Top Ten Reasons To NOT Vote For Trump

This may be an obvious concern, and this may be repeated on a thousand other political blogs over the next six months, and this may upset David Letterman's lawyers to where I'll get a cease-and-desist, but dammit attention must be paid.

TOP TEN REASONS TO NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP

10) Trump is the first official nominee of a major political party lacking public office experience of any kind.

This is really a key component we need in a President: experience or understanding of how the Public Sector - not just how a government works but also the Responsibility to the Civic Trust - operates.

We are talking about experience with elected, nominated, or civil service offices. It's not only nominees that won elected office to the House or Senate or a Governorship, but also those who only served in the Cabinet - Hoover - or in the military - Taylor, Grant, Eisenhower (Washington served in the Virginia colonial Assembly, that counts as a legislative role) - or in the judiciary - Taft, who was an appellate judge before called into the Executive branch as a Cabinet Secretary - or in the civil service - Arthur, as Port-master of New York. And these are the ones who actually served as President.

There are very few - losing - candidates for the White House I can find in the history books who lacked experience in the public sector this way. Wendell Willkie comes close, but he had years of political activism - with far greater understanding than Trump has shown - that made him a major player in political circles. Horace Greeley, whom I remembered primarily as a newspaper editor, had served a term of office as a House Representative, so he had elective experience. Nearly every other person who's run on a party platform for President has experience in the public sector. Trump's the only one who does not.

Just on this point alone, we should not be voting for Trump as President. If this were for a lesser office, it wouldn't be an issue. But the Presidency of the United States is the highest office in the land, one that demands exacting awareness of the mechanisms of public administration. Experience may not be a Constitutional requirement, but it's one the voters should require of their choices for the most powerful office in the land.

9) Trump fails to understand how government budgets work.

Although this is a shared failing among other Republicans, whose budget proposals since 2001 fall along the lines of "wishful thinking" that involves clapping your hands for the Tax Cut Fairy to grant us budget surpluses instead of the massive deficits they really incur. Trump's budget plan falls into the same trap of slashing taxes on the rich, slashing spending for the poor, and slashing regulations that are supposed to keep all of us healthy and breathing.

8) Trump fails to understand how government debt works.

Trump thinks he can get the creditors holding our nation's enormous public debt to take "discounts" as though this were all in yet another Bankruptcy Court where deals like this could get made. Never mind the shock to the global economy that would cause, for interest rates to go up for all the wrong reasons, and other calamities. The immediate comparison I've seen online has been Argentina. Just multiply that by the size of the U.S. economy and you might get a clue how BAD this idea is.

The whole concept of "full faith and credit" seems to elude him.

7) Trump fails to understand, period.

There's a phrase I remember describing George W. Bush as "incurious". It came up often during 2005 and 2006 when the failures of his administration were more obvious by the day. What got out, was commonly understood among observers, was that Bush the Lesser was unconcerned or unwilling to comprehend events that unfolded under his watch: That the importance of policy decisions he had to make as President slipped past him without thought.

Trump gets the same comparisons: that when it comes to policy, Trump doesn't really care. He'll care enough to make public statements, some half-assed one-liner that will get him in front of cameras, but that will be it. He will bluff his way through talk about "the issues" and all he will do is claim that he'll "be great at" fixing that issue. And the issues he has given specific thoughts - immigration, trade - the answers he's given are rooted in insane policy positions - Building a wall! Deporting millions of people! Boycott and Bully China! - that fail to comprehend the sheer size of the problem he's going to create.

This may fall under the "Presidential Inexperience" criticism, but this is something that seems to cover nearly every issue out there, every aspect of social and religious and cultural and technical concepts that requires at least a modicum of understanding. If you think it was hard to picture Bush the Elder marveling at a grocery store barcode scanner back in the 1990s - which was a relatively new tech at the time and something Bush hadn't dealt with in-person for years - that's nothing compared to the level of ignorance Trump is going to bring to the office.

Shorter answer: If it's something that doesn't personally benefit himself, Trump won't care.

6) Trump's bankruptcies.

How many ways are we supposed to buy this swill that Trump is a successful businessman when he's in Bankruptcy court more times than we've had hot dinners?

And this is so open a flaw that it's one of the first things people attack Trump with. It's not ranked as high because it's become almost blase, we're desensitized to the horror of this outright failure at business claiming his great successes...

5) Trump's open hostility to those not like himself.

When it comes to women, when it comes to Hispanics, when it comes to Blacks, when it comes to Asians, when it comes to people who aren't in the business community, you are not welcome to Trump's World.

4) Trump's lying is at a level we haven't seen since the heady days of Tricky Dick.

It is a partisan reaction to accuse those opposite your viewpoints of being liars, but in Trump's case there's documented evidence. Tons of it, going back decades.

PolitiFact is a website that tracks public officials' statements and grades them according to research and factual data. "Pants on Fire" is for the outlandish comments crashing against every factual point that can be argued. Trump already has two pages worth of "Pants on Fire" with about a year of campaigning (Obama by comparison has one page... out of eight-plus years of public statements). In terms of lies and half-truths and misstatements, Trump leads the pack.

3) Trump's foreign policy agenda is a toxic mix of isolationism and interventionism that can alienate our allies, embolden our adversaries, and weaken international relationships into utter chaos.

No exaggeration. As Vox's Zack Beauchamp notes:

But it's not just ethos — it's also what he proposes to do to many countries, particularly American allies. Trump's actual foreign policy vision represents a fundamental break with decades of American foreign policy. Given that a lot of American allies depend on those very decades-old policies for their own security, Trump's rise is more than just cartoonish.

For them, it's legitimately terrifying.

2) Trump killed an entire sports league.

This isn't even funny. He bought ownership of a team in the USFL league, a fledgling rival to the National Football League in the 1980s that showed potential as a spring-time football program, and promptly talked most of the other USFL owners into a suicidal schedule shift to the fall as well as filing a massive anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL. Word has it Trump was hoping the lawsuit would force the larger league to merge like they did with the AFL back in the 1960s, and allow him to become part of one of the most exclusive rich people's clubs in the nation.

The jury came back with a finding that while the NFL was a monopoly when it came to television deals and market control, they also found that the USFL's problems were more to their own mismanagement and suicidal move to that fall schedule. Trump's own game-plan wounded their court case, and the jury found at the lowest value they could issue: $1.00 which was tripled under anti-trust rules to $3.00. After a round of appeals, the value of the win was appraised up to $3.76. The check - kept in the property of Steve Ehrhart the last USFL officer standing - has never been cashed (ironically it is worth millions as a collectible: Ehrhart hopes someday for the Football Hall of Fame to display it).

It is telling that for all of the supposed billions of dollars in Trump's finances,  NONE of the major sports leagues - football, baseball, basketball, hockey - want anything to do with Trump. There have been New York/New Jersey teams up for sale over the decades, and Trump has been blocked from every one...

For all the points I list here, this is the most personal. I am a Tampa Bay Bandits fan who will never forget nor forgive.

1) Trump is a Narcissist.

In short: This is all about him.

Let's go to the experts at the Mayo Clinic, who refer to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V) to classify the signs of having a Narcissistic disorder (this was all edited into Mayo's website in 2014):

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
• Requiring constant admiration
• Having a sense of entitlement
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

I added links to each sign of that personality to give context and background. Dear God. Trump fits this description to a T (which stands for TRUMP).

Why is having a Narcissist in the White House a terribly bad idea, and deserving of the top reason to NEVER vote Trump?

After all, we've had ego-driven men become President before: it takes large ambition to fill a large role.

But we've never had anyone as self-absorbed to this scale over success and superiority get this close to the Oval Office. And we're talking about a list that includes self-absorbed bullying egomaniacs like Nixon - who obsessed over his failings and need to prove himself against adversity - and Lyndon B. Johnson - who obsessed over his failings and need to win at deals - and Andrew Jackson - who obsessed over every slight and insult and need to dominate his opponents.

It's a personality trait that is toxic for a job title that is supposed to represent the entire United States. The President is more than just one man (or woman): The President is supposed to stand for every American citizen of every age and every gender and every skin color. The President speaks FOR us as much as speaks to us. On the world stage, the President is our proxy.

Trump won't care about that. He's made it clear on numerous occasions that he only views the population as his consumer market, his fawning lackeys, his useful stooges. He's shown open disdain for his own voters, and open contempt for everyone else.

He's made it perfectly clear that if he ever gets into the Oval Office, Trump is only there to serve himself.

On any one of these issues, it'd be enough to do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the White House and away from the office of the President of the United States.

For the Love of God. I am not being funny or flippant. Don't Vote Trump.

It's CINCO DE MAYO Again!

And this 2016 could prove the most bittersweet...

Artist Ted Rall, posted via Forbes.com

Could this be our last reason to celebrate the Battle of Puebla, Mexico's defiant stand against an invading French force?

Could this be the last time we make the f0cking Chimichangas?

Could this be the last time we celebrate Mexican-American and indeed Latino heritage in the United States of America?

Could this be the last time we can fantasize about Salma Hayek?

...

NEVER!

SAVE CINCO DE MAYO!

Stop Trump from ruining one of the great made-up holidays in the United States!

UPDATE: Pinku-Sensei has the margaritas over at his blog! PREPARE THE CHIMICHANGAS!

FOLLOW-UP TO THE UPDATE: There is an ungodly image of Trump trying to eat a taco salad in his office claiming he's all up for Cinco De Mayo and that his restaurant grill in the building serves them all the time. No. Just... No. That is not how you impress Hispanics. That's how you make them watch the movie Machete over and over again in a growing rage...

Anniversary: Ten Years Gone

It kept slipping my mind until just now:

I have officially been blogging like a madmen for ten straight years.

I started a blog - back when this was Blogspot - on May 4, 2006 for several reasons:

• As a librarian I need to learn the blogging methods to teach instructional classes to the public about it.
• I had a background in journalism and a hobby/interest in creative writing.
• I was curious.
• I had political issues to discuss.

Originally this blog was going to be a serious, academic focus on the need for Constitutional reforms: our system of checks and balances were inadequate to the demands of the 21st Century, and our government had become unresponsive to the real needs of the citizenry.

So I started Amendments We Need, and figured I could spend an entry a week or a month to write long-winded essays of reformer ideas.

It stayed that way - with long gaps of inactivity - until December 2007, when the upcoming 2008 Presidential election grabbed my interest, and I found myself blogging too often about the general craziness - the economic downturns, the rise of Obama, the horrors of Palin, the anxiety of the age - of that election cycle

I kept the title - and old website addy - until May 2013 when I changed it to this more exotic and suspenseful Notice a Trend title. Muy sexy, no?

Man, ten years of this stuff.

I've had some crazy posts: Sharing voter turnout information to Andrew Sullivan's Dish blog back in 2008 when it meant something... Blogging about the Iranian Green uprising that turned bloody (but hopefully a sign of future freedom to that nation)... sharing work with the Lost Battalion/Horde following Ta-Nehisi Coates... the constant wait for confirming my Obama Shoelace Theory (that a Republican will go as far as to accuse Obama of unpatriotic shoelace tying)... the four years of job-hunting during the dark days of the Great Recession... getting into fights with anonymous comment posters... Having Crooks & Liars pick up the occasional entry for their Blog Round-Up, and Vagabond Scholar and Infidel753 and Tengrain and Monkeyfister and Pinku-Sensei and Clarissa and... oh man I lost track of the others sharing my links, kick me I am so sorry I forgot...

Ten years of all this.

A lot of it angry, some of it depressing, but enough of it hopeful and grateful for the future ahead for all of us.

Ten years gone, but more years ahead. And this one's not over yet. There's a lot of work to do (DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD) and there never seems to be enough time, but we get by...

Did you ever really need somebody, and really need em bad
Did you ever really want somebody, the best something you ever had
Do you ever remember me, baby, did it feel so good
Cause it was just the first time, and you knew you would... - Led Zeppelin "Ten Years Gone"

And I'm 9 posts away from reaching 1000 articles.

I should break out Yes' "Tempus Fugit" next.

Look Upon Trump's Works, Ye Republicans, And Despair

Do it? Reince, I'm not a Republican Serial Killer like Zodiac Boy over there. Do you seriously think I'd explain my genius yuuuuge master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I had my people do it thirty-five minutes ago. It'll be great. - Donald Trump

So last night Trump body-slammed victory out of the Indiana Primary, essentially driving Ted Cruz to suspend his campaign (i.e., drop out but keep his name on active ballots) and pretty much guaranteeing Trump wins the convention on the first ballot.*

Kasich, being late as always, suspended his campaign this afternoon. Trump is officially the last Republican candidate standing.

That screaming sound you hear in the distance is either coming from RNC headquarters or coming from 7 billion people across the planet.

Either way, it's not pretty.

The whole day has been watching the accelerated meltdown of whatever parts of the Far Right Noise Machine hadn't sold its soul to the Con Artist Supreme. The websites have been filled with reports about party leaders and pundits denouncing this dark day and declaring the party "dead." There's been several posting pictures of themselves re-registering their voter ID to drop out of the party altogether. Or even setting them on fire (uh, guys, with the voter suppression laws YOU YOURSELVES are passing, you might not wanna do that...) There are pundits coming out now arguing that the Republican Party leadership - effectively unaware and tone-deaf to their actual voting base - deserved getting the rug pulled out from underneath them. Per Rod Dreher:

Overall, though, True Conservatism™ — aggressive foreign policy, aggressive pro-corporate policy, and Christian-ish social conservatism — has been shown by Trump to have been hollow. It is interesting to contemplate what this will mean for the DC infrastructure of Conservatism, Inc. What will the activist groups do now that they are shown to be much less effective than we previously thought? Trump’s victory is not a good thing, but if it means the end of this mentality... then Trump’s victory is not the worst thing...

Prince Rebus Reince Priebus is doing what he can to keep the party on the same page, trying to spin this Trump victory as a good thing for the GOP:

"...You know, I didn't, but I don't think that’s necessarily bad. You know what? I think something different and something new is probably good for our party," he replied. "And look, I don't think anyone predicted what happened. So look, we're here. We're going to get behind the presumptive nominee..."

"...As I've said before, the candidates join us. We don't join the candidates. And so our party platform is clear. The things we believe in are clear. We don't change what we believe in as a party. We have a nomination process, and someone is going to get chosen. I believe Donald Trump will ultimately get chosen, and he's going to join the party," Priebus said.

And history tells us more often than not the party members will come crawling back to support even the candidates they loathe all because their alternatives (vote Democrat? VOTE HILLARY? Ewwww...) are beyond their limits.

However, this time it's different. Previous Presidential campaigns never had a candidate so unliked before as the nominee. Trump can well be the one that truly breaks a national party apart into factions - Trump and #NeverTrump - where enough party members flee in shame/disgust/frustration to cause an impact in turnout.

Based on 2012, Mitt Romney had at least 93 percent Republican support at the ballots in November. In May of 2012, Mitt's favorability among Republicans - having already clinched by then - was at 87 percent. (His popularity among national voters made a then-high 50 percent). Right now May 2016, Trump's popularity among Republicans is only at 59 percent, nowhere near the high Romney had. And Trump's national average (dated April) is around 33 percent, nowhere near Mitt's even-50.

There's a lot of lost Republican support in there. About 28 percent difference in the GOP numbers, and 17 percent difference nationally. Can Trump win back support to match Mitt's numbers? I doubt it. There is a lot of public anger and angst right now among the Republican ranks, and that's translating into voters either running away to vote elsewhere or else not vote at all.

'Cause here's the thing: any attempt by Trump to "pivot" from the hard-core Primary campaign style where he pretty much nuked every bridge to moderate and minority voters imaginable will be ignored or mocked. Worse, he and the GOP cannot afford to suddenly drop the hard-and-heavy anti-immigrant and anti-Establishment rhetoric that fueled Trump's rise: they would lose that very base that got Trump his victory. That anti-Hispanic, anti-Muslim, anti-Chinese stance will be the foundation of that 28-point loss of support within the GOP ranks made up of those voting blocs.

That all said, right now things do not look good for Republicans. Both Hillary and Sanders poll well over Trump as an opponent, even this far out before the conventions, and there's little sign that Trump is going to turn any of the states that went for Obama in 2012 (there's more evidence that he's LOSING at least four Red states to Hillary).

This is now a general election campaign driven by one question: Will 70 million Americans put faith behind a goddamn con artist like Trump with no political experience to be the nation's next President?

The answer so far is HELL NO.

Then again, never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to blow a sure thing. I'm with Rude Pundit: DON'T F-CK THIS UP, DEMS.

*Unless Cruz is still able to plan a delegate coup to force a second ballot, but even that looks unlikely at the moment.

Star Wars Day 2016

Someone, somewhere, noticed that May 4th when said a certain way sounds like

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

So parties were planned and t-shirts made

and drinks prepared and thus we have

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU

Star Wars Day, kiddies. Show your dance moves.

The Republicans Had a Choice

They chose... poorly.

Update: Thank you again for the link, Infidel753!

Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic wrote today about The Party Decides - a book about the electoral process and how the political parties wielded all this power in making certain their chosen candidates were accepted by their respective bases - in an attempt to explain what the hell happened with this election cycle's Republican Party. He was trying to describe how this supposedly powerful organization with political savvy allowed an amateur demagogue like Donald Trump to outflank them and subvert the old ways.

...The authors argue that political parties convince voters to ratify their choices in primary elections by sending cues or signals. Crucially, when they say that “political parties” sway voters with these signals, they don’t just mean prominent elected officials and insiders at the RNC and DNC. As they see it, “the party encompasses interest groups, issue-advocacy groups, ideological activists chatting over beers, pundits aligned with “the party,” even bloggers who belong to its coalition...

So essentially there are all the guardian factions at play here. For the Republicans, it would be the deep-pocket SuperPACs sending out mailers as much as Fox Not-News and Rush Limbaugh alongside Grover Norquist and maybe even Drudge and Breitbart's old ghost. So blaming just the RNC itself for the rise of Trump to nominee is too simple. We basically gotta blame everybody...

“The party,” defined as broadly as it is in the book, includes a lot of voices that either support Trump or regard him as acceptable. And many members of “the party” who abhor Trump sent mixed signals and cues to voters. The contents of those signals help to explain why so many primary voters see Trump as the best choice...

The mixed signals that Conor is talking about is how the RNC and all those guardian factions (mis)handled Trump from the beginning. The party itself early on considered Trump unserious, that he wouldn't really follow through on the actual process of the primary season. As a result, they overlooked the impact of Trump's essential message to the GOP voting base: not just the open hostility towards immigrants and Muslims, but the growing resentment of a Far Right base that kept getting told through all their media sources one thing (The economy is bad because "they" took our jobs, Obama is selling us out to China and Muslims, "they" are coming to tax you for Obamacare Death Panels and take your guns) but kept getting betrayed by the people they elected to office (2010, 2012 and 2014) who did none of the things they promised (Obama's still not impeached, right?).

When it was too late to stop him from joining the primaries, both the party Establishment and their media allies suddenly found it difficult to push him out. Trump threatened early and often that if he wasn't being treated fairly, he'd jump out and start an independent campaign. Everyone else knew what that meant: a repeat of the 1992 election when Ross Perot's third-party vanity run doomed Bush the Elder - who lost too many voters from the split - in what could have been a close race against Democrat Bill Clinton.

That meant nobody else dared challenge Trump to where he could flee with his (stunningly large) Far Right faction, but that left the fights all one-sided where Trump could pummel the Establishment ranks - Jeb Bush in particular was mocked early and often - and get away with it.

Worse, as Conor notes, some of the other candidates looked to profit from Trump's wrecking-ball tactics, thinking - poorly - that once Trump imploded or fled the election cycle, they would be there to pick up the pieces and win out. In particular, the Last Opponent Standing:

Ted Cruz is a perfect illustration. He is the last man standing, barely, between Trump and the delegates he needs to win on the first ballot at the GOP convention in Cleveland.

At this point, Cruz has savaged Trump’s character.  “We wouldn’t tolerate these values in our children,” one Cruz ad says. “Why would we want them in a president?” Another ad accuses Trump of “a pattern of sleaze going back decades.”

These attacks are, I think, accurate.

But it isn’t surprising that Cruz’s attacks rang hollow to many Republican primary voters who can’t help but remember the many months when Cruz lavished extravagant praise on Trump, stating outright that his candidacy was a boon, not a bane to the GOP. Cruz even proclaimed himself “grateful” that the celebrity billionaire was in the race because it ostensibly forced the media to talk about illegal immigration...

...But Cruz saw that Trump was popular with a faction of the Republican base, so he cozied up to the demagogue, became a mendacious apologist for his egregious misbehavior, and brazenly misled the public about Trump’s character. Cruz did this because he thought that he could co-opt Trump’s popularity and win over a lot of his populist supporters. Instead, he helped to legitimate Trump, ratified the narrative that Trump alone forces the media to pay attention to the issues most important to a faction of Republican voters, and sapped some of the strongest critiques of Trump—the ones that Cruz would later used in his own attack ads—of their potency...

There's the "mixed message" that Conor talked about. But it wasn't just Cruz. For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair, Trump hasn't always been the hated unwanted member of this particular clown car campaign. A sizable faction of Republicans were just fine with Trump when it suited their purpose of stirring up their base...

...The elements of “the party” that sent pro-Trump cues or “Trump is at least acceptable” signals to primary voters—Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Breitbart.com, The Drudge Report, The New York Post, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Jeff Sessions, Rick Scott, Jan Brewer, Joe Arpaio—are simply more powerful, relative to National Review, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and other “Trump is unacceptable” forces, than previously thought...

...They just wish it wasn't so blatantly racist, sexist, ignorant, ill-informed, lazy, and nonsensical to where it threatens the entire party with destruction.

Even Conor notes that Trump does not exist in a vacuum. For all his demagoguery, Trump is running on an existing Republican message of mistrust and anger. Conor lists each point:

• Career politicians cannot be trusted. This widespread conceit in “the party” has effectively made it impossible for candidates with governing records and public sector experience to be accepted by large swaths of GOP primary voters.
• When the base doesn’t get what it wants, it is because of betrayal by party elites, never because a majority of Americans disagree with what the base wants.
• Rhetorical stridency is a better heuristic for loyalty than core principles or governing record—and there is nothing disqualifying about extreme incivility (hence, for example, a buttoned up think tank giving a statesmanship award to Rush Limbaugh, a gleeful purveyor of bombastic insults).
• Complaints about racism and sexism are always cynical fabrications, intended be used as cudgels against conservatives.
• Political correctness in governance is one of the biggest problems facing America.
• Illegal immigration poses an existential threat to America.
• President Obama has deliberately made bad deals with foreign countries to weaken America.

If any movement conservatives in the #NeverTrump crowd doubt that “the party” has sent all of those signals or cues, I’ll gladly expound on any of them. Taken together, it’s easy to see why a majority of an electorate that bought into those premises would be more attracted to Trump than to anyone else in the GOP field...

If Trump is thriving in this wingnut environment, it's because the Republican Party in total - the elected officials, the media elites, the fringe rabble-rousers - created and nurtured that environment for decades.

This is where the Republicans had a choice, but it was one they made years ago. Actually, they had a series of choices they made, and each one has led to this moment.

• The Republicans had a choice whether or not to court the social conservatives of the Deep South back in the 1960s, when the Democratic leadership went all-in on Civil Rights that alienated the Dixiecrat faction. The GOP saw a solid, growing voter base of resentful Whites and forged their Southern Strategy. This is why the modern Republicans are no longer the Party of Lincoln but the Party of John C. Calhoun.
• In the 1970s and 1980s, the Republicans had a choice whether or not to court the Religious Right into a more active role in politics. The party saw the means to solidify their conservative ideology and control their messaging using God as a banner. The trade-off was that they allowed evangelicals and strident cultural warriors who refuse to compromise on their faith transmit such refusal of compromise to any political dealings at all.
• The Republicans had a choice after Bill Clinton's win in 1992 to regroup from a shaky loss and retain some high ground on governance and competency. Instead, they doubled down on both a Culture War called by Pat Buchanan to purge their own party of RINO moderates as well as an open media campaign against Clinton using the Politics of Personal Destruction to hound him and weaken his administration. It did weaken Clinton and exposed his more sordid habits, but it backfired by exposing a lot of the Republican leadership as hypocrites... and it gave too much power to the Far Right media - especially Limbaugh and Fox News - to dictate what elected officials had to do in office.
• The Republicans had a choice after George W. Bush's administration - at least from 2006 onward - to admit the failures of that administration across the board: mismanaged war efforts, a botched economy, deregulation disasters, etc. Instead they pretend to this very day that none of that really happened, or wasn't as bad as it looked, or that it was all someone else's - Bill Clinton first, Barack Obama later - fault. Which means the party leadership is perfectly willing to repeat the same mistakes, something that terrifies many voters.
• The Republicans had a choice after Barack Obama's inauguration over whether or not to work with this Democrat in the White House. The call for bipartisan efforts were rather high, the belief that the Republicans ought to provide some input in order to keep a stake in the political arena and keep Obama from pursuing a more strident Progressive agenda. Instead, the party leadership chose full-out obstruction to deny Obama "any victory" of legislative success. While it prevented that Progressive agenda, it also painted the Republicans into a corner where they can't actively pursue any legislative agenda of their own (we are currently seeing this session of Congress be the least-active of all time... out of the last two sessions of Congress that were just as barren). And it underscores an irony in that Obama was - as an Active-Positive based on Barber's Character traits - someone who could compromise with Republicans as long as it meant effective legislation. Instead, the Republicans insisted on harsh concessions that no Democratic President would accept.
• The Republicans had a choice in their philosophical outlook on politics: they could have retained the core Conservative value of restraint in policies, in opposition to the Liberal impulse of charging into massive reforms that could be reckless in the long-term. Instead, the party pushed their own reckless and uncompromising agendas to where the Liberals are now the sane and cautious ones.

Time and again, the Republican Party had to choose between immediate, short-term gratification over long-term survival. Each time, they chose to win in the moment and revel in such victories without accepting the consequences those victories entailed. Each time, the modern Republicans chose poorly.

And now the bill's come due.

Michael Taggart Please Pick Up The Courtesy Phone

Hello, Mr. Taggart. You left a comment on this blog this weekend asking for me to contact you, but you did not leave a forwarding link.

So I need to leave a link here for you to email me. I tried to add this to the article in case you re-visited it, but I'll create a brand new blog article here in case you're just tracking the blog itself.

The best way for you use that email link is to right-click on it, Copy the address link, go into your email account directly, use the Compose command, and then right-click and Paste in the To: field. Or if you're viewing this via a Tablet, just tap the link and it should pop up your Email app to Compose that way.

Thank you.

May 2016: Very Busy

There's a couple of things happening this month, so I will be slightly distracted but I will post here when I can.

Above all this is a birth month, so yay, there will be cake.

I am going to be at a Local Authors signing event in Wesley Chapel FL (north of Tampa) at the Barnes & Noble store in the Wiregrass mall on Saturday May 21st, alongside 25 other local authors. It would really be great if a lot of people showed up that afternoon between 2 to 4 PM to help promote local writers, and you may find among the various books and genres something worth reading! I'll be there promoting some of my printed works as well as my ebook stories.

There's always May The Fourth and Cinco De Mayo, but May 4th will have a special connotation this year as an anniversary, so please do attend.

Also, MegaCon is this Memorial Day Weekend, so yes I will go. I've been contemplating going as a Jedi again, but I plan on going different days so maybe that Saturday I will.

Meanwhile On the Soap Opera "As the Florida Churns" A Tense Meeting Goes Full Schadenfreude

This sort of slipped under the radar, but here in Florida things are not well for the King of Unethical Douchebaggery Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott.

One of the things Scott has been doing throughout his two terms has been to drive out long-time heads of the various state agencies to replace them with his own people. Whether or not Scott's people are/were qualified and able to do those jobs were not really relevant to him.

But this past year, Scott ran into conflict with his own party and the other Republicans in the governor's Cabinet. In particular, Scott's attempt to replace the chief Insurance Commissioner with his buddy Jeffrey Bragg conflicted with Chief Financial Officer (think Secretary of the Treasury) Jeff Atwater's own nominee for that post. And the CFO is the one who has direct control over the office, so Atwater has a kind of veto power over what Scott was trying to do. Scott, as governor, had veto power of Atwater's chance to put HIS guy in that office. Standoff.

So they went through the hassle of having a public review process, interviewing a set of candidates including Scott's choice and Atwater's choice. Once they finished the interviews, Scott just... well, I'll let Tampa Bay Times' John Romano describe it:

In a second attempt at hiring a state insurance commissioner, the Cabinet listened to four candidates speak for a little more than an hour on Tuesday.

When the interviews were wrapped up, Gov. Rick Scott took a few moments to thank all of the candidates, and then immediately launched into a prepared statement that nominated Jeffrey Bragg for the post.

"Is there a second?" Scott asked the other three Cabinet members.

1, 2, 3 …

Scott turns to his left to look at Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, who, like the governor, has to affirm the selection of a new insurance boss. Atwater, avoiding eye contact, looks straight ahead.

The beauty of this exchange is that it has been a month in the making. Four weeks earlier, Atwater had moved to appoint Bill Hager as the new commissioner and Scott immediately shot it down by saying he would not second the nomination. He wanted Bragg.

So, presumably, the four Cabinet members spent the next month looking at new candidates and reassessing Bragg and Hager. But Scott's immediate nomination of Bragg on Tuesday made it clear he expected Atwater to simply bow to his demand.

There was no discussion. No give and take. No pretense of esprit de corps.

4, 5, 6 …

Scott straightens in his chair. Then he reaches for a bottle of water.

By now, the governor must already know his ploy has failed. And the realization has to be dawning that the titular leader of the GOP in Florida, who has already been dissed by a Republican-dominated Legislature on his budget demands, is now being ignored by an all-Republican Cabinet.

7, 8, 9, 10 …

You should read Romano's article, I'm just posting the juicy, sweet early part of it as setup.

Just to note, I've been on committees, and usually most groups are already in agreement on a few issues, and then it's just the nuts-and-bolts disagreements that get argued out, and then a decision is informally recognized, and then there's a call on a vote and a request for a Second. And getting that "I Second It" is a pro forma thing, everyone's mostly good with it, there may be a few dissenters but at least the issue was argued in good faith and done.

Scott didn't even have a give-and-take talk. He wanted the vote then and there and on his terms. That's not how the Force decision-making in a committee works.

Just to add this one more thought Romano puts out there, which I totally agree with:

What's amazing is, six years into the job, Scott still does not understand the art of governing. He has a receptive audience in both the Legislature and the Cabinet, but he sabotages his own cause with edicts and commands.

That is the problem when you put a crook like Rick "No Ethics" Scott in charge of something. He takes on the CEO mindset of "my way or the highway" and eventually finds out that kind of mindset does not sit well with other people who have the power to do their own thing in spite of him.

Sweet, sweet Schadenfreude. I hope the rot boils in Scott's stomach for 1000 years.

According to a follow-up report I found in the Miami New Times, the cabinet finally settled on a compromise candidate, as these things usually play out.

And I'm willing to bet Scott still hasn't learned a lesson. He's probably just thinking up how to get some revenge on Atwater for the public humiliation.

I'd love to see how Scott handles a potential Florida Legislature where the state Senate is under Democratic control thanks to the voting districts being redrawn to weaken the gerrymanders. One can hope. One can definitely keep calling on the Democrats to challenge every district and GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT.

The Danger of Trump's World View

(Update: Oh hey, Crooks and Liars readers linking in from Mike's Blog Round Up! Welcome back. Please check out the latest blog offerings if you can, and by the by I think I got a message from the family of the Port O San guy from Woodstock I blogged about back in 2009 so OMG OMG OMG I am a little distracted at the moment...

Follow-up to the Update: Thank you as well, Infidel753 for the link here!)

Recheck on the Follow-up to the Update: Hello everyone linking from Skippy the Bush Kangaroo! Welcome to my blog, try the veal it's the best in the city...

You seven - I should be saying eight now - regular blog followers know I am a fan of James David Barber's work on Presidential Character. On how it can determine the basic performance of an incoming or sitting or historical President: on if said President was/is/will be Active or Passive in office, and Positive or Negative about the power of the office towards achieving goals.

What he based that Character on were a set of factors, one of the key factors being "World View": how the person running for the Presidency perceives the world based on previous experiences, learning moments, and developing philosophy.

Barber's own definition from his book Presidential Character goes like this:

A President's world view consists of his primary, politically relevant beliefs, particularly his conceptions of social causality, human nature, and the central moral conflicts of the time... these assumptions or conceptions help him make sense of his world, give some semblance of order to the chaos of existence. Perhaps most important, a man's world view affects what he pays attention to... (p.5)

That World View gives us an idea both on how the potential President views his political allies and enemies, and on how he/she will act on the global stage of the world itself.

Well, we've got a really hard case of Presidential Character with Republican front-runner Donald Trump at the moment. My original estimation of Trump being Active-Negative - and in the worst way imaginable - remains intact: he's been the self-centered, boasting, bullying, ill-informed blowhard that one would find at the most extreme edges of being Uncompromising and Self-Serving (two key A-N traits).

One of the things Trump has been avoiding has been explaining or codifying his World-View to the public at large - at most he's made clear signals about degrading Hispanics, Asians, women, and anybody who doesn't genuflect to the Trump (tm) brand - by usually hand-waving off questions regarding foreign policy. Now that he's essentially the lone runner for the delegate majority count, Trump has to establish more specific policy goals to define the upcoming convention's platform, so he and his handlers decided on making a "bold" foreign policy speech.

To say it didn't go over very well is a bit of an understatement.

If we can refer to Adam Silverman's article in Balloon Juice:

...I will leave the fiskings and point by point takedowns of the contradictions, flaws in logic, petty vindictiveness, and inconsistencies to others. I want, instead, to focus in on the core of the address, which could, perhaps, be referred to the Trump Doctrine. The Trump Doctrine, at its core, can be boiled down to America (we) will be treated fairly. As I wrote yesterday in my initial impressions, this is essentially National Security Narcissism...

...More than that, however, is that the Trump Doctrine is really the animating force or theme of the entire Trump campaign. The other candidates had better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican National Committee better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican establishment better treat Donald Trump fairly, the media better treat Donald Trump fairly, the state level parties that handle the primaries and all the delegates chosen better treat Donald Trump fairly. And Donald Trump will make them treat him fairly! And the only candidate, nay the only person in America who can ensure that you are treated fairly is Donald Trump. And if he isn’t treated fairly or the US isn’t treated fairly, then he will get even...!

The average American, in some cases even the above average American, really does not know how policy is formulated or strategy is developed for domestic issues, let alone for foreign or defense issues. Donald Trump’s speech yesterday cut through all of that reality – that how the official business of America at the Federal, state, and municipal levels is done is often arcane and messy – and reached right for his supporter’s guts. Donald Trump has consistently been telling Americans... that they are being taken advantage of and that only Donald Trump can stop this. All he’s now done is formally extend it into the realm of foreign and defense policy and connect the pieces together...

The only people that should be happy with Mr. Trump’s foreign policy remarks are Vladimir Putin, the leadership of the People’s Republic of China, and the Islamic extremists running the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Mr. Trump’s doctrine of America will be treated fairly screams a revanchist approach to foreign and defense policy. Should the US not be treated fairly, the US will then retaliate. Maybe that’s taking our things and going home. Maybe that’s getting even. Maybe its something else, but because Donald Trump’s emphasis is on unpredictability there is no way to really know...

Silverman's point is that Trump is projecting his own World View - his narcissistic belief in his own superiority over everyone else - and applying it to foreign relations that cannot and should not kow-tow to such ego-stroking.

The key question about the Trump Doctrine - America should be treated fairly - should be this: What the hell is fair? Who gets to determine what actions are fair or not? Given the person involved, the likeliest answer of Who determines is going to be Trump himself. If it comes down to it, what Trump is advocating is an American foreign policy where all of our dealings ought to go entirely to HIS favor and not even the American citizenry (who will only benefit by proxy in Trump's estimation), which violates a lot of precepts about deal-making and international agreements.

What Trump is pushing is a World View where everyone else HAS to Respect the hell out of US, while our nation won't have any reason to show any Respect to them.

This is troubling on multiple levels.

Our existing alliances would come under scrutiny, and the political situations in Europe and Asia would collapse over the first sign of slight in Trump's view. Which could be over anything that would tick off his ego.

Said allies would rather cut ties up front over coping with any conflicts with Trump's administration down the road. As Silverman pointed out, that would weaken NATO's stance against Putin's Russia, and it would certainly be a death-knell to any NATO attempt to support Ukraine against Putin's border war with them. The Middle East, another flashpoint where NATO and Russia are occasionally at odds, can turn into a greater cauldron of hell than it already is.

As others pointed out, Trump's dealings in Asia would agitate an increasingly dangerous China, and if Trump were to pull out of our alliances with Japan, Taiwan, even the Philippines it would grant China greater control of the water trade routes of the Southeast Pacific at best (at worst, good God, is full out invasions of Taiwan, Japan, and anywhere they like).

It's a variant of the strand of Isolationism that is common to the United States' political discourse. As much as an "America First" mindset - which has some pretty sick associations - as it is a kind of arrogant Nativist stance that places the nation above all mundane concerns to everyone else's destruction (there's a kind of "Let 'Em Crash" smugness to it).

What Trump is selling here is the argument that the United States is unfairly treated by other foreign powers including our allies, and that our national pride is at stake if we do not elect him to make those foreign powers respect us. What he's not seeing - because his willful ignorance of anything that doesn't serve his immediate needs - is that our foreign policies should not be based on PRIDE but on political and economic stability at a global level. We can't gain that stability if we destabilize our own alliances and create more chaos.

How far Trump can go on this message and World View, all depends on how many American voters buy into the same World View. The best we can hope for right now is that those numbers are way below 40 percent of the electorate currently backing his run.

This is not good politics. This is not good foreign policy. This is not good for America. And we're two steps away from being stuck with him.

All that joking about what a Trump Presidency would look like? It's not funny if he gets elected. Not one damn bit funny if that happens.

BREAKING NEWS: Ted Cruz Assumes All His Eggs Are Chickens, Puts Cart Before Horse, Rearranges Titanic Deckchairs Into Pleasing Patterns

Is this seriously happening?

Via CNN:

Ted Cruz will name Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate on Wednesday, according to two sources -- a last-ditch move to regain momentum after being mathematically eliminated from winning the GOP presidential nomination outright.

The Texas senator will make the announcement at an afternoon rally in Indiana, which votes Tuesday in the next GOP contest. Cruz must have a strong showing in the Hoosier State to help block rival Donald Trump from securing the 1,237 delegates necessary to win the nomination, and keep alive his hopes of a contested Republican National Convention.

Cruz is trying to recapture the narrative and keep himself relevant after Trump seized momentum in the 2016 race with a sweep of all five East Coast states on Tuesday, which puts him closer to having enough delegates to win the Republican nomination. The unusual move from the Cruz campaign also comes just hours after the billionaire businessman, who is trying to look like the presumptive nominee, gave a high-profile scripted speech on foreign policy...

Okay, having lived through the past year of absolute crazy political campaigning news, even with half the crazy stuff Trump has thrown out there and some of the more embarrassing things Jeb? ever tried before he disappeared, THIS has to be the craziest WTF moment yet.

How is this crazy?

For starters, Cruz doesn't have the nomination locked up.

You're supposed to pick your Vice-Presidential choice once it's been confirmed you have the delegates in place to win the Convention. Traditionally, the Vice President was picked at the convention itself as part of the back-room deals the party bosses worked out to keep the factions happy, but ever since the Primary system eliminated such deal-making the Veep choice has been left to the winning nominee.

Cruz is not the winning nominee. Granted, neither is Trump at the moment, but at least Trump has the chance to be.

Second of all, selecting the likes of Carly Fiorina does not help Cruz's case that he is capable of making sound decisions. He's going with a choice with a failed political campaigner, in that Fiorina lost both her earlier Senate campaign and her recent attempt for the Republican Presidential nomination. Fiorina's resume of being a "successful" businessperson is itself flawed: she's well-known for having mismanaged Hewlett Packard as CEO and was ignobly fired from that job. There's nothing there of merit or confidence for voters to like.

Third, this move reeks of desperation. The CNN report itself is claiming Cruz is doing this to jump-start his campaign and regain momentum to win over the few remaining states not yet siding with Trump. Problem is, who's going to buy this move? Carly's home state of California? She couldn't win there as a Senate candidate. The number of people who are moved to switch votes based on a Veep choice are few: nobody is going to run away from Trump all because Fiorina is teaming up with Cruz.

The only way this move makes any sense is that Cruz is convinced he already has his path laid out and he's already winning that July convention. Either that means he's already planning on cheating with the delegates to turn on Trump even if Trump wins outright, or he's convinced Trump can't win enough delegates period.

Either way, Cruz is courting self-destruction. If he steals away the nomination from Trump, it'll be civil war within the GOP. If he wins out a legitimate fight over unbound delegates because Trump didn't cross the threshold, Cruz still has to answer to a majority of Republican voters who believe the candidate with the most delegates ought to be the nominee.

This is too crazy for even this Florida Man to contemplate. I'm going to go wrestle a gator or something to bring myself back to my senses.

The Fantasy of a Third Party Savior... AGAIN

As I write this, Donald Trump is crushing the Cruz-Kasich coalition in five state primaries and pretty much making it impossible for Cruz in Second Place to ever reach the needed delegate count. Trump hasn't won outright, but he's the only one who can.

As such, the Conservative Beltway Media Punditry of Both Siderism and Dubya-Never-Happened have moved their freak-out to Defcon 2.

Terrified of the likelihood of an amateurish, bullying, Id-driven, failed businessman becoming the Serious Candidate of the Republican Party that these pundits cannot honestly shill to the general electorate, more and more of them are pushing more and more their incredible fantasy of having a "respectable" True Conservative rise up from the shadows of history and declare for a Third Party independent run. This True Conservative can then rally all the Honest Common Man voters crying all for a REAL LEADER to drive away the horrors of a Trump or Hillary or Bernie Presidency, and bring the nation back to a united harmonious new era of Reagan-esque patriotism and nostalgic delight.

Insert headdesking here.

Never mind the obvious evidence that if there were such a candidate - a True Conservative to save the Republicans from their Trumpian fate - don't you think he'd (and it's usually a guy) have run by now and was stopping Trump already in the primaries?!

The Republican Establishment had their chances: Hell, they have five of them in Jeb!, Rubio, Scott Walker, Chris Christie and Kasich. If that was the cream of the crop, the BEST that the Republicans could rally to run for 2016, and they STILL couldn't outpander and outwit and outrun Trump... there is something seriously wrong with the quality of Republican leadership today.

And yet here we are with the likes of Jim VandeHei - a founder of media outlet Politico and writing in the Wall Street Journal op-ed - dreaming up a scenario of a military general (and it's always a man in a uniform that attracts the fantasy) coming in as a Third Party savior to mock the legacy of 98-lb weakling Obama and bitch-slap Trump into a whimpering heap. But lemme have Daniel Drezner at the Washington Post point out all the follies:

Over the past few months and years, the hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has tried to make a few useful suggestions for improving the quality of punditry during this campaign season. For example:

Don’t use Donald Trump as a vehicle for your particular hobbyhorse — you’ll just get tarnished.
Don’t call for a military leader on horseback to rescue the country — the ones interested in the job are probably the last ones who should be president.
Don’t use Silicon Valley buzzwords to describe anything with respect to politics or policy — it means those words have been played out.
Don’t assume Americans care too much about foreign policy or national security. They don’t.
Don’t call for a third-party candidate to enter the race because: (a) that candidate won’t win, and (b) even if the candidate wins, the new president still needs to cope with a Congress that will remain a product of the two-party system.

To be fair, I never actually wrote that last point up, mostly because I thought it was so obvious that it did not need to be said out loud.

I bring this up because Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei’s Wall Street Journal op-ed manages to ignore all of these warnings. Praising the plain language of Donald Trump? Check. References to disruption? Check. Calls for an “Innovation Party?” Check. VandeHei also leans hard on the “Normal America vs. D.C. bubble” trope, which will be a topic for another column...

So the poster boy for VandeHei’s new leadership is … a recently retired admiral who challenges civilian control of the military. I would be uncomfortable with this person in charge of determining the proper allocation of war powers between the different branches of government. By exploiting the fear factor...

I get the suspicion VadneHei didn't do any research or any due diligence, or have any concern to the actual inability of his Dream Candidate to bring the nation under the united banner of a kinder gentler machine gun hand.

What's really happening here is projection. These insulated Beltway media types, thinking themselves the only sane ones in a kingdom of madness, are fantasizing about their ideal leader playing out a game-plan that makes perfect sense only to themselves. Each one of these pundits aren't really selling a military hero, or a political savant, or a philosophical genius: they're selling themselves as the God-Chosen Savior. It's only the realization no one will take THEM seriously as a candidate that they're forced to call up General McAwesomesauce as the Insert Savior Here guy.

But I've noticed this before: this fantasy is just that, and it's a fool's fantasy to think that this unheralded Insert Savior Here can just show up and have 60 million Americans swoon for him. It's a fool's fantasy to think there IS such a Conservative candidate after more than a year finding out the Republicans don't have anyone like that anymore. It's a dreamer's denial to think that this Third Party Insert Savior Here can break the Electoral College enough to bring this Pundit's Paradise to the Real World.

And how disappointing is it going to be if said Insert Savior Here guy does show up on the stage and turns out to be yet another dud?

Not disappointing at all. All these pundits will do is wail the lost opportunity and move on to the next sucker willing to pose for their fantasies.

I wasn't joking four years ago when I said there needs to be a term limit on the MEDIA more than on our elected officials. At least we can kick the officials out by vote. These pundits will not stop until they drive their publishing agencies into bankruptcy, and then move on to the next million-dollar book deal.

It's a good racket like Driftglass notes over and over again, if that exclusive club of always-wrong media elites invite you in. Problem is, you pay out your integrity as you go.

April Mini-Super-Tuesday Primary Today, Just Saying

There's five states from the mid-Atlantic/Northeast voting today, most of which are kind of foregone conclusions for both parties: Trump's polling has him sweeping Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island; Hillary's poised to secure four of those states while Bernie is in the lead in Rhode Island.

The way the math works, a Trump victory in even one state - especially a big one like PA - should pretty much eliminate Cruz from outright delegate victory. All that is at stake from this point is Trump needing to clear the delegate majority hurdle and secure the nomination on the first ballot.

Clinton's not going to win outright tonight, but a solid win in delegate counts in most of the states will pretty much affirm her inevitability as the nominee: this is the point where her momentum does kick in and the later states - California especially - will lean for her just to wrap things up. It will also wreck the narrative that the Sanders' followers have been pushing: by winning in obviously liberal-leaning northeastern states, Hillary will prove her broad appeal to the party as a whole and not by region (so SHUT UP about the Deep South states not counting).

Tonight's broadcasts are going to be drawn-out media back-patting affairs as usual, and likely the Fox Not-News people and fellow media elites on CNN and MSNBC (sorry, folks, this ain't your daddy's librul channel anymore) are gonna be spoon-fed the narratives about Trump becoming more "presidential" for some godforsaken reason. Just keep the channels on to watch but put the volume on Mute, and finish writing that damn novel everybody (or is that just me?)!

I'll be writing something else later today. Damn, I have blogged like a mofo this month...

Missing the GOP Queue For the Lifeboats

I've been seeing the other bloggers listing this as "too little too late," such as Rude Pundit:

In a display of too-little-too-late-ism that ranks up there with "Flowers from a cheating husband," John Kasich and Ted Cruz have agreed on a kind of alliance of f-ckery, a Megazord of fail, if you will. Said a spokesturd for Cruz, "To ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico..."

...And after Trump wrecks both of them in Pennsylvania and mocks them relentlessly for this strategy (which he's already doing), it's gonna be pathetic watching those campaigns limp around until they finally have the sense to just lay down and fade away...

I can see the intent by Cruz and Kasich to try and generate enough delegates for themselves - and not trip over each other to do so - to prevent Trump from winning outright, but this sort of move is almost impossible to coordinate because voters are going to make up their own damn minds in these primaries and they may not want to play this game.

It gets more interesting when Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post considers the ramifications:

...It emphasizes the degree to which the most likely alternative to Trump — Cruz — has failed to unite the GOP. He can either work hard at crafting an agenda and message directed at “somewhat conservative” voters, or he can make the case that Republicans are not going to win Oregon, New Mexico, Maryland and the like in November, so it shouldn’t matter...

...Cruz’s perceived weakness in turn leads to another unintended consequence of the deal: It will heighten interest in a third candidate. It is now evident that neither Cruz nor Kasich is a sterling candidate. The odds of a Trump nomination are high, so shouldn’t backers of a third candidate get cracking...?

The argument for there being a Third Party candidate that can SAVE the Republican Party from itself is getting more dire: and it turns out there ARE deadlines for a Third Party to file that are due BEFORE the July convention in Cleveland. From what I'm reading here on the Ballotpedia page, it looks like you have to file as an Independent in Texas by MAY 9th! That's two weeks away.

Before all this, there was the fear among Republicans that Trump would go Third Party on them out of spite and ruin their chances to secure any Electoral College AND Popular Vote wins. NOW the fear among Republicans is that they're going to have to run a Third Party candidate because having Trump run at the top of their ticket will (not could) ruin the entire ballot for them. Even though if they do this Third Party move, the Republicans run the very real risk that Trump will - again out of spite - tell his voters at the least to refuse to vote for ANY Republican down-ballot.

Very much a Lose-Lose situation at the moment. Time to remind the readership about the phrase involving the deck chairs of the Titanic.

The only thing the Republicans can hope for now is out-and-out voter suppression, and even THAT can blow up in their faces.

Poll: Throwing Out Book Title Ideas

I've mentioned once or twice before that I'm putting some of the essays I've written here - good lord, I'm almost to the 10-year anniversary - into a collection for print as a book. I decided to use the stuff I've written about Obama, his administration, and his tenure against a wall of GOP obstructionism that future historians may want views on.

As such, I'm a little stumped for a possible title for the work, so I'd like to waste more time creating a survey and asking all seven blog followers to tell me what looks SHINY AND CHROME and what is MEDIOCRE.

Create your own user feedback survey

I've wrapped up a few of the other writing projects I've been juggling - the story to Florida Writers Association, getting something published to teach the self-publish class I taught last week at the library, etc. - so I have time to finish collecting and editing the essays (also adding endnotes to cover the fact print books don't link to websites of info) hopefully by next month.

Oh, and I'll need to hire a cover artist. If there's a cartoonist who can draw Obama standing atop a pile of GOP elephants whilst waving the American flag and flashing the Vulcan salute, I'll pay about $49.95 for the cover rights...

Update: Creating an alphabetical index in OpenOffice Writer is messier than it looks.

Guessing the 2016 Veep Picks, Because I Have Nothing Better To Do Today Other Than Laundry

(Update: thanks for the link, Infidel753!)

One of the downsides of recognizing that the Presidential campaigns are winnowing themselves to the likely nominees is that the chatter quickly switches to the next phase of the damn horse-race.

Predicting who gets picked to serve as Vice President on each party's ticket. Yeah, we're getting there now:

Reporters are feeling secure enough to start pestering Clinton surrogates about her VP choices. John Podesta promised the Boston Globe that Hillary’s short list would include a woman (because of course they asked, and what else was he gonna say?) The Washington Post‘s premier horse-race tout Chris Cillizza likes Amy Klobuchar, Tom Perez, Tim Kaine, Sherrod Brown, and Julian Castro, and his explanations are reasonable enough to consider them the Conventional Wisdom picks...

For the seven readers of this blog, you know my views on the Vice Presidency itself: It's an antiquated relic of a failed electoral concept by our Founders, a process of party ticket-balancing that can often go wrong, and something that can be easily supplanted by changes to the 25th Amendment and by adding more seats to the Senate to compensate the VP's duties. Like Anne Laurie notes in her Balloon Juice article above, this Veep stuff is merely worrying over who gets to be the Backup Prom Queen/King.

Still, it's part of the process, and I might as well put my two cents in on the topic (okay, guilty admission here, it's a little fun to mess with the Conventional Wisdom by messing with the picks).

Just note the rules of the game: The Veep pick has to fulfill the Constitutional obligations - over 35 years of age, Natural Born Citizen, and full-time residency in the US itself for 14 straight years - as well as Electoral College obligation of NOT being from the same state as the President: it has to do with the complex nature of Electors, a rule to prevent candidates from the same state dominating the Executive office. It's a rule that was in place back when there were fewer states and there was a legitimate fear large-population states like Virginia could dominate the Federal government. Past that (barring scandals), it's an open market.

With Hillary Clinton, the likely scenario is that she picks someone from the roster of known Clinton allies - both Hillary AND Bill are, after all, practitioners in quid pro quo - but someone with enough of a separate reputation from their Inner Circle to avoid open accusations of cronyism - which they'll get hit with regardless. This is why names like current Housing Secretary Julian Castro come up often.

Castro in particular covers a lot of things a Presidential candidate has on a checklist: he's young meaning he can become the banner carrier for the Party for the next two-three decades (and reach the White House on his own campaign), he's from a large Electoral state that happens to be on the verge of demographically shifting Democrat (Texas), and he's still relatively unknown enough that he's not going to be drawing attention away from Hillary.

Funny enough, Julian has a twin brother Jouquin serving in the US House, and his name comes up often as well. But Jouquin is less likely to get the nom because of political calculus: every House seat is vital for the Democrats to hold, and with the slight chance this 2016 election could tip the gerrymandered House away from the Republicans, the Dems are going to want to cover their seats to improve their odds. What's happening with Jouquin is the reason to avoid considering a Congresscritter for Dem Veep.

The US Senate is a different matter: only a third of those seats are up for a vote this year, which means a sitting Senator not running in 2016 could be tabbed for the Veep slot and not get distracted. In this, names like Michael Bennet of Colorado and Patty Murray of Washington get discounted ( up for re-elections), but names like Sherrod Brown (he's up in 2018) get elevated.

Governors come in for consideration, but because of Democratic failures during midterms to get the vote out - and midterms are when a lot of Governor seats are up for vote - there's not a lot of Dem Governors to choose from.

Like Julian, there's a possibility Hillary would tab someone young-ish and reasonably popular from Obama's Cabinet - Labor Secretary Tom Perez has been gaining attention - but there's few names there Hillary can view as viable.

One argument is that given the close race Bernie Sanders has been running against her means that Hillary needs to consider a Progressive, left-leaning Veep nominee to placate the Far Left voters that will be angry when Bernie drops out. Tabbing Bernie himself is unlikely: he's too old (given Hillary's own age, a younger candidate is needed), and too geographically close to Hillary's New York (with regards to ticket-balancing, she needs to find someone from the Midwest, Pacific Coast, or Southeast, especially a key toss-up state).

Just in case, if Bernie were to pull off an upset... In his case, he can go in any direction he'd like for picking a Veep - he could even consider House members that Hillary wouldn't - and would likely go with as Progressive / Leftist a candidate just to signal his victory as a Far Left standard bearer over the Democratic Party establishment. If he does go with an Establishment-backed choice, it would signal a rapport with the moderate voters who might still worry about a too Far Left platform.

If I had a list of nominees, it'd go like this:

Sherrod Brown (well-known Progressive Senator, key state of Ohio, would be viewed as an olive branch to the Bernie supporters)
Penny Pritzker (current Sec of Commerce, from Illinois, Jewish family, would make it an all-women ticket)
Julian Castro (current Sec of Housing/Urban Development, key state of Texas, Hispanic)
Anthony Foxx (current Sec of Transportation, key state of North Carolina, African-American)
Thomas Perez (current Sec of Labor, technically from Maryland, Hispanic)

And for the Republicans?

Considering the likely nominee is Trump, this can go one of two ways:

1) Trump will actually behave himself and oversee a formal, almost professional review of likely nominees before selecting one who has a political resume that would alleviate the fears of the general voting electorate while keeping his Far Right base happy.

2) Trump will do his own thing, probably do it as a one-night televised special variation of The Apprentice where he lines up prospective Veeps and have them beg - BEG FOR MERCY I TELL YOU - for the damned job, and end up with the best suck-up he can find.

I doubt in 1). Despite the fact the RNC and party leadership will INSIST on a proper vetting, Trump is all about getting attention, and messing with everybody's heads. For him, 2) is more fun, more satisfying to his Id (more than his Ego). Trump has already stated he's holding off on starting the vetting process until the delegate count is finalized.

In that regards, consider this list of likely Republican Veep nominees to be woefully short. In Trump's case, he can go in any possible direction - within the Constitutional requirements -  he likes.

Trump should look at getting a Veep who is different to him in attitude and experience: considering his complete lack of political history and gravitas, he'll need a ton of that in his running partner.

While common sense tells us that any of his primary opponents would reject any offer, the fact that Trump turned Chris Christie into his puppy within a week of Christie dropping out of the race suggests otherwise. Common sense would also tell us that given the likely train-wreck a Trump general election can get (polling in the low 40s AT BEST), that nobody will want to take a bullet for the team and ruin his/her resume, but again ambition is a cruel and demanding boss.

If I had any say in this... well, I wouldn't have Trump as the Presidential nominee (where have you gone, Teddy Roosevelt, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you). But anywho, just to give the Republicans a fair chance:

Susana Martinez (governor of New Mexico, Hispanic, Woman, would help counter a lot of the damage Trump's done with those voting blocs)
Nikki Haley (governor of South Carolina, Woman, of Sikh ancestry but currently Christian faith)
Chris Christie (governor of New Jersey, still relatively popular among the punditry, already sold out)
Marco Rubio (from key state Florida, Hispanic, would require Rubio selling his own soul - again - which would make for great television)
Jeb Bush (from key state Florida, would be an act of public humiliation you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy... well maybe a little)
Sarah Palin (because she's sucking up to him, and brings a lot of media attention with her, and it would really piss off the RNC big time)

If Cruz were to pull off an upset getting to the nomination, the situation changes a bit. This would require a major political coup with the delegates and rules of order at the convention at this point of the campaign, meaning Cruz had to break more than one promise and start riots in all the worst ways. But he'd do it if he was convinced enough of his inevitability as the candidate, and that would mean his extreme Christianist world-view brought him to this.

That would suggest he would seek a "pure" campaign of True Believers in his camp, meaning his Veep nominee is going to be a Bible-thumping social warrior of anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-rights bent. That actually narrows the list a lot, mostly down to his few allies in Congress. That would bring to his Veep list the likes of Steve King (House, Iowa), Jeff Sessions (Senate, Alabama), and/or Tim Huelskamp (House, Kansas).

If it's Hillary, I'd like to see her consider Priktzer, but she'll likely stick with Castro. If it's Trump, he'll likely do what he can to browbeat Rubio just to humiliate him, but he'll likely end up with Haley just to appease the party Establishment with someone sensible (and as an attempt to win over the women's vote that he can't imagine losing, 'cause all the ladies love the Donald...).

Okay, so let's see how wrong I am by the time June rolls around.

Oh, if I had to go with a Vice-Presidential nominee for MY Presidential run... I'd look for a moderate tax-friendly pro-peace candidate from the West Coast for geographic balance. Anybody got suggestions?

Whoa. WHOA. PRINCE DIED?!?!?!

So I was helping a library patron with his laptop syncing to iPod when the patron's phone blinked.

News flash: Prince died.

Just to let you know, yes that cat Prince could indeed ball (was an above-average high school b-baller).

JESUS.

I ain't joking about this right now, but 2016 (actually at some point around December 2015 it really became noticeable) is turning out to be one of the worst years for celebrity deaths since 2009. I may be biased, it may be a thing about my Generation (Xers) being more attuned to the media and being on the Internet moreso that earlier generations, but this sh-t is upsetting man.

I mean, here's the list off the top of my head, now with Prince and Chyna (if you followed wrestling in 1990s like some of my co-workers in Broward County Libraries, you'd know who that was) today.

Lemmy

David Bowie

Alan Rickman

George Martin (Beatles producer)

Natalie Cole

Angus Scrimm (Phantasm movies)

Dan Haggarty (Grizzly Adams)

Glenn Frey (Eagles)

ABE VIGODA! I mean, seriously God, when Abe died that was the literal f-cking end of a meme.

Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane)

George Kennedy

Maurice White (Earth Wind and Fire)

Larry Drake (I will always remember him as Durant from Darkman)

And those are the ones I can recall off the top of my head (I had to be reminded of Frey on Twitter awhile ago).

I grew up to all these people, as actors in my favorite movies, as musicians for my favorite songs.

I don't want to think it has to do with getting old. I can't. It just doesn't seem right, does it.

The 2016 Primaries: It's Almost Over Except For the Tears

Yeah, I know. Counting chickens, and Plus-size women at the end of operas, and what not.

But the funny thing about a game based on who gets the biggest set of numbers is that sooner or later the math can only go one way. With regards to the Republican 2016 primary, it's pretty much down to one reality with the delegate count and two ways this can end. From MSNBC's First Read:

as of the New York primary

Trump needs to win 57% of remaining delegates to reach 1237 magic number (was 61%)
Cruz needs to win 98% of remaining delegates to reach 1237 magic number (was 86%)
Kasich needs to win 158% of remaining delegates to reach 1237 magic number (was 140%)

Kasich simply can't reach the 1237 cutoff, while Cruz's chance to reach that delegate majority relies entirely on Trump falling into one of the biggest collapses of all time.

The only reason for this horse-race to continue is to stop Trump from winning outright: keep him from that 57 percent count. But that involves Cruz winning enough states or at least winning enough delegates in the proportional ones, which is becoming harder to see happening. Trump's polling in too many remaining states - especially the big prize California - is still too strong.

Cruz has his other advantage - that he's swiping control of the delegates themselves to have them on hand if the convention goes to second ballot* - but that only comes into play if Trump can't win outright. So in that regard, the Republican primary is still on, it's just that the likelihood of Trump being the winner is becoming too close a reality.

As the First Read article also notes, the Democratic race is almost wrapped up as well:

Clinton must win 29% of remaining delegates to reach 2383 magic number (it was 33%)
Sanders must win 71% of remaining delegates to reach 2383 magic number (it was 67%)

Being a two-player race pretty much from the get-go - Sorry O'Malley - there's still a lot of delegate numbers behind Sanders that gives him good reason to stay in this fight. But the numbers are getting too high against him. Bernie pretty much needs to win two states to Hillary winning one, but the polling for the upcoming primaries have Clinton ahead in the next five states - she's thumping him in Pennsylvania - while Bernie is struggling just to even get tied with her in even one of them. In the proportional states Bernie can still garner delegates, it's just Hillary can garner even more and increase her lead.

There's a reason why Bernie's people - well, Jeff Weaver - are openly talking about going after the Superdelegates - the very party leaders that they disdained early in the race - to try and flip this to them. But that's impossible: the very nature of Superdelegates is to do what's best for the Democratic Party, and if Hillary's winning the party's majorities, then they'll side with her.

So we're pretty much wrapping this thing up. All that's left is the Five Stages of Ending a Campaign: Blaming the media, Blaming the ground crew, Blaming the managers, Blaming the voters as you Quit, and Praising the eventual winner so you can grovel for a Cabinet seat later.

I'm pretty much with Charles Pierce at Esquire here: we've got the two nominees for the Republicans and the Democrats now. Deal with it.

I'd like to pay attention to other things, but there's still the whole car-wreck appeal this election cycle has... Morbid, yet engrossing.

*I need to learn how to add footnotes to a blog, but anyway as a dark thought to have here: there is a possibility of a delegate revolt at the convention even if Trump wins the majority. If Trump proves that unpalatable in Cleveland - if say he sticks to his vulgar campaigning style, or keeps polling under 40 percent for the general election, or if he chooses Palin (again?) to be his Vice President - there's a chance Cruz or the RNC can convince enough delegates to fight the rules that say they HAVE to vote first ballot for Trump. That will, of course, destroy the entire convention: But if it gets THAT bad... or if Cruz is that self-obsessed to use "his" delegates that way...