I know I’m not the only one who thinks this is a crucial time in our history. We are 3 days before the most important midterm election in my lifetime. I, like everyone else want to say something. I feel that if I could get the message to everyone in this country that I could convince everyone to do the right thing in this election. But lo and behold I only have a teeny tiny little megaphone with my blog. The orange orangutan has the huge megaphone that blasts into our consciousness every minute.
I know this is a rant. So is Barbara Streisand’s … only she does it in such a beautiful way. Click below to see and hear “Don’t Lie To Me” from her latest album.
So what’s a liberal to do after screaming VOTE VOTE VOTE to everyone we can especially the millennials who are notorious for not showing up?
Yes I want the Dems to win the House. Yes I want him impeached. Every day he is President is one day too many.
But Trump has proved to be a formidable foe. He did win the election and he’s maintained his base of support for 2 years despite his despicable moral character.
Two years ago I sat at this desk and blogged about the 2016 election being about a question of morality. From the guy who brought you My Moral Compass came what I thought was the closing argument to who should be President – the candidate with the best moral character.
Unfortunately backing Hillary on moral character was not a black and white case. Was it the white working class in the rust belt? Was it the Russians? Was it the crazy electoral college? Somehow Trump won the election and we’ve had 2 years of wreaking havoc on our lives and our democracy.
Ok, you say you like the tax cuts and the economy is booming. And as a conservative you love getting Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the highest court. What I realized a long time ago was our President represents us as who we are as a people. It’s not just about policy. Ronald Reagan – I disagreed with on virtually every policy, but I remember his words of comfort and healing after the space shuttle Challenger disaster. I remember Reagan’s plea “Mr. Gorbachev – tear down this wall!”. Reagan was on the right side of history as the Berlin wall came down about 2 years later. I agreed with Bill Clinton on most policies, but having an affair with an intern and then lying about it was reprehensible.
I could fill the page with Trump’s awful statements –
- Fine people on both sides
- Sh*thole countries
- Mexicans are rapists
Leave it to others to catalog the worst of the worst. You cannot separate the President’s policies from the values he promotes, and this isn’t who we are. Republicans it’s time to step up. These prominent Republicans are standing up. There’s lots more. They may agree with him on policy, but these people know when their values have been breached and are saying “vote for Democrats!”
Here is Max Boot’s latest rant in the Washington Post. He probably says it better than I can.
Elected Republicans have shown no spine to stand up to Trump. They have to be voted out. At all levels. There’s no other way.
It’s 3 AM in Trump Towers. Our hero, Donald Trump is wide awake ready with his phone to give ’em all a Tweet Storm. Suddenly his phone emits a weird ringtone.
Skype calling …
Putin: Comrade Trump. It’s so wonderful to see you. Although your numbers in the polls are awful. Hillary Clinton is going to win your election rather easily.
Trump: My numbers are going up. And once we expose all the corruption that Hillary Clinton …
Putin: That’s what I wanted to inform you of. You see, Mr. Trump, we’ve got all of the Democrats emails. This can be very useful to our cause, as your election needs to turn out the way I like. Hillary Clinton has been like a boil in my back for too long.
Trump: Hah hah. Democrats are such wimps with cyber-security.
Putin: We’ve got all the Republicans’ emails also. Your security is no better. My IT comrades told me the American security was the easiest to penetrate. Americans fall for that password trick every time. But we’ve got a deal for you.
Trump: Oh great. It’s time for the art of the deal. Here I am right across from Putin, I’m going to get my best dealmaking face …
Putin: Mr. Trump …
Trump: I’ve got it, I’ve got it – you release those emails of just the Democrats — and you can stay at Trump Tower anywhere in the world … for the rest of your life!
Putin: Mr. Trump … shut up and listen! We will release only the Democrats emails. Bit by bit. And you will … do us some favors, shall we say.
Trump: What kind of favors? I can get you hookers in any of the Trump Tower luxury suites.
Putin: Let’s start with a gesture of good will. There’s this language in the Republican Party platform about arming Ukraine. We would like that removed.
Trump: Oh, no one cares what’s in the platform …
Putin: We’d like to see it happen. That will tell me you’re serious and your people can make things happen.
Trump: Ok, I’ll have my people talk to your people.
Putin: This meeting never happened, understand comrade?
Access Hollywood tapes, 3 debates, James Comey, more emails from Wikileaks, still Hillary is going to win.
Huh????
Putin: Mr. Trump, a few more favors are going to be necessary at this time.
Trump: Wait a minute. I have to negotiate with you. I have to get a great deal …
Putin: Mr. Trump. First, about those sanctions.
Trump: We’re on it. I’ll have my guy Flynn talk to your people. The sanctions will be taken care of on Day 1 of my administration.
Putin: And about your State Department. I’m glad you’ve nominated Comrade Tillerson ..
Trump: Just like you asked …
Putin: But you see, your State Department continually puts out these human rights reports. Makes us comrades in Russia look bad.
Trump: We’re on it. Day one of my administration we say the State Department is full of waste, fraud, and abuse, and we’ll get rid of all the Obama moles. In fact, we’ll have Rex get rid of everybody. Who needs all those foreign service diplomats. I have a good brain.
Putin: Very good, Mr. Trump. We’ll meet again soon for my next set of favors.
Trump: Wait wait, we have to make a deal. I’m a great negotiator …
Putin: No here’s how it goes. I help you win the election, you do what I tell you. Elections, what a silly system you have here in America. Where you could actually lose.
Putin: We need you to take care of the press in your country. They keep reporting contacts between our comrades during the election.
Trump: I know I know. The press is the enemy of the people. They’re the most dishonest people on the planet. I can’t stop them from spouting out their lies.
Putin: Just take over the press, like I do.
Trump: I’m trying. I’ve got Breitbart and Fox New working the beat. What would I do without my friend Shawn Hannity. Oh I know. I’ll tweet out how Obama has been wire-tapping Trump Towers just like they said on Breitbart. That will keep reporters chasing their tails for a while.
Putin: Ok, Mr. Trump. Until we meet again.
Stay tuned …
I’ve finally coaxed The Political Football back from vacation. Humor and satire is needed more than ever now. It’s a whole new ballgame!
The banner has changed since the days of Obama tossing a football. Let’s look at each panel.
Democrats and Republicans are at each others’ throats. Neither side will give an inch. Each side thinks they are right (about everything) and no progress towards anything meaningful is ever possible.
Trump is angry. His people are angry. He’s probably making a speech about Mexican rapists or Somali refugees who are sure to become violent criminals.
The 2016 election map with an ominous picture of Putin in the lower right. The Russians hacked our election, pure and simple. And now the Russians are influencing our politics in ways we don’t understand.
This is the classic picture of Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown, and Charlie Brown falling for it again. Hint – the American people are not being played by Lucy.
I’m still shell-shocked by the events of November 8. Since then I’ve put the Political Football on vacation so that at least someone can escape from the daily horrors of having a demagogue with the temperament of a 4 year old as the leader of the free world.
My latest project is Matt’s Top 100 which for the most part is non-political.
The Political Football will be back soon.
It’s 2 days before the biggest election of our lifetime, and everyone (I mean everyone) is saying “Please, make it be over. Make it be Tuesday night already. We need this campaign to be over.”
I feel this is the exact time for all of us to stand up and be counted. What is being President of the United States really all about? It’s about the moral character of the man, or woman elected to the highest office. Let’s look at the moral character of each.
Hillary Clinton has spent 30 years in public life working to make the lives of Americans better. Her mission, should she be privileged enough to win this food fight, is to help the lives of average Americans. For those of you who question Hillary’s moral character, take a look at this:
I Was A Hillary Hater – Until I Read Her Emails
She lies. As does every other politician. She makes backroom deals. As does every other politician.
As for the emails, Hillary made the decision to use a private email server out of convenience. She was Secretary of State which had her constantly traveling to all ends of the globe, and it was convenient to keep her personal emails and work emails in the same place. It’s a decision you or I could have made as did Colin Powell before her. If she somehow passed something that was classified – it was inadvertent. You all know that. The laws about classified information are to prevent passing classified information to our enemies, and you know there’s no intent there, even if there is a there there.
Let’s see how Hillary’s moral character stacks up to Donald Trump’s.
- Calls Mexicans rapists.
- Insults and bullies his way to the nomination
- Makes up a crazy story about Muslims celebrating 9/11
- Tells a federal judge he cannot be partial because he is part Mexican
- Insults a gold star family whose son was killed in Iraq
- Is endorsed by the KKK
- His favorite world leader is Vladimir Putin
- Admits on tape that he kisses and gropes women and gets away with it, ‘cause he’s famous
- Talks openly about not accepting the results of the election
This is only 1 weeks worth of bad behavior. If we listed all of the odious character traits of Trump we’d be here all day.
If Trump is somehow elected – and this week’s tightening of the polls certainly says that it’s possible – the country will be more divided than ever. How do you see Trump healing the wounds by Twitter wars, insults Muslims, building a wall and all of the rest of his great plans?
If Hillary is elected – there’s a chance. A chance that she knows the levers of government so well that she’ll be able to find common ground with some reasonable Republicans. A chance that some people will start to see the real character traits of Hillary Clinton. She will be a much better president than she is as a candidate. I really believe that.
I know that if my Democratic candidate had as putrid a moral character as Trump, and there was a reasonable candidate on the Republican side (Romney, McCain, Kasich) I’d vote for the Republican. It would pain me to vote Republican just like it pains most of my Republican friends (and I do have some). But here we are. Each voter needs to get in the voting booth and think hard about what kind of country we want to live in. It’s all about moral character.
In four days there’s a chance that our country could elect this man.
If you’re like me, you’ve been freaking out about Trump’s poll numbers the last few days. I’ve been refreshing fivethirtyeight.com every few hours and seeing the numbers go from bad to worse. **
Nate Silver, you suck! You had Hillary at 85% just a week or so ago. Damn James Comey and those emails.
Actually folks, you can breath again. Today’s refresh has us here.
I think there’s a good chance that people are coming to their senses about electing this man. The 3 states I’m watching – constantly – are Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada. As of yesterday they were all slightly in the red column. Today they’ve moved back to blue, if only with just over 50%.
- Update – 3 hours later, North Carolina and Florida are back in the red column. Ugh! This is going to be a nervous 4 days.
Facebook posts have gotten more serious, like FOLKS, THIS GUY MIGHT WIN AND WE’LL BE STUCK WITH HIM FOR 4 YEARS.
I posted something. A link to a video of a Clinton ad I thought was really compelling.
My message is simple – play this ad over and over until Tuesday. How could I have only gotten 2 likes? .. Maybe Facebook is rigging the newsfeed and suppressing pro-Hillary posts. That must be it..
Folks, this is the most important election in our lifetime. Trump has tapped into an economic pain that is out there and absolutely real. I want to say to all the Trump people – folks – I know there’s a lot of pain that comes with progress and globalization, but Donald Trump is not the way. We’re not going back to the 1950s and those factory jobs are not coming back. We need to pull together, not be pitted us against each other in the world of Trump.
Which brings us to the title. Think of voting for Hillary as when you were a child and your parents told you to eat your brussels sprouts. They don’t taste very good going down but you know they’re good for you. And it’s a whole lot better than eating gruel.
Here’s my thing for the next days until the election. And beyond. Stand up and be counted. Make your case. Clinton is far from perfect but Trump is downright dangerous. To quote a line from The American President — The presidency is ENTIRELY about character. Trump goes against every character value I hold dear.
-He lies – constantly
-He has no respect for women
-He uses fear to scare his audience into anything
-He encourages violence at his rallies
-He mocks women, the disabled, and any group that opposes him
-His favorite world leader is Vladimir Putin – that should tell you something.
Let’s compare that to Hillary. The emails – they’ve got nothing. The Clinton Foundation – more nothing. Benghazi- again nothing. She talks to Wall Street bankers. She calls 1/2 if Trump supporters deplorable. Oops it was a mistake to say 1/2.
Are these anywhere near as bad as Trump grabbing women’s genitals? And you know all the stories are true. Would all of these women put themselves in the national spotlight to be harassed by media and threatened by Trump supporters if it weren’t true? Those women were absolutely attacked by the sexual predator that we’re thinking of electing.
I encourage everyone to think long and hard about who you are voting for. Then get out and vote. After the election, when Trump and the crazies say that the election was rigged and not legitimate, stand up and be counted. It’s only our democracy at stake.
** If you aren’t familiar with fivethirtyeight.com, it’s been the most reliable polling site over the last two election cycles. Nate Silver is the head of 538.com and goes on numerous talk shows as a nerdy mathematical genius rather than a partisan.
*** Did you notice anything weird about the first fivethirtyeight.com screenshot with Clinton ahead 61.7 to 39.2? Those numbers don’t add up to 100. In fact, Clinton’s percentage of winning has never dipped to 61.7. Turns out I took a screenshot when the percentages were 67.1 to 32.9 and flipped around some digits.
Trump: After Brussels that’s the last straw for ISIS! We’re going to bomb them from here to Kingdom Come!
Cruz: But you’re not President yet!
Trump: And as for waterboarding, you bet we’re going to waterboard our prisoners.
Cruz: Well that’s nothing. I will carpet bomb them.
Trump: I’ll see your carpet bombs and raise you cluster bombs.
Cruz: This weak President has been a failure at foreign policy. Just like George W said we’re going to find the terrorists and “smoke ‘em out of their holes!”.
Trump: And we’ll close the border!!!
Cruz: And we’ll never close the border to good Christians.
Trump: And we won’t let any Muslims in ‘till we figure this thing out!
Cruz: And we’ll screen all the Muslim areas in our cities.
Trump: Hey, we agree on a lot of things, Ted. Want to be my Vice President?
Cruz: Donald Trump MUST BE STOPPED. I’m the only alternative to Donald Trump.
Trump: Well, I’ve won 13 primaries in a row so tough luck for you.
…..
And there you have it
Folks, I’m reviving the Political Football. One of the big challenges for a blogger is to keep consistently writing new blog posts and my problem has been that I haven’t. My last blog post was almost 2 years ago. Here’s to a new reboot of The Political Football. The format will be a little more wide ranging than before. I hope you enjoy …
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There’s no doubt that we’re at a crossroads of where our energy is going to come from in our future.
We’ve just had the climate change conference in Paris and what does it all mean? Admit it, folks. We are split down the middle of
- Those who think climate change is the most important issue of our time. It is real, man-made, and the only way to save our planet is to address it by reducing fossil fuels.
- Those who think climate change is not an important issue. Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s not, but it’s way down the priority list after terrorism, the economy, and immigration.
Does that sound about right? Of course, the split is pretty much where you’d expect it to be –
- Blue team – CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL, AND IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE OF OUR TIME!!!!! IF WE DON’T ACT NOW THE DAMAGE WILL BE DONE AND WE’RE GOING TO COOK THE PLANET!!!!
- Red team – CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX. MAYBE IT’S REAL, MAYBE IT’S NOT. WE CAN’T TURN OUR ECONOMY UPSIDE-DOWN TRYING TO SOLVE IT!!!! THERE ARE SO MANY MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES LIKE ISIS ISLAMIC TERRORISM!!!!!!
Let’s put aside climate change for the moment and look at a couple of points about energy consumption. Fuel for thought …
First, there IS only a finite supply of fossil fuels to extract from the earth. We will run out eventually. BP’s own projections have us running out of oil in 2067, gas in 2069, and coal in 2121 (Source: Tech Insider). Maybe these projections are open to interpretation, but it’s fact that there’s only a finite amount of resources in the ground. Eventually we’ll have to find other sources of energy. Wind and solar maybe?
Next point – does anyone – on either side of the aisle – think burning fossil fuels and having its waste products go into the atmosphere is a good thing? Maybe climate change is real, maybe it’s not goes the argument. However, the best a fossil fuel enthusiast can come up with is “Yes, toxic chemicals are going into the air as the result of burning our fuel, but it’s really not that bad”. Ask the people in China who often can’t go outside and have breathable air.
The only argument for fossil fuels is economic. And let’s give the economic argument its due – oil, natural gas, and coal keep energy prices low. A lot of people can’t afford to have fuel prices go up dramatically, be the the family in New England whose home heating costs in the dead of winter are barely affordable, or the truck driver whose income is directly affected by the cost of gasoline. And then there’s the jobs – jobs in oil and gas rigs and coal mining. Parts of the country could lose thousands of jobs if fossil fuel production is phased out. In its most extreme form, a plan to move off of fossil fuels rapidly does carry with it a lot of economic pain. So noted.
Let’s look beyond the next election and project many years ahead – we’re going to run out of fossil fuels we can extract from the ground. Eventually. That’s a fact.
Red Team – What Say You?
The red team’s plan – let market forces rule. The market will take care of things. Fossil fuels will be phased out when market forces phase them out. There should be no government intervention such as cap and trade, or special tax incentives for renewables, or seed money for startups like Solyndra. Let’s ignore all of the proposals and initiatives from the Paris 2015 conference. The outcome of the red team plan? At some point fossil fuels are going to be phased out and renewables phased in by market forces, because we’re going to run out.
With the red team’s plan – we get to a point where renewables take over in the future by market forces. Meanwhile, we’ve spewed millions of tons of toxins in the air and we’ve done untold more environmental damage with fracking, mountaintop removal coal mining, and other untold methods we have of extracting these fuels from the earth.
Blue Team – What Say You?
What is the blue team’s plan after all? Because if you listen to Fox News the plan means huge tax increases for everyone in the middle class, skyrocketing energy costs, and massive joblessness in the heartland where coal mining is king. This will be the result of any government policy changes that attempt to phase out fossil fuels and provide incentives for renewables. What the blue team is actually saying is – yes, there will be policy changes to speed up the process of moving to renewables, but within that there will be safeguards. Solar and wind are already becoming competitive and there just need to be a few incentives to push it along. Electric cars are coming, like it or not. How about this story on an innovative new energy source from Portland, Ore. Any policy prescription (tax incentives, cap and trade, etc.) needs to ensure there won’t be a shock to fuel prices. And as for the jobs, there will be plenty of jobs in the clean energy sector. They won’t be the same jobs. But really – is a job climbing down into a coal mine and breathing coal dust for 40 years really the kind of job we want for future generations? Let’s replace those dirty jobs for high paying jobs in the clean energy sector. The government can help retrain workers to gain the skills they need. I would think a 40 year old coal miner would jump at the chance to be educated in some high tech specialty to work in the clean energy sector (as opposed to looking forward to another 20 years of working in the mines).
Where Do We Go From Here?
Folks, let’s stop arguing on the extremes of the red and blue team plan. Market forces are going to change the fuel economy to renewables anyway. Government can help it along, and we can get there a lot quicker without shocking the economy. That, in a nutshell, is what the blue team’s plan is.
And here we are – at the end of the article. I suspect anyone on the red team who started reading has tuned out by now. But for the record, I haven’t even tried to make the argument that 99% of scientists believe that climate changes is real, man made, and causing damage and extreme weather events, and that curbing fossil fuels is the only way forward before we bake the planet. Just sayin’ …..
Here at a Republican strategy session, we have a couple of tea partiers wrapping up the year’s best speeches from their bright stars in the tea party movement. Let’s take a look…
Tea Partier #1: This is Steve King speaking about illegal immigrants.
For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.
Tea Partier #1: That’s terrific imagery, don’t you think?
Tea Partier #2: You get the image of the illegals helping the drug traffic, but also a dig on all those liberal pot smokers. Great stuff!
Tea Partier #1: Let’s take a look at the next one. Remember when Ted Cruz held the Senate floor for 21 straight hours? He fought the good fight trying to defund Obamacare.
Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, “Accept the Nazis. Yes, they’ll dominate the continent of Europe but that’s not our problem. Let’s appease them. Why? Because it can’t be done. We can’t possibly stand against them.”
Tea Partier #1: Ah, Neville Chamberlain and the Nazis. A perfect analogy to Obamacare.
Tea Partier #2: Right, Nazis taking over all of Europe, and the American people capitulating to Obama, who is stealing our freedom with his government takeover of the health care system. You got that right.
Tea Partier #1: Here’s Michelle Bachmann on the House floor protesting Obamacare …
That’s why we’re here because we’re saying let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. Let’s not do that.
Tea Partier #1: And it is literally going to kill people. We want people to have health insurance, but if it’s called Obamacare it will kill them.
Tea Partier #2: And no one ever died before we had Obamacare.
Tea Partier #1: Actually, some people did die before Obamacare because they didn’t have health insurance.
Tea Partier #2: But they were probably Democrats, anyway. What do we care about them for!
Tea Partier #1: Here’s Paul Broun, a rising star from the great state of Georgia.
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell!
Tea Partier #1: Great stuff! They did a survey and now less people believe in evolution now. I think Broun is hitting it just right.
Tea Partier #2: Isn’t it great that Broun is on the House science committee. We need clear thinking advocates who look at God’s word as the only true science.
Tea Partier #1: And he’s the guy that called the Civil War the Great War of Yankee Aggression. A true patriot.
Tea Partier #1: And last but not least we’ve got another from Ted Cruz. Can you believe how clever this guy is? Reading “Green Eggs and Ham” to make his point.
I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them
anywhere.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am
Tea Partier #2: Amazing those Obamacare folks. They just don’t get that people don’t like Obamacare, not here or there, not anywhere!
Tea Partier #1: You know, Sam-I-am actually does like green eggs and ham at the end of the story.
Tea Partier #2: But you don’t think that would happen with Obamacare. Do you? Uh-oh we better tell the boss. If people start liking Obamacare we’re in real trouble …
With all the talk of government shutdown, Obamacare, sequester, and hitting the debt ceiling, a little corner of the government really has its act together. Or does it? Here in this dark corner of a Washington DC office the IT professionals of the Federal government discuss their task at hand. These must be the best and brightest, as what IT professional would want to work for Google or Apple when you could be working for the government?
IT Manager: Gang, great job on getting Obamacare launched. Our team did a fantastic job of meeting the October 1 deadline.
Programmer #1: Uh, sir. There have been a few glitches. The website hasn’t been quite working as well as we expected.
Programmer #2: We really didn’t expect so many people would sign on October 1. The site got very busy and we didn’t really expect that.
Programmer #3: But we do put up a nice friendly screen in case the site gets too busy. Right here, sir.
Programmer #2: And of course, we have the call center, where people can wait on hold only about 30 minutes to do the sign-up over the phone.
IT Manager: So people are signing up for health care in droves, right? Since the site is so busy …
Programmer #1: Not quite. Most people can’t get through the whole signup process. It’s very complicated, you know. They kept changing the requirements throughout the project. We never had a chance to test it properly.
Programmer #2: My cousin signed up for health care just yesterday. No problem at all.
Programmer #3: Yeah, but he’s from Massachusetts, right? They have their own exchange and it’s been up for years. The ones that are having trouble are from all the states with pesky Republican governors who refused to set up exchanges.
IT Manager: Let’s move on. What are we doing about October 17?
Programmer #1: Excuse me?
IT Manager: That’s the day the government runs out of money. What are our contingency plans if those clowns in Congress don’t raise the debt ceiling?
Programmer #2: Uh, nothing sir. We haven’t got anything in place.
IT Manager: Hmmm, the tea party is going around saying that defaulting on the debt isn’t really a big deal. We’ll just prioritize who we pay first.
Programmer #1: What planet are they living on? Do they think Obama is just going to sit at a computer terminal and say “Pay China first, next up Social Security checks, Medicare will have to wait …”
Programmer #2: These are really complicated computer programs that are built to make sure everyone gets paid on time. There’s millions of lines of code. There’s no way for a human to intervene. If we knew the government was going to run out of money, we’d have to be planning for years to reprogram it. It’s a worse problem than Y2K!
IT Manager: So what’s going to happen?
Programmer #1: We’ve got a screen from healthcare.gov to put up just in case.
Editor’s Note: We can only hope by the time you read this that those clowns in Congress have done the right thing …
The Political Football 