Don't be surprised

This year is one where the public is signaling that it wants a big change.  Both Trump and Sanders were the choices of people disgusted at the two-party duopoly's ability to prevent meaningful change, and allow the middle class to sink into poverty.  The GOP had no choice, except to accept Trump as its nominee. And the Democratic establishment found a way to gyp Sanders of the votes he needed to win the nomination. As a result, we have the two least favorite candidates being in a position to be elected president.

Many Democrats are now saying that a vote for Johnson is a vote for Trump.  This may be true, but only in the states where it's a toss up between Hillary and Trump.  In states such as New York, there there are 3 Democratic party voters for every 2 from the GOP. It is safe for me to vote for the Libertarian choice, since I see no risk that Trump can win in New York.

I am under no illusions that the Libertarians can win.  Johnson's total ignorance of world affairs shows him to be unqualified for the position of president.  His Vice Presidential nominee is better qualified than he is, as Weld knows much more about the world outside the 50 states.  Sadly, the Libertarians have way too many purists, and do not know how to compromise in order to gain power.

Yet, I see signs of hope for the long term.  For the first time ever, I've seen a campaign sign for the Libertarian candidates posted near my house.  They are slowly starting to get traction - after many years of wandering in the wilderness.  People are seeing the Libertarians as a party they can support, if only as a protest against the two-party power duopoly.

Don't be surprised that some time in the next 20 years that the Libertarians become a major power in their own right.  The Democrats have not been developing enough good leaders at the state level, and have ceded control of many states to the GOP.  The GOP has taken ever more extreme positions, and no longer represent mainstream America. Why did it take so long for Trump to repudiate David Duke? The answer is simple - they have courted white supremacists since Richard Nixon's day, and they don't know how to break the deal with this devil.  Please note that most Republicans are not racist.  They only made the mistake of absorbing this blighted voting bloc when the Democrats cast them off by LBJ's signing of civil rights legislation.

The Libertarians are closer to classic GOP values than the current GOP is.  Small government is a hallmark of the Libertarian party.  The GOP promotes an ever bigger government, in the form of our military and its civilian workforce. Contrast this with the Libertarians who want to pull back from international quagmires, and work on domestic problems.  I, for one, am afraid that if the GOP gets in control of the elected branches of government, that they will repeat the mistakes of Bush #43, and pay for military growth with debt - destroying the futures of our children and grandchildren, as they will be the ones who have to pay for our mistakes.

My advice: If you live in a state which is virtually guaranteed to vote Democratic, vote for the Libertarians if you can't stand Trump of Hillary. If you are in a state that is virtually guaranteed to vote Republican, vote for Libertarians if you can't stand Trump or Hillary.  But if you live in a state that's up for grabs, vote for the candidate who is least objectionable.  It's a terrible year in which to cast a vote. But we have a real choice, even though many of us will be holding our noses as we make it.

Many people think we have no choice, but we do.

I can't stand Trump, and you can't stand Clinton.  Who would be a logical choice for us if we could have only one person as president?  This is a big problem when both candidates are equally easy to hate?

Over the years, Clinton has been pilloried by the GOP and lied about at every turn.  But she had done little to make things better for herself, and has only reinforced the lies told about her. But Trump is no paragon of honor, as he has been in bed with foreign powers who are no friends of the USA.  Even in this paragraph, you can sense a very slight bias towards Clinton - but not a bias I'd have if the GOP put up a more honorable candidate.

Recently, Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Her surrogates covered up for her instead of telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may.  As a result, her health has become an issue for the campaign.  Gone are the days that Kennedy could hide his Addison's disease.  Gone are the days that Wilson could hide an almost fatal stroke. And gone are the days that FDR's polio related paralysis would be ignored by the press. The health of a potential president is very important to us.

Given Trump's doctor's note, I feel that the note was in effect written by Trump himself. Even a 12th grader would use more adult language than was on the note.  (Trump's speeches have been analyzed, and they are at a 4th grade level.  What does this say about the doctor's note?)  With Trump calling for full disclosure by Hillary, but not being willing to do so himself, there is little reason to consider him an honorable candidate for president.

So where does this leave us?  We do have a choice - the Libertarians and their candidate, Gary Johnson.  No, I don't expect him to win.  But I do expect him to be able to throw a monkey wrench into this election.  Voting Libertarian is the best way of saying "NO!" to both parties and their corruption.  Once they start getting some victories, it will be much harder for the duopoly to keep this third party off the ballot.  And with victories will come change.

Some people will say that Johnson should have known about Aleppo. Yet, how many of us remember that Syrian city unless it is in the news?  I can't fault him for being forgetful - he doesn't have the luxury of big staffs like the Democrats and the GOP can provide for their candidates.  At least, he has a coherent philosophy.  And if by some miracle he won our nation's highest office, I'm pretty sure that Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, and Bill Maher would be there at the swearing in ceremony - as well as the unofficial "after party".  (I'd love to be there for that one!)

We have a lot to think about before November 8th.  And I hope that either one of the major party candidates shows him/herself worthy of high office. Or I hope that the Libertarians would finally come of age and win something....

Mixed Nuts

As they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  And Donald junior's quote about gas chambers says that he is just as crazy as his father. There is talk that Trump's wife worked here illegally before becoming a legal resident. The more I hear about Trump and his family, the more I feel like they all are a danger to this country in one form or another.

The Trump organization does business with a lot of shady characters. I'm far from certain if it is even possible for Trump to be president without a conflict of interest between him and the family corporation. Most presidents are able to put their private wealth into a blind trust, where they do not know what is in the trust, and that there is no conflict of interest between the president's actions and that of the people managing his money. Trump has only said that he will put his organization into the hands of his family. Can anyone say that this eliminates the potential for a conflict of interest? When I consider the business scams perpetuated by Trump and his minions, I get very disturbed.When I consider that the Trump Foundation may be a slush fund by another name, I get disgusted. When Trump claims that he gets audited every year because he's a good Christian, I know he's lying because the IRS (with the exception of TCMP audits) only flags returns for audits because they are very suspicious. Of course, when you consider the people that the Trump Organization does business with, I find that it will be highly likely that a President Trump will favor his business friends over the national interest.  Can we trust Trump to look out for the USA when his Modus operandi is to only look out for himself?

Of course, there are people who will be voting for Trump as a way to disrupt the national elites.  I have no truck with what they want to do, but with how they are doing it.  One does not throw out a government unless one has sane leaders to take over the reins when the old leaders are elected out of office.  In Britain, the opposition party has the equivalent of a cabinet in waiting. These ministers are specialists in their areas of competence, and would be ready to take the reins immediately once their party is voted in. In the USA, we have a deep bench of reasonably sane people to call upon for cabinet nominations during the 2 1/2 month period between Election Day and Inauguration Day. And all cabinet positions are vetted by the Legislative branch as a safeguard.  However, Trump wants to put the foxes in charge of the hen houses.  He has already tapped someone from "big oil" to be in charge of the EPA. He has also said that he wants some new limits on 1st amendment freedoms. In particular, he wants to gag the press. Given the Newsweek article liked to above, one can understand why he distrusts the press. This is a dangerous harbinger of things to come.

Given that I live in New York, I expect the Democrats to win my state by their usual margins. As a result, I feel safe in casting my vote for Gary Johnson and helping the Libertarian party grow.  If I lived in a state where the election would be a tossup, I'd be voting for Hillary. I do not like Hillary. But she seems like the lesser of evils, when one gets to know more about the two candidates.

Abandon Ship!

And now the rats are fleeing the ship.  We now are hearing the clarion call from some of the most important conservative media that Trump should either play the game according to the rules, or the GOP will find a way to abandon him for its own survival.  Sadly for the GOP, the die was cast a long, long time ago.  And when they could have gotten rid of the cancer called Donald Trump, they dilly dallied until it was too late to do anything meaningful to stop Trump.

The soul of a political party is tested now and then.  The Democrats were tested when Bill Clinton was impeached by the house.  No one abandoned him, when he was guilty of a "petty" felony.  They were addicted to the money he knew how to bring to his party. The Democrats failed their test, but I'm not sure they could have passed it without tearing the party apart.  This season, it's the Republican's turn.  And they are failing with no excuse. When political leaders are saying that Trump is a con artist who has no business being president, but they support him anyway in the same breath - this is an example of the ethical and moral bankruptcy of the party. This is a colossal failure with no mitigating factors - and no excuses for their (expected) eventual loss in November.

This is a year where the GOP should have been able to easily win the presidency.  All they had to do was stop leaning towards the extreme right, and let Hillary's failings do her in.  In a news cycle that just reported that the Clinton Foundation placed a well heeled contributor in an important government security post, Trump kept making an ass out of himself, wasting another good chance to rightfully attack Hillary for "business as usual".

Trump is likely making a bogus claim that his taxes are being audited.  I'll bet that he doesn't release his taxes because he'll be shown to be a less than successful businessman who is engaged in many questionable deals.  Trump's history in making deals show that he knows how to prosper at the expense of others.  I can only imagine if this tendency holds true about a presidential run.  After losing miserably, he can set himself up as the ringmaster of another media circus, having a networked radio/TV show available over the air or on the internet, where he'll make more money than he ever did with NBC.  He'll continue to claim he was cheated, and people will pay to hear his nonsense.

Where does this leave the GOP?  The way I see it, they would be smart to abandon the racist wingnuts in their base, and go back to the honest conservatism of a William Buckley and Barry Goldwater.  If they also abandon the evangelicals, they might be a smaller party which fights for survival at first.  But they will be free to promote a more coherent and more palatable policy - something that could easily hurt the Democrats if presented by a charismatic leader like Ronald Reagan. 

By now, you may be wondering who I'm going to vote for.  And I think it will be the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson.  In New York, the Democrat running for president almost always wins the state. Since I don't like Hillary, and I am disgusted with Trump, I think it's a safe bet for me to give Johnson the vote - and hope that they get more votes than the GOP this year.  If this happens, all political hell will break loose - and maybe, just maybe, the political elite will realize that they have to do something for the rest of us, lest we vote them out....