WE MAY NEED A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE

For the past two presidential elections, most American’s voted against one candidate–not for. Even Trump was surprised when he beat Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election. But the fact is, lots of people didn’t like her at all, for various reasons. Misogyny, mainly. But others disliked her defense of her husband’s affairs, and the way she threw the women he targeted under the bus. And there was Benghazi, when our American ambassador was left hung out to dry while she was Secretary of State. And then came election 2020. By then, Trump had made so many ridiculous gaffes and mistakes with the Covid-19 pandemic, that people were willing to vote for anyone who opposed him. Hence, we elected a 42 year political hack who never had what it took to run for president—until now. Seems the Democrats and Republicans are so mired in their own party politics that they can’t come up with a truly appealing candidate. Makes you wonder. We may need a third party candidate.

We may need a third party for America to come to its senses. — We may need a third party candidate, since Democrats and Republicans can’t come up with an appealing one..

I’m an independent voter which has it’s disadvantages, because you can’t vote in the primaries. But I’ll be darned if I will go all out for any politician I don’t think would do a good job, just because I want to be part of a crowd. In the days before internet dating sites, young people used to join politically active organizations as a way to meet members of the opposite sex. Remember, those were the days when you were supposed to be a joiner if you were looking to find a spouse, Churches and political parties were fertile mating grounds.

The majority of young people I know vote Democratic. They love causes, and joining protest groups. Give them something to march about , and they’ll be there in rain, sleet and snow. Most older people are fairly quiet about their opinions, which more often than not are conservative. Middle age conservatives are a bit more vocal—driving around town with American flags and signs that say f*** Biden. But the truth is, neither party has produced a truly dynamic, appealing candidate for the past two elections.

I don’t know how anyone could support either party’s platform 100%. Do we really believe that all Republicans oppose abortion rights, and all Democrats want open borders? I don’t think so.

It may be time for a third party. Call it Common Sense, or whatever you like, but let it be centrist. And please, come up with an intelligent inspiring, candidate

September 1, 2021September 1, 2021

SOME THINGS CAN’T BE FIXED.

There are some serious disasters affecting our country right now. California wildfires. The Covid-19 pandemic. Our disastrous withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan. And now, Hurricane Ida. Once upon a time, historians looked upon wars and natural disasters as nature’s way of controlling the population. However, no one thinks that way anymore. We look to our leaders to prevent such events, or get them under control once they occur. Unfortunately, some things can’t be fixed.

Governor Newsom is undergoing a recall election in California right now. He’s getting blamed for a lot of things, and one of them is the wildfires. . They say he could have prevented them if he’d managed the forest growth better. Newsom promised to clear underbrush and thin forests with prescribed burns and other techniques, Wow. Should our governors go all over the states chopping down trees ? That would be an unimaginably complex undertaking, involving a lot of private and public property. I don’t follow California politics, and I have no opinion as to Governor Newsom’s competence. Nevertheless, I think the extreme heat was the main cause of the wildfires.

The Covid-19 virus was a political football from the git-go. President Trump didn’t take it seriously. He predicted the epidemic would be over by Easter of 2020. And even though he pushed through the development of a vaccine, it wasn’t enough for the voters. Consequently, he lost to Biden, who everyone thought would get the virus under control.

Biden’s doing his best to get everyone vaccinated, but we’re still in the midst of a pandemic It seems to me we’re expecting miracles from our presidents and state governors. They can try, but they can’t outwit nature.

And now, we have Hurricane Ida. Homes destroyed. Three weeks without power in New Orleans. No way to cook or run your air conditioner. The misery goes on and on. Yes FEMA can step in and help rescue stranded people, provide food and supplies and shelter. But in the end, the damage was done by an act of nature and there’s nothing any one could have done to prevent it from happening 20 years after Katrina..

Remember the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 29 AD? The city of Pompeii and surrounding cities were buried under volcanic ash. Thousands were killed. Titus was the Roman Emperor at the time, and he organized a huge relief effort to help the victims of the disaster. But there’s no record of anyone complaining that he didn’t do enough.

Some things can’t be fixed.

August 28, 2021August 28, 2021

WILL AMERICANS REALLY FORGET?

The horrifying explosion at the Kabul airport on 8/26/21 took the lives of 13 American servicemen and hundreds of Afghan citizens. Those of us living in the United States of America are viewing the evacuation of Afghanistan more like an abandonment. However, the politicians advising the president have publicly stated that they’re not worried at all, because “people don’t vote on foreign policy.” When several Afghanistan men fell to their death from an airplane while trying to escape, Biden shrugged and said , “that happened yesterday.” They’re betting that voters care more about the size of their 40lKs than the misguided evacuation of Afghanistan as we exit the war. But you have to wonder. Will Americans really forget?

The president’s advisors are comparing the Afghan withdrawal to the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war. However the two events cannot be compared.

According to Wikipedia ” the capture of the city was preceded by Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of almost all American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians who had been associated with the Republic of Vietnam. A few Americans chose not to be evacuated. United States ground combat units had left South Vietnam more than two years prior to the fall of Saigon and were not available to assist with either the defense of Saigon or the evacuation. The evacuation was the largest helicopter evacuation in history. In addition to the flight of refugees, the end of the war and the institution of new rules by the communists contributed to a decline in the city’s population.^”

There was no Operation Frequent Wind when Biden announced we were withdrawing from the Afghanistan War by August 31. In fact, he turned over the names of Americans and Afghan helpers to the Taliban, actually believing that would insure the safety of those fleeing the country. It’s hard to believe that anyone with an ounce of common sense would be so gullible. Much less the President of the United States and his Generals.

Biden has threatened : “We will hunt you down and make you pay.” But how is he going to do that without continuing the war in Afghanistan? They launched a drone strike Friday night against some Isis stronghold, but it seems like a tepid move than doesn’t compensate for the horrific loss of life at the Kabul airport.

What will happen in the next election? Consumer sentiment has dropped to its lowest point since 2011. Will Americans really forget the administration’s bungled evacuation plan when exiting the Afghan War? Will we care more about the size of our bank accounts, than the tragedy of August 26? Are we really that materialistic and shallow? It remains to be seen.

August 21, 2021August 21, 2021

EXISTENTIAL IS BIDEN’S FAVORITE WORD

Lawyers and politicians are often accused of “blowing smoke.” Which means they talk in circles or use words that sound erudite, but no one really understands. All with the hope of diverting the listeners attention away from a serious concern. Sometimes, they like to explain away difficult situations by saying something is an “existential” crisis. Existential is Biden’s favorite word. But does anyone know what it actually means ?

Why couldn’t he simply say, “The Afghan people are scared to death they’re going to get killed by the Taliban? ” Yeah, they’ve got an existential crisis, all right. Many of us have existential problems. Like, when your house goes up in flames, or you get hit by a train. You start to wonder if you’re going to keep on living. If you survive, someone may ask how you’re doing. Would you say you’re going through hell? Or simply respond that you’re having an existential crisis?

Actually, I think Biden copied the expression from Obama. As an example, in a 2014 speech to West Point Graduates. Obama said “We don’t face an existential crisis, We don’t face a civil war. We don’t face a Soviet Union that is trying to rally a bloc of countries that could threaten our way of life.”

That sounded fairly impressive. Very intellectual –calm, cool and collected. It must have been reassuring to the people in the audience. . Only things didn’t turn out so well, since our country has been on the brink of a civil war for the past few years.

Overall, I think the expression is used in an effort to gloss things over. We unenlightened human beings are admonished not to worry—it’s just an existential crisis. Which means there’s nothing can be done. The ultimate cop out.

Existential is a pretty hi-falutin word . If you look it up on the internet, you’ll see it has different meanings. While it’s defined as a concern about existence, it’s also described as: ” a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe, and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.”

Confused? No wonder existential is Biden’s favorite word.

August 7, 2021August 7, 2021

IS BIDEN A MODERN CHARLEMAGNE?

We usually think of early European kings as men who started wars, collected taxes and had people beheaded. Rarely do we think of them as venturing into healthcare. But Charlemagne was different. In the eighth century, he enacted a law requiring that all of his subjects must consume flaxseed. Considering he founded the Holy Roman Empire, that meant a whole lot of people were under his command. In the USA, the president of the United States is about as close you can get to a king. Trouble is, we’re a democracy. Presidents can’t make laws on their own. But sometimes, they come pretty close. Is Biden a modern Charlemagne?

Charlemagne may have been onto something. Many nutritionists call flaxseed one of the most powerful plant foods on the planet. There’s some evidence it may help reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.

But I suspect Charlemagne might have had the same problem as Biden. People don’t always do what’s best for them. They might have kept flaxseed in their homes, just to comply with the law, but that doesn’t mean that they always consumed it. It would have pretty easy to throw the seeds out the window on a windy day. And I’ll bet you that about 50% of his subjects did just that.

Biden is going pretty far with executive orders during this covid-19 crisis. He mandated last week that all federal employees and on-site contractors will have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be required to wear masks and undergo repeated testing. This order that will affect millions of workers and is designed to be a model for other employers.

Next, he asked the Pentagon to look at adding the COVID-19 vaccine to the military’s mandatory shots. That idea isn’t going over too well. A lot of the military don’t want to get vaccinated. They think the vaccine is unsafe and untested. But in the end, Biden will probably get what he wants.

Is Biden a modern Charlemagne?

January 4, 2021January 4, 2021

WHAT IF IT WERE TRUE?

In a couple of days, the electoral college will vote to certify the presidential election. A lot of Republicans are going to protest, saying there’s proof of voter fraud in several states. I doubt if that effort is going anywhere, but it makes you wonder if they’re going to keep pursuing it, like a dog with a bone. What if it were true, after all? Would we have to redo the entire election?

This latest election has been a wake up call for many voters, who thought the voting process was uniform across the United States. In my state of Indiana, you have to have a valid ID, and a signature check in order to vote in person or by absentee ballot. That seems like a pretty reasonable requirement. However, I did not know that other states have different rules. You can vote by mail with no signature or identification. Paper ballots can be run off on xerox machines, and they will be considered valid. In states like Nevada, people can vote twice.

Up until now, I believed that real people counted the votes. I was unaware that the task had been assigned to machines. It really undermines a person’s faith in the entire electoral process.

If certain states have allowed these loosey goosey voting requirements to go on for a long time, then it seems that both political parties are at fault.. Somewhere along the line, someone should have stood up and asked for election reform. But since they didn’t, they have only themselves to blame for the current mess we’re in.

What’s happened now is that most American’s believe that our electoral system is deeply flawed. Many of us have lost faith in the entire process. That’s not good for our country in the long run. The Democrats may have benefited from the loopholes in the system this time around, but it could come back to bite them in future elections if the Republicans figure out ways to beat the system in future elections.

Again, what if it were true? What if proof of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election finally comes to light a year from now? Would we have a do over election? Would Biden have to move out, and Trump move back in the White House? There’s no precedent for this scenario, and no rules established. I guess the legislature would have to figure it all out.

December 23, 2020December 23, 2020

DID TRUMP DODGE A BULLET?

Did you ever experience a broken engagement or get turned down for a job? It was upsetting at the time, and it took awhile to stop mourning your dashed hopes. But then later–maybe much later– the lost lover turned out to be a bummer, and the company that refused to hire you went bust. Or, with a more positive outcome, you found a better job, or met the love of your life. Looking back, you realize that the loss you mourned was actually a blessing in disguise. You dodged a bullet. Now, Trump supporters are grieving the Biden win during the 2020 election. But maybe it’s not a bad thing, after all. Did Trump dodge a bullet?

The stock market is climbing on good news of the vaccine. . But at least one financial advisor is predicting a once in a lifetime crash. During this pandemic, millions of jobs were eliminated in retail, restaurant and other business. Many of these jobs aren’t coming back. How long can the government keep on printing money before we have massive inflation and higher taxes?

Instead of the robust economy everyone is looking forward to, we could have stagflation–slow economic growth, high inflation and high unemployment. They say inflation is under control, but I’m not sure what indicators they’re using. Right now, the cost of food and housing is skyrocketing.

The cyber attack last March may lead to something disastrous for the country. Who knows what a hostile power is going to do with all the information they have now. We could experience massive power outages. Suddenly, you have no telephone, internet, heat, light or running water. Nothing works. Most large organizations have generators that tide them over until the power goes back on. But what if it doesn’t? Generators can’t run indefinitely. Imagine being the president of the United States during such a disaster.

Those are just two scenarios that the next President could face. We avoided foreign wars under Trump. But the luck may run out with Biden, with so many countries desperate after being ravaged by Covid-19. Only time will tell if Trump dodged a bullet.