmental disaster is exaggerated or worse.

The reason there's a controversy over Climate Change is because the Far Right WANTS the controversy. Any settled acceptance of this fact would destroy one of the key elements of their precious Conservative Narrative.

Ergo, the strength and destructiveness of hurricanes has to be downplayed or mocked: Any proof that the weather is becoming more extreme due to the temperature shifts would ruin the Far Right wingnuts.

Apparently, the Weather Channel is now part of the Vast Liberal Conspiracy alongside NASA, NOAA, Al Gore, and pretty much anybody with a degree in Meteorology, Environmental Sciences, or (insert most college degrees here).

Worse, we got idiots claiming Obama controls the weather.

NO, YOU MORONS, THAT WAS DESTRO. /headdesk

In the meantime, if Drudge questions the strength of Hurricane Matthew, he's more than welcome to head out to West Palm Beach and stand on US A1A along the beaches and measure that storm surge himself. See what results he gets.

Florida 2016 General Election Ballot: The Reckoning

Update: by the by, if you try to leave a Comment below there are some rules. 1) Be respectful of other people leaving comments. If you wanna insult ME, fine. I went to Tarpon Springs Middle School, I've heard worse (and in Greek); 2) If you're going to leave insults, be honest and put your name to it. Anybody hiding behind an Anonymous login and trying to sh-t on me or anybody else gets those comments blocked. Have the balls to sign your work, people.

Revision to the Update (10/22): The stat tracker for the blogsite is telling me traffic on this article is coming in from a lot of new places. So to the viewers from China, Germany, France, Brazil, and this small dot in the middle of Central America, I wanna say to you "Hola" and/or "Opa" however that works, oh and uh please buy my books...! (quick, what's Chinese for "ow stop hitting me"?)
P.S. Where's Japan? I'm missing Japan. I got a sh-t ton of readers from Japan back in 2014's ballot article... :(

Addendum to the Revision of the Update (10/27): For Polk County residents only, I missed a half-penny tax Referendum. It's to help fund health care for indigent (poor) residents in the county, which covers a lot of disabled, elderly, and kids. It's a 25-year extension of an existing half-penny tax, so it's not like this will become an additional burden. It's geared towards those who need it the most, and it's not even a full penny on what you're buying anyway. I'd vote YES.

Just to note that we're pretty much a month away from arguably the most important general election our nation has faced since 1932.

So it's about time for the sample ballots for the various election boards - in Florida, that's at the County level - to show up.

Here's the one for where I live in Polk County.

If we go from top to bottom, both sides of the ballot (DON'T FORGET THAT, PEOPLE), we need to vote for:

PRESIDENT

You can argue about the merits of the Third Party choices or even the Write-In blank line, but this all boils down to two choices:

Republican candidate Donald Trump (and running mate Mike Pence) or Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton (and running mate Tim Kaine).

I think I have spelled out on multiple occasions why you SHOULD NOT EVER vote for Trump. I should point out the positive reasons for voting for Hillary - A) she's not Trump, B) she's experienced as a Senator and Secretary of State, C) SHE'S NOT TRUMP, D) many of the "scandals" pinned to her are exaggerated fabrications of a Far Right mudslinging operation that's been in play since 1992(!) that's right 25 years of this shit and her enemies still haven't charged her for any of the crimes she's been accused of which should tell you how fake they are, and E) what part of DEAR JESUS PLEASE DON'T VOTE FOR THAT DAMN CON ARTIST TRUMP are you not getting?

Look, if you think you have valid reasons for voting for Trump, I doubt I will dissuade you. But just remember that you're getting all the bad shit with Trump including the open racism, the open sexism, the outright bad business deals, the lack of empathy, his inability to respect others, his gleeful disdain for our foreign allies, and his utter ignorance. Even one of those bad traits should disqualify him for Pasco Mosquito Control Board, for God's sake.

Against all of that, whatever sins you think of Hillary - and those sins, again, are mostly false accusations from those who profit by railing against her - they are nothing compared to the sins of Donald Trump.

Just please, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, for the sake of the entire universe, Do Not Vote Trump. If you're voting Hillary like me, fine. If you're voting Johnson or Stein, fine. If you're writing in Beyonce on the Write-In line (she qualifies as 35 years old by Inauguration Day), fine. Just Please Do Not Vote Trump.

SENATOR

Here in Florida the race has a lot of candidates but again it boils down to the two major party choices:

Republican Marco Rubio vs. Democrat Pat Murphy.

The polling here is actually painful for me because Rubio is polling well. This is in spite of the fact that Rubio has the worst attendance record of any current Senator. He has no voting record or successful agenda to call his own. His disdain for the job is a matter of public record. The guy has a bad history of using Other People's Money via credit card abuses. And yet he's really only running for re-election because it boosts his hopes for a 2020 Presidential run.

If you have to vote for Murphy, it's because he'll most likely serve as a middle-of-the-road, maybe-Left-leaning Democrat along the lines of sitting Senator Bill Nelson. Murphy's biggest scandal to date is an embellished resume that doesn't help him win over undecided voters.

I have to admit this is a case - moreso than the President race because there I have respect for Hillary and am voting for her for positive reasons - where I am voting more AGAINST Rubio than voting FOR Murphy. But that's how this one rolls for me.

I'm just basically doing what I can to end Republican control of the Senate because A) they have been disastrous running both houses of Congress, B) their blocking of legitimate SCOTUS nominee Garland is an offense to the Constitution and the nation at large, C) their disdain for effective foreign policy handling during Obama's tenure deserves the greatest rebuke possible.

CONGRESS

I think I've shown a bias for Democrats and against Republicans, and I'll give you three good reasons:

1) They're incompetent idiots;
2) They're obstructionist idiots;
3) They really need to answer for their idiocy.

So, wherever you are if it's in Florida or even outside of this state or even voting overseas with absentee ballots for your primary homestead back here stateside, just do us all a favor and don't vote Republican. Just don't.

For me, that's District 17 (I think). That makes it a choice between Republican Tom Rooney, Democrat April Freeman, and Independent John Sawyer. Just to note Rooney is descended from the owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers so as a Bucs fan I oppose him on that principle, but he's also someone who openly attacked people without direct evidence for questionable associations with Middle East groups. I am seriously opposing him for that. So I'm voting for April Freeman, who's campaigning on the standard Democratic platform of improving education, improving veteran care, and protecting Social Security.

As for the rest of you across the state, if you're in District 13 PLEASE VOTE CRIST. If you're in District 12, just kick Gus Bilirakis out, damn bastard has been sitting there for ages and took over from his dad from the 1980s and 1990s, so screw that whole dynastic thing. I mean, c'mon people, bring some fresh blood and ideas into the office once in awhile... Basically for all 27 Congressional districts, no Republicans. Flush 'em out. Thank you.

STATE LEGISLATURE

Yeah, still saying PLEASE DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN at any level. The Party just needs to burn itself down without taking the rest of us with it.

COUNTY COMMISSIONER

Yeah, it's partisan elections at this level as well. Again, depending on your county here in Florida or in other states, just... honestly, unless the Democrat is a total crook legitimately worse than the Republican - I'm talking where the Democrat is an outright horse thief and the Republican is a pro-choice Presbyterian schoolteacher who volunteers at the local dog shelter to raise puppies - okay just don't vote Republican. So here in Polk County there's a vote for County Commissioner District 5, with Democrat Carol Castagnero to support.

JUSTICE / DISTRICT RETENTION

Here in Florida we vote to retain the State Court Justices and the Appellate district judges with a simple Yes/No. For the most part this is uncontroversial stuff unless there's a judge who's been acting improper to the point of disbarment, and that's been rare. The only time in my recent memory where this was an issue was when Rick "No Ethics" Scott tried to actively campaign on the removal of sitting Justices so he could then appoint his cronies as replacements. It was so out-of-norm that the Florida Bar openly campaigned for the judges for the first time ever, and thankfully the Justices were retained. On that matter, with Scott still sitting as Governor, we DARE NOT vote any Justices out. On the bright side I haven't heard of any of the judges needing removal, so that's all good. So vote YES across the board on retaining the judges.

SHERIFF

Here in Polk County, there's just one name running - Grady Judd. You might know him from some of the nation's more high-profile ethical dilemmas of cop shootings - where he defended the killing of a cop killer by noting "that's all the bullets we had" - but he's also one of those county sheriffs who plays to the media for all its worth. The locals find him "colorful." He's not as bad as some of the other show-off sheriffs in the country, but you gotta worry... There's a write-in spot I think, but let's face it Judd's not going anywhere.

SCHOOL BOARD

This is where people need to pay more attention. It affects us at the local level and these positions have a lot of power over our kids and families in terms of delivering improvement to our educational needs.

On my ballot there's two seats open, District 1 and District 4. Regarding District 1, the race is between incumbent Hunt Berryman and Billy Townsend. Townsend is with a local activist group that from what I'm reading is pushing for genuine reforms. I'm leaning on giving Townsend a chance at the office since Berryman's tenure has not produced results. For District 4, the choices are Becky Troutman and Sara Reynolds. I'm looking at their respective biographies and while I'm a little concerned about their political ties, at least Troutman has some teaching experience in special education that makes me think she'll be more sympathetic to related issues.

POLK SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION

This is an elected position, and the nominees are William "Bill" DeHart and Brian Dockery. There's very little online or in the news about either person, which is a bit troubling. I am finding DeHart's name associated with previous Soil and Water board elections which may make him an incumbent. Thing is, what I'm reading is that the board is non-salaried with little or no authority, and was facing elimination by the state because it hadn't met in years (!) so I'm not even sure if this will have any effect on our region's environmental needs. For the heck of it, I'll probably vote for DeHart.

STATE AMENDMENTS

Been there, covered it. Basically, VOTE YES ON 2 for Medical Marijuana, VOTE NO ON 1 against the Energy Corporation Monopoly on Solar Power, and vote your conscience on the tax exemptions for items 3 and 5.

And for those of you who pine for any word on the PASCO COUNTY MOSQUITO CONTROL BOARD, here's what I got:

There's two districts, with Seat 1 contested by Sandra "Sandy" Applefield and Jerry Wells and Seat 3 contested by Shanon Holm and Gary "Buck" Joiner. I miss seeing the "Skeeter" guy running, unless he's already on one of the other seats. Anyway, Joiner's got a scandal wrapped around his reputation so there's that. His opponent Holm has been a regular campaigner for a seat on the board, but his rep as a fiscal conservative makes me worry he's going to shred an otherwise small-budget office. The final thing here is how Mike Fasano - local Republican political boss and actually a guy I've met several times and yes he's one of the few Republicans I respect - is leaning towards Joiner... so I kinda gotta go with Fasano's suggestion. As for Seat 1, Applefield is the incumbent and Wells I think has run earlier challenges. I'm not finding anything about either candidate otherwsie. Unless somebody knows of any scandalous behavior with the sitting board members - like say they allied themselves WITH the mosquitoes to destroy Port Richey or something - I don't see the harm in keeping Applefield in office.

---
So, that's what I got, Floridians. Basically, NO REPUBLICANS from Trump on down to County Commissioners. YES Hillary if you're so inclined, just NO TRUMP ever. YES Murphy if you're so inclined, just NO "No-Show" RUBIO. YES on Crist if you're in that district. YES on Freeman if you're in my district. Suck it Yoho, and suck it Bilirakis. Vote YES on all the judges. Vote for reformists at the School Board elections if you can find them. Vote NO ON 1 and VOTE YES ON 2. Look both ways before crossing the street. Don't run around the house with scissors in your hand. Don't tug on Superman's cape, don't spit into... what?

Just Saying, We Don't Need a Veep Anymore. Maybe a Senate Consul Would Do.

I came across this article today, and it was on a topic that has pushed my reformist mindset from time to time.

It was about how we go about choosing and voting for Vice Presidents all wrong. From Jeff Stein at Vox.com:

...But the way America chooses its vice presidents seems to give little weight to the gravity of the role. Presidential candidates pick their number two during the heat of a campaign, and the VPs often represent some short-term electoral interest far more than readiness for the job. As was very much the case this year, questions about the VP are far more likely to center on their impact on a swing state or on solidifying a crucial voting bloc than about experience and presidential mettle.

Stein goes into some of the same arguments I have about getting rid of the Vice Presidential pick altogether. He digs into the biggest problem of having a Vice President on the ticket: the Veep is chosen more for political or partisan considerations rather than actual competency. Stein mentions the biggest culprits in our history revolving around this: Andrew Johnson who was chosen to balance Lincoln's desire in 1864 to have a Southerner on the ticket to show a Unionist front (who ended up destroying any chance of a clean Reconstruction and led to 100-plus years of Jim Crow horrors); Sarah Palin who was chosen by McCain to energize support among the Republican faithful (and to try and coax more women voters away from Obama); and Chester A. Arthur who was chosen to bridge a divided Republican party between reformers and pro-Spoils factions (to be fair, Arthur responded to the crisis that brought him to office in 1881 by becoming a competent reformer himself).

As Stein notes: "(The) argument here isn’t just that an unqualified VP could become president despite not enjoying the support of much of the country. It’s that we explicitly look to vice presidents to complement the ideological profiles of the nominees, thereby intentionally inserting confusion into our government that could, potentially, be avoided under a different system."

Stein also points out that the current method of selection - that the President nominates the Vice President with little or no approval from the voters (the conventions are pretty much rubber-stamps now) - is relatively undemocratic.

His suggested reform - to have the President nominate the Vice President similar to a Cabinet position to have the Senate assent and vote - has its own troubling issues (would be impossible to implement if the Senate is held by the opposing party) that would stop it from working.

Vox doesn't seem to have a Comments section - in this day and age, that's not surprising - so I had to hunt down Stein's Twitter account and send him my suggested reform idea his way.

If you'll recall, I point out that the Vice President has a Constitutional role other than being the Backup QB: the Veep is also appointed the "President" of the Senate and serves as its official tie-breaker (due to the even-numbered seating the rules require). Making this position also the underling to the President was a trade-off with the original idea of balancing the winner of the Presidential contest with giving the runner-up a near-equal seat in government. That changed when the Winner/Runner-Up idea conflicted with the rise of parties and the need to run party tickets, and with the creation of the 12th Amendment.

They need to go back to the idea of the Senate leader (The current Vice President) being a separate electoral office. Instead of the Senate President be the runner-up in the Real President election as the Founders originally did - and instead of the current ticket-balancer the seat is now - hold a separate national election for the Senate President seat. To avoid confusion, rename the position as something from the Roman Republic past that our Founders drew inspiration from: call it the Senate Consul seat or something like it.

This way, the parties can run an individual candidate for the White House and an individual candidate for the Senate Consul chair, and not have to muck about with ticket balancing or partisan concerns. Easy and done.

Where the current role of Presidential Succession is filled by the Veep in the 25th Amendment, we can switch in the Senate Consul holder and nothing really changes. The only difference (and problem) is that the Consul could well be from an opposing party than the President's. But we already run that risk with the Second-in-line Speaker of the House, and it can be avoided if the national-level party factions can run successful co-campaigns (that is, if the Consul election is the same cycle as the President's).

There are valid arguments against this move, I know, but I think this is more viable than the current situation we've got now.

It would have avoided the whole damaging mess of Dick Cheney (can you picture him winning a national election on his own terms? Nope). That's all I'm saying.

What do you think, sirs?

The Two Certain Things In Life: Trump Being a Con Artist and Taxes.

So the New York Times received an envelope mailed from Barad-dur Trump Tower itself, and they apparently took the time to get the papers inside that envelope vetted, and last night they released what their Sunday paper was going with on the front page:

Trump Tax Records Obtained by The Times Reveal He Could Have Avoided Paying Taxes for Nearly Two Decades

Remember the constant drum beats from Democrats, critics, certain media pundits, and pretty much most Americans that Trump should publicly release his tax records the way most candidates have done since 1968?

Remember how Trump kept throwing up excuse after excuse after lie?

"Oh, I'm being audited, rules say I can't release while I'm audited." IRS says nuh-uh, nothing stopped him from that obligation.

"It's meaningless, I'm rich, believe me." Reagan taught us to Trust But Verify, Ferret-hair.

"Oh, you won't like what you see so I just won't release them." ...Well, that turned out to be right.

Just the brief taste of revelation we're getting here - a set of state-level returns documenting the fallout of Trump's disasters in the early 1990s - is enough to raise more red flags than a mailbox vendor convention:

The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period...

I don't who this is worse for: Trump, or the state and federal governments whose tax laws allow a massive black hole like $916 MILLION IN LOSSES turn into a decades-long benefit for uber-rich people. I doubt that kind of loss for a middle-income small-business owner would turn into 18 years of write-offs.

Just remember: The NYTimes reportedly has more tax returns in their possession. They just needed to release this one first because all the following tax papers require this context.

Aside from the schadenfreude of guessing just who within Trump Tower itself has betrayed their master,* this brings up a set of troubling facts:

1) This revelation demonstrates once again that the current tax code benefits the wealthy over the rest of us. The tax breaks Trump is qualifying for - even with his massive financial disasters - are simply unavailable to lesser incomes,

2) This one tax return is showing massive losses close to A BILLION DOLLARS. Given Trump's obvious habits of bankruptcies, failures, sinkholes, money pits, shell games, and additional screw-ups, how bad are the other years' returns?

3) We've had Trump running around this Presidential campaign cycle claiming he's worth $10 Billion. Yet this one tax return suggests he's lost hundreds of millions before with little evidence he's been able to reclaim any of that back (the reports of him living entirely off credit and Other's People Money become more obvious by the minute). Either he's really not worth billions of dollars - in which case he's clearly lying to EVERYBODY from the Beltway pundits to the American voters - or he's falsely reporting lost earnings to the tax collection agencies in order to scam them on the benefits of reporting these "losses". Either way, he's committing FRAUD.

This is Trump, aiming for the hat trick of stupidity, scamming, and self-aggrandizement.

Never one to apologize or admit a mistake of this scale, Trump's response to this has been to accuse the leak of being illegal and then argue via Tweet that "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them."

Of course he knows those complex tax laws, he's been playing them like the con artist he is turning billion-dollar losses into fool's gold. But there's no way this con artist is going to fix a rigged game that benefits himself. His own tax cut proposals - killing the estate tax entirely, dropping the upper income rates to their lowest at 33 percent, and reducing corporation tax rates to an insane 15 percent - are proof of that.

I wouldn't trust Trump on taxes simply because he doesn't value them at all. He's clearly gaming the system to avoid paying as much of it as possible, and when confronted on his avoidance he smugly claims "that makes me smart."

No, Donald, that makes you a tax-dodging tiny-fingered Cheeto-faced ferret-wearing shitgibbon. And Americans DO NOT TAKE KINDLY TO TAX DODGERS.

* Personally, I got money on an elite team of high-tech accountants who performed the Heist of the Century (well, until the Wu Tang Clan and Bill Murray team up to steal their album back from PharmaBro).

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY LINKS MENUS

So I'm posting a morning blog about my broken bicycle and begging for funding to fix, and I notice my Links tabs over on the right are ALL GONE.

WHO THE HELL MESSED WITH MAH BLOG?

...

This is more serious than whoever leaked Trump's 1996 tax returns.

I will have my revenge.

In the meantime, can someone remind me how many freaking other sites I've been linking to?!

Update: know what? I'll just create a Tab for a page of Links. Should be easier to do.

Help a Blogger Out With His Bicycle

So I was cycling this morning for my exercise when the seat broke.

Yes, I am that much of a fatass. I *am* losing weight, though.

It's just now I can't do it with my bicycle. The seat needs replacing and the frame probably needs checking to make sure it didn't bend when I fell off into the mud.

So here I am, hat in hand, asking if the 8 regular readers of this blog might know about 50,000 people or so who can pass around the donation plate so I can afford finding Bicycle Repairman to fix my ride.

There's a PayPal button to the right, and any help would be most appreciated.

If you're very kind, you can visit my Writings tab and see what stories and books are on the market and then any purchases will lead to some earnings that will help with the bills.

Also wik, gotta get prepared for the upcoming annual NaNoWriMo, so to anybody out there joining in on the novel writing efforts, good luck!