Will Trump Resolve His Business Conflicts Before His Inauguration? Doubtful.
November 28, 2016

“I don’t care about hotel occupancy” President-elect Trump told Leslie Stahl of “60 Minutes” a few weeks ago. “It’s peanuts compared to what we’re doing.” That was the second time Trump tried to dismiss questions about possible conflicts of interest stemming from refusing to sell of his business holdings while president. The first time was during the very first GOP debate hosted by Fox “news”, where he was asked if he would liquidate his business and put his holdings in a blind trust to ensure there would be no conflict of interests. The problem is, despite repeatedly dismissing the importance of his business to him, it is becoming quite clear that he has no interest in liquidating his empire. And that’s because it IS important to him. All the more reason why he must sell it all off… which he’ll never do.

Incredibly, during that debate, Trump clearly didn’t understand what a “blind trust” is, saying:

“I’ll turn everything over to Ivanka & my kids. Is that a conflict of interests? I don’t know.”

YES! Yes you idiot! Of COURSE that’s a conflict of interests! How does a corporate mogul, worth just over $3-Billion dollars (not ten) who ran on his “business prowess” NOT know what a “conflict of interest” is??? The issue isn’t WHO controls your money (though even if you thought that, how do you conclude that putting your business in the hands of your own family, and profiting off those interests, to be a “blind trust”?), it’s whether you know WHERE your money’s invested! If you still know where the money is, it’s not “blind” at all! As long as there is a danger of you setting national policy according to what personally profits YOU (or your family) OR if there’s a danger someone might try to curry favor with you by appealing to your business interests, THAT (by definition) is a “conflict of interests.”

And regarding his Net Worth: All thru the campaign, Trump insisted he was worth “Ten Billion dollars”, yet repeatedly refused to release his taxes to prove it. And as a Bloomberg investigation revealed [ibid], while Trump has ASSETS in excess of $3-billion, he is actually deep in debt, with roughly $170-Million in liquid assets (cash, stocks, etc), yet owing “over $630-Million” to creditors (nearly double what he owed the year before.) According to “Fox Business” last month, Trump’s credit score (on a scale of 1 to 100) is a whopping NINETEEN (19). Anyone so deep in debt is a ripe target for financial manipulation (and therefore a threat to the interests of the United States.)

The good news (for him) is that he can easily solve BOTH problems by simply selling off his business empire. Eliminate any CoI’s, while simultaneously paying off his massive debt.

For example: the head of the Federal Reserve is not permitted to put his/her money in ANY kind of “interest bearing” bank account. And that is because they set Federal Interest rates, and we can’t have the Chairman of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates according to what might personally benefit them. I’m not even sure they can invest their savings in the stock market because raising/lowering interest rates tends to influence the stock market too. So, because of this, the Chairman of the Fed is well paid to compensate them for not being allowed to invest their money.

The same philosophy applies to members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, and all other government officials. But not to the president or vice president.

Just last Wednesday, in an statement eerily reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal” comment, Trump cited a legal loophole exempting the President & Vice President from “conflict of interest laws”, stating “the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” “In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly” without running afoul of the law. This isn’t exactly true.

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution created “The Emoluments Clause” forbidding the president, “without the Consent of the Congress, [to] accept… any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign [head of] State.” And the Founders reasoning for this is clear: they didn’t want the president of the United States feeling obligated towards anyone for fear of him putting his own interests ahead of those of the country. Personally, I think the “foreign” dignitary loophole is a problem too. Is there any question Trump might be willing to push for a government project that benefits his personal friends? That “one trillion dollars” he claims to be willing to spend on “infrastructure”? Who gets those contracts when when you have a president who made his fortune in “construction”? His personal friends in the construction industry? And if a member of Congress doesn’t want a highway redirected past one of Trump’s hotels, who gets a phone call the next day telling him to “rethink” his opposition?

Of course, with a GOP Congress, they’ll never complain about a Republican president accepting anything others might consider a potential conflict of interests. As long as they remain in charge, he can enjoy whatever conflicts he wants. “Myself, my staff, and our entire delegation stayed in your wonderful hotel Mr. President. Now, let’s talk about that golf course you want to build in our country while we discuss that Trade Deal.”

Even SELLING his assets at this point is a potential conflict of interests if he knows WHO he’s selling to, because the buyer may overpay whatever the asset is worth to gain his favor. Trump would need a third party to liquidate every business he owns in every country he has assets in to ensure no one can manipulate him by holding his business interests hostage.

Just over a week ago, the president-elect met with three business partners from India in his office in Trump Tower. He is currently in development to build a luxury hotel in Pune, India with them. What kind of power does this give Trump’s business partners over the Indian government if they know the man in the White House is a personal friend of theirs?

The day after winning the presidency, Turkish President Erdogan called Donald Trump to congratulate him on his victory. During that call, Trump reportedly discussed a Turkish business partner of his that is licensing the Trump name to build a luxury hotel in Istanbul. So now Erdogan knows he can please the President of the United States by doing favors for someone in the president’s debt (literally).

The Donald keeps insisting that members of his family be present during high level meetings. Completely unacceptable, yet understandable once you realize what extraordinary trust issues Trump has, trusting no one but his own children to look after him (and his business interests.) And the one person he trusts most to look out for him most of all is his daughter Ivanka. So when the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first foreign leader to personally meet with the President-Elect a few weeks ago in New York, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner… neither of whom with any security clearance… were in attendance. The problem is, (besides the whole “security” thing) Ivanka also serves as vice president for development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization, and owns her own jewelry line, Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, which sells to a global market that includes Japan. This could conceivably give Trump’s business interests and those of his kids an unfair advantage competing in global markets.

When Argentine President Mauricio Macri called to congratulate Trump on his election victory, one Argentinian reporter claims Trump asked for help with permits for an office tower that bears his name being built in that country. Both Macri, Trump, and their mutual staffs all deny the subject ever came up during the call (natch), which would be an extraordinary and unprecedented conflict of interests if he did.

Before he announced he was running for president, Trump was furious over a plan to construct a series of off-shore wind turbines spoiling the view of his golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, taking the Swedish company contracted to construct the turbines to court to stall if not stop the project entirely. But in June, the Swedish company announced its plan to proceed with the project anyway. So four days after winning the election, Trump contacted British MP Nigel Farage… a fellow far-Right xenophobe that campaigned with Trump… and “urged him and his fellow members of the European Parliament” to “oppose [all] off-shore wind farms.” Two other far-Right British corporate executives in attendance vowed to “[campaign] against wind farms in England, Scotland, and Wales.” So now, Trump’s business interests are dictating clean energy policy in other countries because it interferes with his corporate interests.

Not even president yet, Trump is already using the power of his office for personal financial gain. Cenk Uygur, host of “The Young Turks” Progressive Talk Show, was a guest on ABC’s ThisWeek yesterday and made the astute observation, “He [Trump] wasn’t worth ten-billion dollars coming into office, but he’ll be worth ten-billion dollars when he leaves.” What is to come once he’s sworn in and the reigns of power are turned over to him? Donald Trump MUST liquidate his business empire NOW. He minimalized it’s importance throughout the campaign (but only so he might downplay the need to divest himself from it), so there should be no problem giving it up. Right?

Except with that massive ego of his, giving up all those building & casinos bearing his name hoisted high in the skies over major cities around the globe is something he’ll never willingly give up without a fight… which is exactly what he’ll get.

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November 28, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · 2 Comments - Add
Posted in: Greed, Money, myth busting, National Security, Predictions, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Unconstitutional

The CEO President. THIS is Trump’s idea of “The Best People”?
November 21, 2016

In 2005, when President Bush proposed appointing his personal lawyer and longtime friend Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court, both Democrats AND Republicans rolled their eyes. Out of every qualified lawyer/judge/academic in the nation, Bush searched “far & wide” the hallway just outside his office door to find what he thought was “the best person to serve on the nations highest court”. Seriously? Bush was roundly criticized for such a lazy pick, and rightly so. So why is it now that Donald Trump… whose pitch for electing his president was his experience as a successful CEO who would find “the best people” to fill his cabinet… “SO great” we “wouldn’t believe it”… seems to only be picking sycophants, campaign lackies, and even family members to fill key roles in his administration, and no one seems to be calling him out on it?

Even Chris Wallace during his interview with VP-elect Mike Pence on Fox “news” Sunday yesterday pointed out that so far, all of Prez-elect Trump’s nominees appear to be “All loyalists and all white men.”

You know it’s bad when even Fox “news” is calling a Republican out for cronyism. Just take a look at what this “CEO president’s” idea of “the best people” looks like:

o Trump appointed his Campaign Manager Steve Bannon… the editor in chief of a right-wing tabloid… to be his “Chief Strategist”. In her divorce decree, Bannon’s ex-wife said he “didn’t want his kids going to school with all those Jews.” Brietbart promoted Trump’s birtherism for nearly Obama’s entire presidency, heralded pride for the Confederate flag, and brags of wanting Brietbart to become “the platform of the “alt-Right” White Nationalists movement within the GOP. But you’d expect nothing less from a man who praises “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader and Satan” (in that order) as his political role-models.

You KNOW you’re bad when even freakin’ Glenn Beck calls you a “horrible, despicable human being”.

o Next questionable appointee on the prez-elect’s list: Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions for Attorney General. Sessions was the first and only senator to endorse Trump prior to him becoming the nominee way back in August of 2015 and remained one of his go-to defenders every time Trump was caught saying something inexcusable. Sessions once called the NAACP & ACLU “Communist inspired” for “Trying to force Civil Rights down the throats of people”, and reportedly said the KKK was “okay until I learned they smoked pot” [ibid]. Sessions called the 1965 Voting Rights Act “intrusive legislation” and denied his state (Alabama) had “a history of denying voters” when the Supreme Court undid much of the Act in 2013. Sessions also condemned the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage as a strike against our “shared faith and traditions from every place of respect” and “part of a continuing effort to secularize, by force and intimidation” a society based upon that faith.

Now, it is true that Sessions prosecuted the KKK for murder while he was Attorney General of Alabama back in the 80’s. But it was his job. It’s not like he had a lot of say in the matter. And we ARE talking about “murder”… which tends to trump (no pun intended) any personal beliefs “people of faith” like Sessions tend to have about racial equality.

One bright spot in Sessions’ otherwise questionable views of minorities was his support in 1999 to honor Rosa Parks with the “Congressional Gold Medal”, calling Parks the “living embodiment of [the] principle” of “True equality [and] the total elimination of discrimination”. I guess “celebrity” really does have its’ privileges.

Other cronies floated for the AG position: other Team Trump loyalists Rudy “Noun/Verb/911” Giuliani & Chris “BridgeGate” Christie. Once again, Trump’s “far & wide” search for the “best people”… (head slap) whatdayaknow! They’re right here is the same room! How serendipitous!

o Trump’s pick to be his “National Security Advisor” is someone who said “Islam is a cancer”, “a political ideology masquerading as a religion” (because clearly no other religion does that), and tweeted a “Fear of Islam is rational”: General Mike Flynn. I’m sure that’ll go over just great in a part of the world that believes the United States is “at war with Islam”. Just how likely are our enemies to surrender rather than fight to the death… possibly dragging the war on for another decade… against an enemy that calls their religion a disease and defends the use of torture on those we capture? Flynn was also a huge Trump supporter and led the chant of “Lock her up!” at the RNC Convention.

o Perhaps less controversial but no less disturbing, Trump has tapped Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS)… best known for his attacks on Hillary Clinton regarding Benghazi!^TM… for CIA Director. Pompeo also supports waterboarding [ibid] and called Gitmo an “Important Asset” that must stay open. Pompeo also was an endorser of Donald Trump. Arguably, Trump did have to look further than “outside his office door” to come up with Pompeo as his pick. But is picking yet another Right-Wing Republican Congressman Trump’s idea of “draining the swamp” in Washington?

o Speaking of “draining the swamp”, Trump picked the current head of the freakin’ RNC, Reince Priebus to be his Chief of Staff… arguably the second most powerful job in the White House… a normal White House anyway. When it comes to having the president’s ear, Bannon already has that job. A lot of Trump supporters were actually quite upset that he picked such a Washington insider to run his White House. If Trump had lost the election, there is no question Priebus would have been fired, relegating him to the TV talk show circuit. So Priebus jumping ship to run Trump’s White House spares them the messy job of publicly criticizing him for allowing someone like Trump… who won… to become the GOP nominee in the first place, forcing them into the abyss of supporting “President Trump” for the next four years and into political irrelevance for the next decade. Priebus always struck me as a guy way in over his head, attempting (and failing) to come up with clever remarks whenever appearing on the Sunday talk shows.

o Like Pompeo, Trump had to actually swivel his head more than a few degrees to come up with James “Mad Dog” Mattis for as his nominee for Secretary of Defense. A four-star Marine Corps General, Mattis famously said: “Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (American democracy) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.” Wonderful. Just the kind of even temperament you want advising the president on matters of National Defense. If anyone had concern that Trump’s “secret plan to win the war” was a massive invasion of the Middle-East… see! You were worried over nothing!

Mattis is also a harsh critic of the Iran nuclear deal and called Iran the “biggest threat to peace in the Middle East”. Not ISIS. Not alQaeda. Iran.

Early on, there were some who actually wanted Mattis to run for president as a third party candidate against Trump, but he refused.

o Another “far & wide” search for “the best people” has led “the CEO Prez” to consider far-Right hate-talk radio host Laura Ingraham for Press Secretary. This is a pick that probably involved turning on a TV or radio at some point and tuning into Fox.

During the 2014 Ebola scare, Ingraham (citing perennial nutjob Dinesh D’Souza’s idiotic “Obama 2016” movie), suggested Obama was willing to expose U.S. troops to the lethal disease because of his disdain for “American Colonialism” (a D’Souza term.) Ingraham agreed with Trump on her radio show, saying Mexicans “have come here to murder and rape our people” and called for returning-deportees to be “shot”. Laura also suggested only immigrants who can prove they are “Christians” be allowed into the country (no Muslims, but no Jews or Atheists either), said everyone should protest trans-gender bathrooms by wearing “adult-diapers”, and called Planned Parenthood employees “Heinous, Hitlerian Freaks.” Just the kind of person you want as the voice of your Administration talking to the Press Corps everyday.

During Fox “news” Sunday yesterday, Ingraham took offense when fellow panelist Juan Williams called Trump’s proposed staff nominees a “Team of radicals” (a reference to Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals”), calling his language “divisive”. Seriously.

o Another absurd proposed nominee: Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Interior? You’re telling me this “CEO President”… who ran on appointing “the best people” to staff the most amazing White House team ever… searched far and wide and the best person he could find to be in charge of our land, parks, forest, nuclear waste & toxic clean-up, and basically everything outdoors, is a Community College graduate with degree in journalism, former beauty queen turned sportscaster, turned half-term Mayor of Wasilla, turned half-term Governor of Alaska? Although she too was a reality TV star, so they have that in common. Like Priebus, Palin has always been in over her head, always trying to sound clever in her stump speeches only to vomit the most ridiculous word-salad time & time again.

o And most recently, we learned of the possible nomination of Mitt Romney… the exception that proves the rule… to be “Secretary of State”. I liken the Romney pick to Bush’s pick of Colin Powell to be his “Secretary of State” in 2001. Powell had nothing in common with all the other ideologues and hawks in President Bush’s cabinet, and was clearly picked simply to give it an aire of maturity & responsibility. But Powell famously did not get along with the rest of Bush’s Administration… most famously Dick Cheney who actively worked to shut Powell out of Staff Meetings. If Romney is picked, we will see history repeat itself in this way as well.

I’m trying to imagine the meeting between Trump & Romney, with Mitt telling him, “I got more votes than you too!” The only reason Trump won his election when Romney did not is because Trump had the good fortune to be running against an even more disliked opponent. He’s probably kicking himself for not running a third time this election.

And that’s just Trump’s picks so far. Try to imagine Gov. Rick “oops” Perry as Secretary of Education, Ben Carson for Surgeon General or Newt Gingrich for Director of Homeland security?

Traditional Wisdom has been tossed out the window. Remember the awful RNC Convention? Trump’s top celebrities were Chachi and a male underwear model. I described the entire event as “Orwell’s 2-minutes of hate stretched into a 4-day event.” Trump himself insulted EVERY minority demographic there is… Mexicans, Muslims, blacks, veterans, the disabled… joked of sexually assaulting women, used foul language, was caught on tape God knows how many times saying things he denied ever saying (and then continued to deny saying them), flip-flopped on every issue from Abortion to how great Hillary was… and his supporters defended it all, swooning how “politically incorrect” he was and how refreshing it was for them to hear.

During “Meet the Press” yesterday, a former Obama-voter-turned-Trump-supporter rationalized his vote by saying “I think Hillary is a criminal.” By the end of the program, they were talking about the president-elect settling his “Trump University” lawsuit for $25 Million dollars.

What Hath God Wrought? A short aside. This is what you elected America by not showing up (be it the Primaries or in November):

Trump:

Wants limits on the First Amendment (wants to be able to sue people for saying things he doesn’t like) but not the Second.
Admitted to committing sexual assault.
Has called for the “total repeal of Obamacare”… which he now appears to want to replace with… Obamacare?
A president that believes he can fire generals… the ones he says he knows more than, and yet is now loading his cabinet with.
Promised to “Build a wall…” or is it a fence… or is it now a “virtual fence” patrolled from the air by drones?
His vow to expel “11 Million illegal immigrants” is now “2-3 Million dangerous illegal immigrants.” Any illegal immigrant arrested committing a violent crime is already deported, so the only way to round-up 2 to 3 Million unaccounted for “gang-bangers“, “drug-dealers”, and petty-thieves would be if you create a National “Deportation Force” committing unconstitutional house-to-house searches looking for evidence that the residents are both undocumented AND committing crimes, letting the “non-criminals” go (for now) and deporting the “guilty” ones without trial.
Trump… who just settled one criminal case against himself… will be appointing the Attorney General while he himself is still under investigation.
Called Climate Change “a Chinese hoax” and is threatening to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords.
Said during the campaign that “We desperately need the Keystone XL pipeline”.
Thinks “ObamaCare” is an insurance program, calling it “the worst insurance there is”.
Will unquestionably escalate the war in the Middle East, bring back torture, keep Gitmo open, and threaten to use nuclear weapons.
Doesn’t understand what “Blind Trust” means (“I’ll put all my assets in a blind trust. I’ll put Ivanka and my kids in charge of all my properties. Is that a “blind trust”? I don’t know.”)

Meanwhile, VP-Elect Pense is:

The most Anti-choice governor in the nation, calling to outlaw the IUD & The Pill while calling to abolish Roe.
The most Anti-gay rights gov. Signing Indiana’s controversial “right to be a bigot” Religious Freedom Act into law before being forced to rescind (most of?) it following a nationwide uproar and numerous corporate boycotts.
Called to shut down the government in 2010 (rather than raise the “Debt Ceiling” to pay our obligations.)

You know why Trump wants his kids to be his advisors and given Security Clearances? Because he doesn’t trust anyone else. Not even his closest advisors. Think about that. For the next four years, we’ll have a paranoid xenophobic bigot with trust issies in charge of our government. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.

“May you live in interesting times.” – Ancient Chinese curse.

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November 21, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Civil Rights, Election, myth busting, National Security, Partisanship, Politics, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Right-Wing Insanity, Seems Obvious to Me

Nearly Ten Million Fewer Democrats Voted in 2016 Than 2008. Why?
November 14, 2016

Almost exactly 10 Million fewer people voted in 2016 than did in 2008. Hillary received 9.8 million fewer votes in 2016 than Obama did in 2008. Nearly the entire decline was on the Democratic side. There are a number of possible reasons that could explain why this happened: 1) Disillusioned/Demoralized Democrats just weren’t motivated to the polls, 2) Voter disenfranchisement laws kept Democrats from voting, 3) Outright election theft by hackers, or 4) Any combination of those three. Of those three possibilities, #1 obviously was the nail in the coffin of the Clinton campaign. Personally, I blame the DNC and all those “Super Delegates” who put their thumb on the scale to give Clinton “frontrunner” status before a single vote had been cast. This is the consequence of your actions. They were all SO certain they knew who the best candidate to beat the GOP nominee was (despite all polling to the contrary), and in the end, gave Americans a choice between two Conservatives. And as I’ve said for years, if voters are given a choice between a Democrat that acts like a Conservatives and an actual Conservatives, the “actual” Conservatives will win every time.

96.6% of the decline in voter turnout vs 2008 was on the Democratic side. (In 2012, 100% of the decline of 3.6 million was on the Democratic side thanks to rampant Voter Suppression laws while GOP participation actually increased by 1-million) And while Republican participation fell by less than 340,000 votes vs 2008, Democratic participation declined by over 9.8 Million votes. A lopsided decline like that is very disconcerting. Voter participation fell on both sides this election, but Democrats cast fewer votes by a ratio of 28-to-1. If the decline were not so lopsided, I’d probably dismiss #3 entirely, but with recent (confirmed) reports of hacking into DNC & Clinton campaign computers in just the last few months, one can’t entirely discount the possibility some foreign government broke into election-night computers and shifted a few thousand votes here & there… not by much but just enough to swing a few key states and ensure a Trump electoral college win. In all honesty though, I doubt this scenario. It wouldn’t matter though. Even if an FBI investigation revealed the race was totally stolen, it wouldn’t change the result for fear of admitting our elections can be hacked/stolen. Our government would rather allow the consequences of that crime go unreversed rather than risk the chaos of millions of Americans suddenly discovering their election may have been manipulated by a foreign government, losing faith in the system itself, and certainly calling this an act of war… to be carried out by whom, now that the true “winner” would now be in doubt? No, that’s not happening.

But something we DO very much need to worry about is the rapid decline in Democratic participation in our elections. And like I stated in the opening paragraph, that begins with giving voters a clearer choice between the two Parties. Congresswoman Nina Turner… one of the first members of Congress to endorse Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, probably put it best during her appearance on ABC’s “ThisWeek” yesterday:

“This was a populist protest vote by The Forgotten. You’d better believe the outcome would’ve been different if Sanders had been the nominee.” – Congresswoman Nina Turner, 11/13/2016

I too bought into the polling hype that a Clinton victory was all but certain. I actually gave her a “99.9% chance of winning”… that lone 1/10th of 1% being the unlikely possibility of Trump sweeping the swing states… which in the end was exactly what he did. But it was only possible because Democratic turnout was so low. Donald Trump actually received FEWER votes than either McCain in 2008 or Romney in 2012 (I’ve already run into several Trump supporters on Facebook/Twitter claiming late reports that Trump has now won the Popular Vote too. He didn’t. I investigated. I found one Right-Wing blog claiming Trump received over 62million votes and beat Clinton by 600K votes. No, both candidates received close to 60million, with Clinton coming out ahead by 600K votes.)

Reports of voters being turned away at polling stations due to lack of proper ID were down this year vs 2012 because many courts ruled such voter disenfranchisement laws unconstitutional with a clear intent of discriminating against typically Democratic demographics. However, we did see numerous incidents of unacceptably long lines across the country… during Early Voting as well as on Election Day. And long lines affect low-income voters most who can’t afford to take that much time off from work to vote. It also reduces the total number of votes cast as people arrive, see the long lines, then leave. And for some reason, long lines & faulty equipment always seem to strike Democratic leaning precincts most.

I hate even suggesting any kind of “Election Tampering” because I despise Conspiracy Theories/Theorists (and the Trump campaign is lousy with them… starting with the man himself.) But like it says in the novel “Catch-22”, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” So I can’t dismiss fraud/theft entirely for the huge discrepancy in Democratic vs Republican turnout from year-to-year.

No, as I pointed out above, the leading cause for Clinton’s loss was Clinton herself:

And fairly or unfairly, the Clinton campaign is correct that FBI Director James Comey’s 11th hour suggestion they may be reopening the investigation into her emails, only served to “confirm” the misgivings so many Democratic voters already had of her. It is difficult to become enthusiastic about a candidate that has come to typify the label “politician” in a year (century?) where voters are tired of “Washington politics”. And as I’ve pointed out several times before, when Chris Christie focused during the GOP Primaries on taking down Marco Rubio with a plethora of negative attacks, it didn’t help Christie one bit, taking out Rubio, but resulting in Christie doing even worse.

And so it was for Clinton. She focused 75% of her campaign ads & speeches explaining why Trump was so bad, concentrating not nearly enough on how she’d make people’s lives better. “What would she do differently?” She certainly wasn’t the champion of the Middle Class the way Sanders was (or Trump made himself out to be), she was too connected to Wall Street (and never did release those transcripts.) The “first woman president” factor alone wasn’t enough to put her over the top. Voters wanted substance, and there just wasn’t enough there to get excited about to convince 1 in 6 Democratic voters to stand in line for an hour to cast their vote for her. (I get quite angry when I hear tearful Hillary supporters… who assured us that Hillary would easily defeat Trump… that they are “pretty sure” that “Bernie would have lost too if he had been the nominee.” Seriously? You STILL think you have superior judgment on this issue? You STILL think you know how the election would have faired if Bernie had been the nominee? Have you not learned ANYTHING? This was a change election and voters wanted a clear choice between the two candidates. The message of Bernie & Warren sparked a political movement that had BOTH sides of this campaign talking about “income inequality” as a campaign issue (a position Clinton came to too late), and you STILL think you have your finger on the pulse of the nation? The arrogance!

A lot of Democratic voters already believed Congress… even a GOP controlled one… would keep a “President Trump” in check such that his worst policy positions will never see the light of day. Rarely did I hear anyone make the case to Democrats that they had better show up to vote in a Democratic Congress “just in case” the worst was to happen (or all the good a President Hillary could achieve with a Democratically controlled Congress.) “Achieve what?” Voters could not point to a single clear policy agenda of Hillary Clinton.

According to “Mother Jones” Magazine:

Trump received [just] four [newspaper] endorsements in the primary season, from a small California paper, the New York Post, the conspiracy-peddling National Enquirer, and the New York Observer, which is owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top campaign adviser, Jared Kushner.

Trump also received the endorsement of fellow “deplorable” David Duke and the KKK. But again, everyone just assumes “rational heads will prevail” and “the other guy” will make sure Donald Trump doesn’t become president. Unfortunately, that voter apathy hit critical mass as millions of unenthusiastic voters decided to just stay home.

Late in the primaries, someone I once respected… Liberal blogger Brad Bannon who did some great work reporting/exposing GOP attempts at election fraud/theft… started making regular appearances on a particular Progressive radio show. A huge Clinton supporter, Bannon attacked Sanders and openly stated on the air that “even if Sanders won the most pledged delegates, the Super Delegates (all friends of Clinton) would make sure he is denied the nomination” [and that that was a good thing he supported]. So much for exposing election theft/fraud. Bannon was all for it so long as HIS preferred candidate won the nomination. Well, he got what he wanted… two Conservatives with more baggage than an Sampsonite convention.

The Reverend Al Sharpton asked an interesting question yesterday: “What happens the first time President Trump doesn’t get his way?” He clearly doesn’t understand how government works. Republicans have been (falsely) accusing President Obama of unilaterally “passing laws” without the consent of Congress. They have basically suggested that it is possible for the president to act like a king. They HATED when they thought Obama did it, now the Trump campaign is relying on that same imaginary power to push through things even a GOP-controlled Congress might not approve of.

But that’s not going to be a problem now since “Hillary Apathy” convinced enough Democrats to stay home on election day. Supporters of Johnson, Stein or Sanders are not to blame for this loss. THEY showed up. It’s the ten million who stayed home that cost her the presidency and Democrats control of the Senate (at the very least). I lay the blame for this historic defeat squarely at the feet of The Super Delegates and the DNC. YOU played games with our electoral system and ensured a deeply flawed candidate would be our party’s nominee. Let’s just all pray these Hillbots learned a lesson about substituting their judgement for that of millions of Americans.

Despite it all, I pray for Trump’s well-being or else… President Mike Pence (Shudder.)

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November 14, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, mystery, Rants, Scandals, Seems Obvious to Me

Okay DNC, You Own This. 10 Positives to come from a Trump victory.
November 9, 2016

I‘m still stunned. DNC, you OWN this one. But the mind-numbing effects of Trump’s victory isn’t all bad news for Democrats. As the old saying goes: “Once you hit rock bottom, there’s no place to go but up.” There are actually some positives to come out of this mind-numbing election result:

10 Positives to come from a Trump victory:

1) Never again will Republicans be able to argue that “The presidency is not an entry level position!” the way they did eight years ago when Senator Obama… who had been in elective office for 8 years prior to becoming president. They have now elected a complete & total political novice that doesn’t even understand the basic mechanics of how the government is run. And the rest of the world now knows what monster hypocrites Republicans are.

2) Never again will Republicans be able to criticize Democrats who continue to support Bill Clinton as “supporting a sexual predator.” Trump was caught ON TAPE bragging about sexually assaulting women without their consent (FAR worse than what Bill did with Monica.) Conservatives KNEW this when they entered that voting booth and voted for him anyway. (And there’s that “hypocrite” thing again.)

3) Trump won with less than 50% of the vote. According to the GOP, that makes his presidency “illegitimate”. Newt Gingrich and the rest of the GOP justified hounding Bill Clinton for eight years due to the fact “he won with less than 50% of the vote”, ergo his presidency was “illegitimate”. Now their own candidate has won with less than 50% of the vote. So any “hounding” of “President Trump” (still unfathomable words) will be justified… according to the man Trump might appoint as his Secretary of State. (And there’s that “hypocrite” thing again.)

4) Loud message sent to the DNC: “You hand picked the candidate that polled worse against Trump, undermining Bernie’s campaign. YOU OWN THIS!” The DNC just assumed like so many others that Hillary would win in a landslide. And all those Hillary supporters who told Berners “We don’t need you! We can win without you!” hopefully have learned a lesson about being over-confident jerks. And note to DNC: Stop nominating Closet Conservatives and thinking they’11 beat actual Conservatives.

5) The odds of a Dem victory in the EVEN MORE crucial 2020 election just went WAY up. 2020 will be a census year, and whomever controls Congress will redraw the district maps for the next decade. This is how Republicans have dominated control of Congress for the past 10 years. If Hillary had won, angry Trump supporters would have flocked to make sure Hillary was a one-term president, and people like me who didn’t support her the first time around would be forced to support her reelection in 2020. Now, we won’t have to.

6) Texas will be a swing state in 2020. Trump won Texas… the second biggest electoral prize in the nation after California… by only 9 points last night. While Trump was never in jeopardy of losing Texas this election, 2020 is a completely different matter. Far redder states like Oklahoma went for Trump by nearly 40-points. The DNC can stop writing off “Texas” as an “unwinnable deep red state” in which it doesn’t pay to campaign in. Once the DNC starts fighting for Texas, that means we’ll start seeing a LOT more down-ticket Democratic races being won in this state… helping tip the balance of power in Congress.

7) The first woman president will now be someone with less baggage and not someone whose “turn” it simply is.

8) All those Conspiracy Theory nuts who believed “the election is rigged” will now be forced to question their belief system. How does one continue to believe “the fix is in” and “the world is actively working against you” when you actually end up winning? Insane ranting of “false flag” operations and being told “they’re coming for your guns” may… just may… be taken with more salt next time around.

9) Simply running AGAINST someone doesn’t mean you’ll be the beneficiary. I call it “The Christie Effect”. During the GOP primaries, Chris Christie repeatedly slammed Marco Rubio, helping only to drag down Rubio, but Christie was not the automatic beneficiary, coming in behind Rubio. And now Democrats should have learned that simply running against Trump wasn’t enough. People needed a reason to vote FOR Clinton.

10) The case for “Instant Runoff Voting” just got a huge boost. Both lead candidates came in under 50% of the vote. First the spoiler of Nader in 2000, now the spoilers of Johnson & Stein may have once again cost Democrats Florida. We DESPERATELY need IRV/RCV, and this election loss has just gone a long way to helping that happen.

(#11? Bernie will now be the most powerful Democrat in Washington, with humbled Hillary supporters showing him more deference/respect.)

(#12: A Trump presidency with GOP Congress? THEY WILL OWN EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS FOR THE NEXT 2-to-4 YEARS.)

If nothing else, this whole result has been one giant humbling experience for a lot of arrogant Democrats… not just the anti-Bernie Hilbots but the pollsters (myself included) who assumed a Clinton victory was all but certain (I was absolutely right that it would come down to Pennsylvania, though I’m quite surprised by Florida.) And hopefully, the DNC will know better than to screw over and abuse their fellow Democrats next time around.

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November 9, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, mystery, Partisanship, Politics, Right-Wing Insanity

Mugsy’s Electoral Predictions (2016 edition)
November 7, 2016

Tomorrow/Tuesday is Election Day, and I predicted last December before the primaries even began that it would come down to Hillary vs Trump and that Hillary would win. I started telling people last month that “Hillary has a 99.9% chance of winning.” Famed election wiz Nate Silver said during ABC’s ThisWeek yesterday that “all these polls predicting 90%-95% chance of victory for Clinton are assuming that all these races where the Clinton lead is within the 3 point margin of error will all fall her way.” No. Some of us are just real good at spotting trends, and so far, I’m 2 for 2 with one to go. Are the races close in some states? Yes. But is it likely they will ALL fall the same way? Because that’s what we are talking about here. In order for Trump to win, he quite literally must run the table on nearly every single toss-up state PLUS flip one large (or two small) previously blue states. That’s a long shot even my Uncle Louie wouldn’t bet on.

There are currently twelve states where the polls are still considered “too close to call”: Florida (29), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), Georgia (16), Colorado (9), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), Arizona (11) and Iowa (6). (RCP includes Maine as a toss-up. Fox reports NM & ME as solidly blue, but includes VA as a toss-up.) Maine & Virginia both went Blue in 2012, and Hillary currently leads in Maine by 5.5 points. Virginia (Kaine’s home state) currently shows her up by over 4-points and having never trailed Trump since polling began a full year ago. So the number is not 14. Not 13. It’s 12… or is it?

Fox: 13 toss-up states.

Real Clear Politics says 13+1 states are “too close to call”:

Here is my own analysis of the remaining toss up states and how I predict this election to pan out:

First, let’s weed out the “sure things”. Most polls seem to agree Trump has a lock on 164 Electoral votes. Hillary’s lock is “over 200”, but that number is a range. One of them needs 270 to win. Those “toss up” states that really aren’t “toss ups” at all. People who say that are in a perpetual game of C.Y.A., unwilling to offend either side or are worried about looking partisan (and yes, I said “either” side because there are only two parties left in this race. If you are still entertaining fantasies of Johnson or Stein pulling out a surprise victory, check yourself in at the nearest mental facility. I’m serious. You’re delusional.)

Arizona: It’s close. Very close. But it’s going to land Red. Trump has led there almost consistently since August. The only time in the last 80+ years they went Blue was in Bill Clinton’s RE-election for a second term, and Hillary is not Bill. Plus Trump’s support spiked recently when the (now retracted) claim the Justice Dept was reopening the investigation into Hillary’s emails, “confirming” what most Conservatives in the Deep Red state already believed about her. And even if Comey himself were arrested & charged with trying to influence the election based on false claims, it would neither be enough to shake the distrust Republicans there already have of her, nor can it take back all those EARLY VOTES already cast during that period when Trump’s poll numbers spiked.

So color AZ red, taking Trump to 175.

New Mexico: It’s close, but Trump has NEVER led there. Color NM Blue. Plus 5 for Hillary for “over 205”.

Colorado: Tied once (briefly) but Trump has never led there. Color CO Blue. Plus 9 for Hillary for “over 214”.

Iowa: Trump took the lead there back in September and has led ever since. This would be a solid flip for Trump (and he needs two.) Color IA Red. Taking Trump to 181.

Michigan: Close, but this shouldn’t even be in question. Hillary has never trailed there and still leads by 5. Color MI Blue, giving Hillary another 16 for “over 221”.

Georgia: Other than a mild flirtation with Clinton last August, while close, has been consistently Red… not just for Trump but last went Blue in 1992 (unintentional rhyme.) Color GA red, taking The Donald to 197.

Florida: The quintessential “swing” state. Every four years, the “Sunshine State” drives us mad as we all try to guess which way a state that is literally shaped like a flaccid wind-sock will fall. There’s a reason people call Florida, “God’s waiting room” with all the elderly (mostly white) retirees filling that state, a key Republican demographic. Typically, the large anti-Castro Cuban population tends to vote Conservative, but with each passing year, that population grows ever smaller. Meanwhile, younger Cuban Americans are very supportive of President Obama’s decision to reestablish relations with Cuba such that people can now visit the country and see long-lost relatives, and lifting an embargo that clearly wasn’t working (serving only to keep the poor citizenry impoverished.) Hispanics make up over 23% of the state’s population, and Donald Trump is on the proverbial “Shit List” of most of them. Another 17% is African-American… another large anti-Trump demographic. So that’s 40% of the state’s population where Trump is as popular as a leper at a hot-tub party. 56% of the state’s population is white… not solidly Conservative, but enough to negate the anti-Trump minority vote.

So Florida comes down to a small percentage of white voters and groups listed as “other” that tend to be evenly split ideologically. Trump only outpolled Clinton briefly last September. Other than that, she has led fairly consistently and continues to do so today. So this state falls in the Blue column taking Hillary to “over 250”.

Nevada: Hillary has led there almost consistently except for the month of September when Trump led by two. A last second spike has Trump up over Hillary again, but only by 2%… not enough to make up for her huge lead during Early Voting there. So I think we can color this one Blue for Hillary, taking her to “over 259”.

And as I said earlier, Maine is not truly in question. Plus 3 for Hillary for “over 262”.

So that leaves just FOUR states that could easily go either way.

Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes. The race may be painfully close there, but Trump has NEVER led the state and hasn’t been close to even tying Clinton since June. The reason PA is close is because the two largest cities… Pittsburgh on one end of the state and Philadelphia on the other… are deep blue, with Oklahoma everywhere in between. This gives Republicans false hope every election of turning the state red, but this won’t be that year. If Hillary takes PA, that’s 270+. Pennsylvania is game over for Trump if he loses there. So if you’re looking for one state to watch election night, PA is it. I knew the 2008 race was over the moment John McCain lost PA, but it took the pundits hoping against hope for hours that he would miraculously flip states he had no chance of winning all night long. His chances of winning were over very early that night but no one dared admit it.

If PA goes red, that takes Trump to 217.

New Hampshire: Not sure what’s going on here. Solidly blue up until last Wednesday. The biggest question is how many votes did Hillary bank during Early Voting there and who turns out on Election Day? If it comes down to “Ground Game”. Trump has none. The Clinton campaign is a well oiled machine with sophisticated GOTV efforts. The race there is close enough that I expect a Clinton comeback to take those 4 Electoral Votes, taking her to “over 266” (not including PA.)

If Hillary loses NH, Trump goes to 221.

Ohio: The Buckeye State has been flip-flopping like a fish on dry dock since mid-September. Ohio is over 75% white. 37% are college educated whites whom tend to vote Blue. 33% are non-college whites that tend to vote Red (draw your own conclusions from that). Ohio went Blue in 2008 & 2012, and while Kerry “lost” Ohio is 2004, it took a LOT of GOP election shenanigans (fewer voting machines & long lines in the rain in poor Blue districts, and plenty of voting machines & shorter lines [if any] in wealthier red districts) for Kerry to end up “losing” Ohio by (IIRC) only around 12,000 votes. So Ohio has tended to fall Blue the past 20 years. Their 18 Electoral Votes would take Hillary to “over 280” and the presidency.

But if Trump takes Ohio too, that’s 239.

North Carolina: All over the place for the past two months. Hillary spiked and Trump plunged when Trump was caught on tape joking about committing sexual assault and flailing wildly at his accusers, but the candidates switched places quickly when Comey revealed the FBI might be reopening the investigation into Hillary’s emails. The race there is that close. Only question is: How many Early Votes was Hillary able to bank before the polls switched back? If Hillary takes NC, that’s 277 and the presidency

If Trump takes NC too, he gets to 255.

If any ONE of those four states falls for Hillary (sans New Hampshire), the election is over (and nearly over with NH.)

If ALL FOUR of these truly “Swing” states fall Trump’s way… a longshot at best… plus me being right on all the close states he’s likely to win (3), he’s STILL 15 EV’s short. So what state or states did I give Hillary that Trump must steal away? (keep in mind, we only need to flip 7.5 Electoral Votes, not all 15.)

Colorado, Michigan and Florida by themselves would be enough to put Trump over the top if they defy trends and end up going Red.

Stealing away any combination of NM, NV, IA, and NH would also give Trump the win (if he sweeps those four “too close to call” states plus takes the three I said he’s likely to win.)

Easy prediction: Johnson, Stein & McMullin won’t win a single state. Of the three, McMullin has the best shot of stealing away a state (Utah), but Trump leads by ten there, so that’s not going to happen. Johnson & Stein can only hope to break the “5% threshold” for their Parties. Johnson might get that far. Stein won’t.

People who want Trump to be president “because of his record as a successful businessman” need look no further than how badly he has run his presidential campaign to know he would have been a total failure as a president (and yes, I’m already talking in the past tense. That’s how sure I am of his impending loss.) His biggest test was running his campaign. Huge failure. No ground game. Few offices. Few (No?) surrogates outside his own family hosting a rally without Pence or Trump himself in attendance (while Hillary has Bernie, Warren and both Obama’s hosting rallies without her in addition to her daughter and husband.)

To semi-quote Right-Wing Congressman Peter King in 2004: “It’s all over but the counting” (although he added sinisterly: “And we’ll take care of the counting.”)

There will be no unity on Wednesday (Hell, I doubt Trump will even make the obligatory call to congratulate Hillary Tuesday night, opting instead to claim the race was somehow stolen and issue a call to challenge the results for weeks that will go largely ignored.) Fighting will begin in earnest on Wednesday and the bickering will resume. If you were eager for this race to be over and the fighting to cease with the election results, you’re in for four very long, painful years.

Will either candidate break 50%? I have my doubts. Remember what I said last week: A few years ago, Newt Gingrich admitted that much of the animosity towards Bill Clinton was because he won the presidency with less than 50% of the vote, bringing into question (in their minds) his legitimacy as president (of course, if Poppy Bush had won with the same percentage and by the same margin, it would have been heralded as a great victory and even a mandate.) So if Hillary also wins with less than 50%… look out.

It’ll be the “Three I’s” for the next four years: Investigation, Indictment, Impeachment no matter WHO wins. If you were anxious for this all to be over by Tuesday night, think again.

My final prediction: 319 Hilary, 219 Trump. And watch Pennsylvania. If it falls for Hillary early, Trump’s only path to victory is to win every other swing state in the East including Florida, plus both New Mexico and Nevada, or Colorado. Nine or 10 of the remaining 12 swing states? As my Uncle Louie would say: Fughedabowdit.

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November 7, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Predictions, Seems Obvious to Me, voting

The Most Frightening Thing This Election is that One Of Them Will Win
October 31, 2016

Happy Halloween. And with the latest round of “scandals” ping-ponging between the candidates each week (Trump’s sexual misconduct, now Hillary’s emails), the more I dread what’s in store for us over the next four years (notice I did NOT say “four to eight” years.) Last February, despite being an enthusiastic Bernie supporter, I conceded that if the choice came down to Hillary vs Trump (just as I predicted) I would support Hillary (in the end, I didn’t, writing in Bernie) because the danger of a Trump presidency was just too great to ignore. It didn’t really matter much anyway (at the time) because the chances of Hillary winning Texas were about as low as the chances the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series. In the 2000 election, I voted for Nader… not because I preferred Nader over Gore but because a vote for Gore here in Texas was a wasted vote, but helping the Green Party reach 5% so they’d be eligible for Federal funding in 2004 was an actual attainable goal.

Last week was the start of Early Voting here in Texas, and despite waiting until the third day, there was still a line with 15-minute wait. Turnout is high because recent polls moved Texas into the “Leans Red” column, suggesting there is a chance Hillary could actually win the Lone Star state. Trump supporters desperate to make sure that doesn’t happen flocked to the polls, as did Clinton supporters motivated by the possibility it could.

And me? Never have I agonized so much over a presidential vote. A vote for Trump was still unthinkable, and Libertarian Gary Johnson… well, let’s just say I think a president should be smarter than the people I went to High School with.

That left just Clinton and Stein. If it looked like Hillary could not win without winning the second most populous state in the country… second only to California in number of Electoral votes… then I wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment before casting my vote for Hillary. And if the chances of her winning Texas were as unlikely as Gore winning Bush’s home state in 2000, I would have voted for Stein… not because I support “Tofu Palin” (a great label I saw online that sums her up perfectly) but to help The Green Party hit that 5% threshold. But Stein currently stands at 2% here in Texas, making her reaching 5% just as unlikely as Hillary winning here (possible, but unlikely.)

So I ended up writing in “Bernie Sanders”… not because I harbored any delusions he might actually win, but as a protest vote. “You screwed over Bernie, now I’m screwing over you. If Hillary is to win, it’ll be without Texas. It’ll be close enough to make you sweat. Think about that the next time you consider taking sides to help a deeply flawed duplicitous fraud that’s just one scandal away from losing an election, to defeat their Democratic rivals.” A candidate SO unpopular they may end up winning only because her opponent is more despised than she is.

So, what can we expect for the next four years?

If it’s President Hillary…

The investigations & accusations against the 1992 Democratic nominee Bill Clinton began from almost the day he announced his candidacy in 1991. Those accusations of sexual misconduct with “Gennifer Flowers” and “Paula Jones”? Those stories broke before he became president and dogged him for years. “Trooper-Gate”… which alleged an actual crime of using state resources (local police) to shuttle then-Governor Clinton’s mistresses home after having an affair at the Governors’ mansion… actually broke before he was elected president.

After Bill Clinton was elected president, the “investigations” continued… helping the GOP retake control of the House for the first time in over 40 years. And those investigations kicked into high gear with Republicans now in control of both Houses of Congress. They appointed a Special Prosecutor (“Ken Starr”) to investigate everything from “Whitewater” to “Socks The Cat’s Fan Club Mailing List (“who’s paying for those stamps?”) Their goal was to ensure he did not win reelection… and once that failed… impeachment.

We are already seeing history repeat itself. The GOP has known Hillary would make another run for the presidency since the day she conceded in 2008. And the attack of a consulate in Benghazi^TM… clearly a question more suited to focus on the military and decisions of the Secretary of Defense… was tied to Secretary of State Clinton instead since Consulates/Embassies are part of the State Department. And despite the fact the Secretary of State does not have the power to scramble/scuttle fighter jet missions, and it was the GOP themselves that voted to deny additional spending on Embassy security, they still carried out NINE investigations (at the tax-payers expense) clearly with the intention of crippling her presidential ambitions before they had even begun. And if you think these endless investigations will cease once she is elected, you were either too young or not yet born to remember the early 1990’s.

Republicans will follow Gingrich’s playbook from Bill Clinton’s first term. They’ll do everything they can to cripple her first two years as president in order to regain/maintain control of Congress in 2018, then work overtime investigating her to ensure she’s a one term president (if you thought the GOP controlled Congress was a do nothing Congress under Obama… just you wait. Ted Cruz… who actually clerked for the late Chief Justice Rehnquist… has already threatened to deny the appointment of the replacement for Justice Scalia… ensuring not only gridlock in Congress, but on the High Court as well for at least the next year.) And if by some miracle she wins reelection, they will then make sure she is impeached before the end of her second term.

Gingrich himself once explained that because Bill Clinton won the ’92 election with “less than 50% of the vote” (thanks to Ross Perot), they deemed his presidency as “illegitimate”, ergo they were somehow justified in trying to bring down his presidency.

Presently, neither Clinton nor Trump have more than 45% of the vote. Investigations of her began LONG before she ever became the official Democratic nominee, and they are beyond motivated to make sure nothing she wants ever gets passed and that she is a one-term president.

If you thought partisanship, infighting, petty bickering and GOP obstruction were bad under President Obama, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

If it’s President Trump…

Both parties in this case have been quite clear: “Donald Trump is unfit for the office of president and Congress will unite to keep him in check. The man is an idiot. A loose canon that thinks he can unilaterally do anything he wants as president and doesn’t understand the mechanics of government. His plan for a Gestapo-like “Deportation Force” that will comb through cities to physically extract & deport 25 million undocumented immigrants (AND their children), his Rube-Goldberg like plan to “ban Muslims” from entering the United States, and his “quick & easy” guaranteed solution to bring “peace” to the Middle East that absolutely does not, pinky-swear, involve using nuclear weapons and 500,000 ground troops.

However, as I pointed out almost from the day he declared his candidacy, “Trump is chasing the presidency the way a dog chases a car. The pursuit is exciting, but he really has no interest in catching it, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did.” It’s all a game to him. He just wants to win so he can give the middle finger to everyone who told him he can’t win. However, if he DOES win, he has no interest in actually doing the mundane every day chores. He only wants to do “the fun stuff”… like calling in military airstrikes or nominating a Supreme Court nominee. He’s not interested in signing bills or drafting budgets.

And in fact, in an interview with New York Times Magazine, a Kasich adviser reported that Donald Trump Jr… who was placed in charge of the VP search for his father… told them that his father’s VP would likely be in charge of “domestic and foreign policy.” Domestic AND Foreign policy? So WTF is left? “Making America great again” was Junior’s reply.

Oh dear Lord.

Every day, Trump demonstrates just how little he understands about how government works. Bills don’t become law if they are signed by the Vice president. The Vice president doesn’t have the executive authority to be Commander-in-Chief. When another world leader calls The Oval Office, they are not looking to speak with the Vice president of the United States.

So, will the defacto president for the next four years be a man NO ONE voted for, hand picked by Donald J Trump? What would Congress’ reaction be to that? It wouldn’t be Trump himself calling the shots, setting policy that Congress might feel the need to obstruct. It could be Mike Pence… a far-Right Teabagger idiot that served in the Senate and has plenty of friends in Washington, but legally has no authority to make policy or sign bills.

Someone needs to inform Donald Trump that the President of the United States isn’t a dictator (and that “ObamaCare” isn’t an insurance program. But I digress.) It’s the greatest flaw in the argument of Republicans who say they want “a CEO president” to “run the country like a business”. A Democracy isn’t a dictatorship. Trump admires dictators like Putin & Kim Jong Un because they appear to “get things done”. But that’s only because they don’t have a Congress to answer to. I wonder if Donald Trump believes Congress will just roll over and give him everything he wants because in his delusional mind, everybody supports everything he wants to do.

He actually said during a rally in Toledo last week (just as news broke that the email investigation may be reopened): “We should just cancel the election and give it to Trump.” Because in his mind, he’s winning by a mile, the polls are all wrong, everyone agrees with him on everything (including how crooked Clinton is), and he’s going to win in a landslide.

So whether it’s Hillary and four years of unprecedented GOP obstructionism, endless investigations, and threats of impeachment, four years of Trump expecting Congress to just roll over and give him everything he wants out of some delusional belief that he is so beloved (much like I’m sure Putin & Jung Un do) the vast majority of the American people are behind him when in fact Congress is prepared to stop him at all costs, or perhaps it’s Pence… the far-right Teabagger VP with no legal authority to run the country actually setting foreign & domestic policy because the ACTUAL president refuses to do his job… it doesn’t matter WHO is elected next week, the next four years are going to be an unholy mess.

Suddenly, this doesn’t sound so bad:

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October 31, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Politics, Predictions, Rants

Could 1990 Texas Governors Race Foretell a Surprise Win for Hillary There?
October 24, 2016

In 1990, Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee (Ann Richards) was far behind her Republican rival (Billionaire industrialist Clayton Williams). Then he made a sexist “joke” that wildly offended women voters and everything changed. The similarities of that race bear a striking similarity to what is currently happening in the race for president between Trump & Clinton, and could very well explain why in Texas of all places, the race for president is almost a statistical tie.

Not many people outside of Texas remember the 1990 race for governor, and even then, you must be of a certain age (or a hard-core political junkie) to know what happened.

Briefly, then Texas Treasurer… a former school teacher named Ann Richards (“the motorcycle-riding grandma”) was elected the Democratic nominee for governor of Texas in 1990 following a tight & bruising Democratic primary that went to a runoff. Meanwhile, the Republican nominee… Billionaire (or was it just “multimillionaire”?) industrialist Clayton Williams won the Republican nomination in a walk by nearly 50 points (deja vu already). Williams led Richards almost the entire race. There was little question the former Texas oilman turned telecommunications magnate (remember, this is before the Internet or cellphones) would win easily in a deep red state like Texas.

Then, just weeks before the election, Williams was caught on tape repeating a “joke” to friends first told by controversial college basketball coach Bobby Knight:

“Rape is like a thunderstorm. If it’s inevitable, [the woman should] just relax and enjoy it.” (laughter)

Texas women were outraged, and Williams didn’t make things better by trying to defend his remarks as “just a joke” (only apologizing once it was far too late.) They showed up en masse on election day to vote against Williams (early voting had already begun in the state, possibly keeping the result closer than it might have been otherwise), giving Richards a narrow 2.5% victory over Williams to become the Democratic governor of Texas (which, BTW, was incredibly common before George W Bush.)

So you have a race between a Billionaire Republican who is the heavy favorite to defeat a Democratic woman for high office in Texas. Then the Republican frontrunner is caught “joking” about rape less than a month before the election. Outraged women voters (and many men) turn up on election day with the express intention of defeating the Republican nominee, and in a surprise reversal, the Democrat ends up winning Texas in a race she was all but certain to lose the month before.

Does any of that sound familiar?

Today, we see history repeating itself. Another Republican billionaire expected to win the deep red state of Texas easily, only to make one too many sexist remarks (after already deeply offending Hispanics… who nearly make up the largest demographic in the state now), and suddenly, the state of Texas… second only to California in number of Electoral votes and a state no Republican can win without… is in play.

But truly, what are the chances of someone like Hillary Clinton winning here? (I’m in Houston.) It has always bothered me when people brand Texas as “the reddest of Red States”, unfathomably out of reach of any Democrat (actually, Utah & Oklahoma are far redder than Texas.) As a matter of fact before Nixon in ’72 (and his racist “Southern Strategy”), the state of Texas only voted Republican in the presidential race ONCE in its entire history. And after getting burned by “Tricky Dick”, it went Democratic (not “blue”, Democrats were “red” that year) again, voting for Carter in 1976. When in comes to the governor’s race, the state has been likewise consistently Blue its entire history, only going deep red recently.

The capital of Texas… Austin… a big college town, is a Liberal oasis in the red state, whose unofficial motto is “Keep Austin weird.” And Houston… the 4th largest city in the country (and rapidly gaining on #3 Chicago)… is the largest city in the country to have elected (and then RE-elected) an openly gay mayor (Democrat Annice Parker), who was recently succeeded by another Democrat (Sylvester Turner). In Houston, Republican mayors are the exception.

As I’ve pointed out on here several times, Al Gore actually WON the city of Houston… “within the city limits”… in the 2000 election, only losing the city once the majority white suburban vote was factored in.

The Dallas Morning News broke with tradition last month and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, calling Trump’s values “hostile to conservatism” (which has me wondering if they too view Clinton as a “Closet Conservative”?)

Back in July, The Houston Chronicle also endorsed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.

Between outraged Hispanics, Blacks, and now women uniting to defeat Donald Trump, it is amazing he hasn’t already lost the state. But the GOP has been working hard to decimate education since before Ronald Reagan appointed Bill “Place yer bets” Bennett… an outspoken advocate of abolishing the Dept of Education… to RUN the Dept of Education, ensuring voters stay dumb and reactionary. Terrified of their own shadow, President Obama was correct when he described these voters as “clinging to their guns & religion“… talismans of protection (which always made me wonder just how strong ones faith truly is if they feel they also need a gun for protection?)… eager to elect those who agree with their paranoia. And if there’s one word that describes Donald J Trump, it’s “paranoid” (the Mexicans are crossing the border to commit crimes. Muslims are entering the country to kill you. “The Media is colluding against me to help Hillary.” “These unattractive women all accusing me of sexual misconduct are all liars working for Hillary.” and “The election is rigged”.)

In any case, the state of Texas is now in play. And while I highly doubt Texas will turn Blue on November 8th, Trump is only another offensive video away from wildly offending another demographic that decides to make sure he goes down in defeat this election.

Early voting in Texas begins today, Monday October 24th, giving him time to bank enough Republican votes before he’s caught on tape saying something like he “supports gun control” and wants to “raise taxes to provide everyone with healthcare.”

Then again, that might only help him attract ambivalent Texas Democrats that also distrust Hillary.

Highlights from Richards famous 1988 DNC Convention speech that made her a favorite for the 1990 Democratic Gubernatorial nomination and painted a huge target on her back to be defeated by Bush Jr. four years later:

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October 24, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · 2 Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Partisanship, Politics, Right-Wing Insanity, Scandals

Increasingly Unhinged, Trump Preps Supporters for Epic Loss with Talk of Election Rigging
October 17, 2016

In these final three weeks before Election Day, any other candidate would be talking about their inevitable glorious victory and their first days in office. Donald Trump on the other hand is telling supporters at every campaign stop that “the election is rigged”, accusing “The Media” of colluding with the Clinton campaign to help her win. He is NOT however commenting on reports of possible Russian hacking possibly intended to help HIM (other than to DEFEND Russia during the second presidential debate.) Trump actually suggested there is no proof “Russia” specifically was behind the reported DNC hacks, even questioning if there EVEN WERE any hacks despite being told about them during his National Security briefing.

“Everyone is against me/us!” The cry of the wounded rednecked Conservaloper. Never mind the fact Clinton has always lead him in nearly every poll since the race began. Only in a select few polls has Trump ever led this race… however briefly… back when that same “Media” was hammering Clinton over emails. And even then, by no more than 2 points. (Note: Do not get the idea I support Clinton or even defend her with these observations. Believe it or not, it is possible to criticize Trump without supporting Hillary. – Mugsy)

As a matter of simple campaign strategy, telling your supporters over & over again that “the system is rigged” is incredibly dumb in the final days of an election (even WHILE Early Voting is taking place in some states). You only create a sense of futility that results in many of your supporters staying home on election day. Why bother voting when the election is rigged?

Moron. Childish reactionary moron.

Like any good Teabagger, Trump has always been a fan of conspiracy theories. From his own suggestions that President Obama was born in Kenya (and all the “Secret Muslim” talk that goes with it) to “Global Warming is a myth hatched by the Chinese”, it comes as no surprise that he would see a conspiracy behind why he has been the subject of so much criticism by “The Media” in these final weeks of his campaign. “Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of small minds!” – Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trump is also fear-mongering concerns of actual Election Fraud, actively recruiting “poll watchers” on his website. This would only discourage “in-person voter fraud”… the same nonexistent form of Voter Fraud that “Voter ID” laws were supposed to prevent. But with Courts rolling back these highly questionable, clearly discriminatory “voter disenfranchisement” laws, the Trump campaign believes this is the Obama White House actively moving to aide massive election fraud. Now keep in mind that even Millions of illegitimate votes cast against him in a single state wouldn’t likely change the outcome thanks to there being an “Electoral College”. It would take enough fraudulent voters across a dozen states to swing each of those state’s elections to change the outcome. Tens of millions. There have been barely 30 cases of in-person voter fraud nationwide since 2000 (two I can name off the top of my head: Mitt Romney claiming to live in his sons’ basement so he could vote in Massachusetts, and Ann Coulter using her secretary’s address on her voter registration to avoid giving out her home address.)

Republicans think in-person voter fraud is real and has been taking place on a massive scale for years. And their proof of this? “We keep losing.” (despite the fact they have controlled BOTH houses of Congress for eighteen of the last twenty-four years, while complaining about what a “mess” the country is in.) What other explanation can there be? But what if you WIN? Might this not place a cloud over your OWN victory? At the very least, it proves you were whining about nothing. At worst, it raises the specter that “election fraud” helped YOU win. Should someone THAT stupid be elected president?

It has gotten so bad, even the GOP is telling Trump to knock it off with all the attacks on his fellow Republicans and foreboding of a stolen election. Just as I note, it threatens to “undermine” their own victories and suppress voter turnout.

I even saw an interview with a Trump campaign spokes-person on Fox over the weekend that cited reports (going viral on the Internet) of some counties in 2012 where Romney did not receive one single vote… “clear evidence of a stolen election” (despite the districts in question being almost entire poor & black.) The Fox anchor had to point out they found nearly as many examples of majority-white precincts where Obama did not receive a single vote, asking, “Is this evidence of election fraud too?” If you’re looking for intellectual honesty this election season, look elsewhere.

Speaking of “disconnected from reality”, one of Trump’s biggest supporters/defenders… Rudy “Honey, can my mistress live with us” Giuliani… claimed on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday that “Dead people tend to vote for Democrats”. Giuliani… like Trump… is fear-mongering an expectation of a stolen election… basically conceding Trump’s inevitable loss with a preemptive excuse for why it will happen, again, without regard for how his own words might suppress the voter turnout they so desperately need.

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Giuliani said he “remembers an election in Chicago in which 720 supposedly dead people voted” (I could find nothing about “720 dead voters casting ballots in Chicago” in a Google search other than Giuliani himself making the charge. He appears to be alluding to this Chicago Tribune article that claims “30” dead Chicagoans reportedly voted in 1983 (bear in mind the Tribune hasn’t endorsed a Democrat in over 20 years, choosing to endorse Gary Johnson this year.) Not exactly “massive voter fraud”… taking place over thirty years ago, and not large enough to swing a national election in which one candidate leads by approximately 4 percentage points nationwide (Hillary now leads Trump by 15-points in Kaine’s home state of Virginia.)

Over the weekend, Giuliani also claimed that “no one disputes the 1960 Presidential election (56 years ago) was stolen” from Richard Nixon. Actually, many DO dispute that. But regardless, when you have to go back more than a half century to find an example of a “stolen” election… and even then, one that was so close that only a few hundred votes in a single state made the difference… you’re only citing the exception that proves the rule. “Election Theft” and “in-person Voter Fraud” is rare to the point of being nonexistent.

And while Giuliani cites small-scale election fraud on the “precinct level”, another Trump surrogate Newt “as many mistresses as Trump” Gingrich tells ABC’s “This Week” that “small-scale election fraud on the precinct level” is NOT the kind of election fraud Trump is talking about.

Get your stories straight, guys. The Trump campaign is rapidly dissolving into a parody of itself.

So the next time some Trump supporter tries to tell you how “brilliant” he is, simply point out (after his bankruptcies and string of business failures) the stupidity of discouraging his own supporters with talk of a “rigged” system only days before the election.

(Prediction: Trump’s running mate Mike Pence said on “Meet the Press” yesterday that he shared Trump’s concern of massive nationwide election fraud… and yet said that the Trump campaign would abide by the election night results. Seriously? Does ANYONE seriously envision an election night concession phone call from Trump to Hillary congratulating her on her victory? Of course not. He will whine like the 14 year old child we all now know him to be, declare the election “stolen” and Hillary’s presidency “illegitimate”.)

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October 17, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, myth busting, Right-Wing Insanity, Scandals, voting

BREAKING: Major Party Candidates are Duplicitous Frauds. Oh, and we’re all screwed
October 10, 2016

There’s an old saying that “character” is who you are in private when no one is looking. Last week, WikiLeaks released thousands of emails belonging to Clinton campaign advisor John Podesta revealing (among other things) that what Clinton was telling cheering fans at her rallies or denying in those contentious televised debates was not what she was telling Wall Street behind closed doors. But no one is talking about that today because a conveniently-timed counter leak of behind-the-scenes video/audio of Trump being a total sexist pig during an interview with “Access Hollywood” reporter “Billy Bush” in 2005 broke the day before.

I’m not sure it’s even news anymore to report that someone running for public office is a duplicitous fraud, pretending to be one kind of person in public only to discover them saying something quite different in private when they think no one is looking.

Several news sources claimed to have uncovered “leaked transcripts” of Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street speeches. So I investigated. They didn’t. All of them are referring to a single email sent to Podesta citing links to online news reports claiming to reveal what Clinton said behind closed doors, and the Clinton campaigns preparations to spin those reports should they gain traction. But as for what was actually said, the contents of those speeches is still a total mystery.

(One leaked email from the 2008 campaign questions whether they should prepare to respond to Obama criticizing McCain for supporting “open trade”.)

The second presidential debate between Clinton & Trump took place last night. This debate was in a “Town Hall” format (introduced by Ross Perot BTW during his ’92 campaign) where audience members were allowed to ask pre-screened questions of the two major candidates. Yet the vast majority of questions were posted by the moderators.

Much time was spent discussing Donald Trump’s disgusting hot-mic comments, but very little was spent discussing the latest WikiLeaks revelations about Hillary. But after examining those WikiLeaks leaked emails and discovering they don’t actually reveal what sources are claiming, I can understand that (to a point.)

But more importantly, Trump willingly conceded that he hasn’t paid ANY Federal income tax in nearly two decades (if not longer), dismissing not doing so by claiming “neither has many of Hillary’s own friends”. As an example, he cites Billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett… who DOES pay taxes (18%) but admits to taking deductions… which is not the same as paying “nothing”.

Clinton & Trump did seem to agree that the solution to ending the war in the Middle East is to start World War III with Russia. Trump says he plans to “bomb the hell out of (Russian ally) Assad” (whom he later claims is fighting ISIS), while Hillary advocates (again) placing a No Fly Zone over Eastern Syria (Rep Tulsi Gabbard explains what’s wrong with that.) Clinton also openly advocates “arming our allies The Kurds.” I’m sure our friends, The Turks, were just thrilled by that news. The Kurds have repeatedly crossed the border and attacked Turkey trying to expend into Kurdish territory to their North. We depend incredibly on the assistance of Turkey… the largest Democracy in the Middle East and ally in the “War on Terror”, so the last thing we should be doing is giving one more Muslim nation a reason to hate us. But that seems to be Hillary’s plan.

But Trump’s plan to “bomb the hell out of ISIS” wouldn’t far much better. In the context of Syria, Trump advocated modernizing our nuclear stockpiles to “keep up with” (read: pressure) Syrian ally Russia. So Trump wants to restart the arms race… and the Cold War that goes with it… while he’s making nice with Putin. Then drop a nuclear bomb on Russian ally Assad (but don’t worry Turkey. That nuclear blast, radioactive fallout and mushroom clouds know not to cross the border into your country.)

It’s bad enough when these candidates lie to OUR faces, but now they don’t even seem to care if they lie to our allies.

If one was expecting a more mature, respectful adult Trump last night, they were sorely disappointed. He was even more petty and childish in this debate than he was in the first, constantly interrupting, talking over Clinton, and whining about the clock & the moderators. Meanwhile, Clinton herself was undisciplined as well, going over… WAY over… her time following every question.

The candidates may be saying one thing in private and another in public, but one thing that is consistent is the petty childishness we’ve seen this campaign devolve into as two 70 year olds snipe at each other like children.

Oh, and ICYMI, Friday was the 15th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and we are still there. Do you recall anyone talking about it? It didn’t even come up in the debate.

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October 10, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Partisanship, Politics, Rants, Scandals

Smart Businessmen don’t Lose a Billion Dollars, Mr Trump
October 3, 2016

According to Rudy Giuliani across several Sunday shows yesterday, the possibility Donald Trump may not have paid any income taxes for 18 years because he ran his company into the ground in 1995 makes him “a genius!”. Seriously. I’m not making that up. The former NYC mayor repeatedly defended the possibility that Trump may have paid absolutely nothing in income taxes from 1992 to 2010 as proof that Trump is a brilliant businessman who (quote) “is someone I’d like working for me!” The problem is, the ONLY reason Trump was even eligible to do so was because he reported a nearly ONE BILLION dollar loss on his 1995 income taxes after running his empire into the ground (according to a breaking NYT report Sunday.) Calling someone a “genius” because that same “genius” figured out how to dig themselves out a massive sinkhole of their own creation is like calling your mechanic a “genius” for fixing your car after he totaled it taking it out for a joyride.

Trump’s entire shtick is that he’s a brilliant businessman who should be put in charge of running the country like a business. The problem with that argument (besides the fact the government isn’t a “business” and not run for “profit”) is the assumption Donald Trump is a successful businessman. Poor customer base was never his achilles heel, and the man can boast of every tech that Salesforce advocates to attract customers. And someone who bankrupts his empire four times and is forced to declare nearly a Billion dollar loss in a single year can hardly be described as a “successful businessman”.

Indeed, a “successful” businessman… one whom you might want running your company/country… would be someone who “started with nothing” and built a wildly successful Fortune 100 corporation that NEVER had to declare bankruptcy, but instead returned a respectable profit each & every year while treating it’s employees with respect and paying them handsomely.

Donald Trump is NONE of that. Born on second-base to a multi-millionaire father with a world of business connections that in & of themselves were worth a fortune. His father loaned him a fortune (a million dollars back in [IIRC] 1973, which would be worth $5-8million today) to buy up prime real estate in Manhattan (a guaranteed goldmine). And despite that, he swindled suppliers, stiffed contractors, and STILL managed to declare bankruptcy FOUR times.

And that amazing talent that allowed him to recover following a $916 Billion dollar loss of his own doing? Not only did he have to exploit a tax loophole for the ridiculously wealthy like himself just to recover, but what of the investors/creditors that were left high & dry when Trump stiffed them by declaring bankruptcy? The employees who lost their jobs (and pensions… if any… to boot)? What of THEIR loses? Do THEY think Trump is a “genius”?

One problem I’ve always had with Trump’s declaring bankruptcy to save his business (other than the fact it he took advantage of a government bailout) is that the president can’t simply declare the United States “bankrupt” to bail itself out when he gets into trouble (who bails out the bailer?)

There is still the question as to whether Trump went nearly two decades (if not longer) without paying a dime in income taxes. And thanks to last weeks’ debate, I believe we can now say with absolute 100% certainty that he did not. How? Because Trump declared that not paying taxes would be proof he’s “smart”. Ergo, if he DID pay any taxes, he must be dumb, correct? And since Trump would never call himself dumb or admit to doing anything as “dumb” as paying taxes, it’s safe to assume he didn’t. Q.E.D..

The entire argument justifying a Trump presidency was itself built on a foundation of sand… his four bankruptcies. But if the NYT report is correct (and at this point, there’s no reason to believe it isn’t) and Trump did indeed have to declare $915,729,923 in loses in a single year, that’s not exactly the sign of a “great” businessman.

BUT…

He declared that loss for 1995… and that’s significant. Why? because 1995 was the start of “the Clinton Boom Years“, the start of Bill Clinton’s second term in office when the economy started taking off like a rocket. During Bill Clinton’s first term in office, unemployment fell from 7.3% to 5.6% by the end of 1995 (data from BLS) and the Stock Market rose from 3241.95 to 5117.12 during those same three years (nearly 37%), yet somehow Donald Trump… this astoundingly successful businessman… managed to run his companies into the ground and report nearly a *billion* dollars in losses (when he could have nearly doubled his fortune simply investing it in the stock market.)

Tell us again what a “successful businessman” Donald J Trump is? If he’s allowed to do for the country what he did to his corporate empire, we’re doomed.

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October 3, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Greed, Money, mystery, myth busting, Taxes

Mugsy’s Pre-Debate Analysis: Four Candidates. Zero Winners.
September 26, 2016

Four candidates are left in the presidential race and all four have serious judgement issues that renders them ill-equipped to lead the most powerful nation on Earth. Most depressing of all is that one of them will win. At this point, all that is left is to hope the Congress elected along side them ensure “the least bad” candidate elected president doesn’t do anything so stupid it can’t be fixed before the 2020 election.

The names of four candidates left in this race are: “Not Trump”, “Not Clinton”, “Conservative Not Trump or Clinton” & “Liberal Not Trump or Clinton”.

That’s no joke. In this election, more people picked their candidate because of who they’re NOT than are actually enthusiastic about their choice. Are there people who genuinely LOVE their candidate this year? Of course! I’m not claiming “everybody hates their candidate”. But these people are NOT the majority.

So let’s examine those four choices and why none of them have any business serving as president…

Birther King
Donald Trump.

I call him “Toddler Trump” because he exhibits all the maturity and critical thinking skills of a 14 year old boy entering puberty. Like most Teabagger Republicans, Trump believes there’s an easy answer to every problem without ever stopping to ponder the consequences. Like most Republicans, Trump is a racist that doesn’t think he’s a racist if he is friendly with a select few black people. I actually had to explain to a racist Trump supporter that there there are more races than just “black”. You can still be a racist if you are prejudiced against “Mexicans”, “Muslims”… even “blacks” despite being friends with “a few of them”. When Trump described life in the black community as “poor” with “high crime” and “rampant unemployment” and should therefore vote for him because “what have you got to lose?”, he was describing a stereotype of what he believes life is like for most black people. “Things have never been worse” for blacks he tells them. Seriously. Let’s not forget that Trump is pandering to a Party that believes “slavery” was actually a good thing for blacks because it brought them to this wonderful land. They should be thanking us for the free boat ride over.

His campaign was launched in a tirade labeling Mexicans immigrants as “rapists & drug dealers” (but “some” he diplomatically added might be “good people”.)

He called to “ban all Muslims from entering the United States”. Republicans are terrified reactionary children, so when they heard this, they swooned. Never mind the fact this is logistically impossible. I’ve joked that “lucky for Trump, ‘Muslims’ can be easily identified on sight by their purple polka-dotted skin.” How exactly would one verify a person is “Muslim”? It’s a religion found in nearly every nation on the globe… including the United States (some of whom are serving this country in the military.) But don’t worry, Republicans can spot a Muslim on sight. They all have slightly brown skin, wear pajamas as clothing, and have scraggly beards with no moustache (like the Amish.) Oh, and some wear turbans (because Shiek’s and Hindu’s are “A’rabs” too.)

But long before he declared his candidacy, Trump first endeared himself to Republicans by questioning Barack Obama’s place of birth (and therefore, his eligibility to be president.) Let us not forget that at the time, Obama’s opponent… John McCain… was born on a military base in Panama (two years before a bill was passed confiring citizenship upon such births.) Arguably, McCain was the one whose eligibility was legitimately in question. But McCain had white skin.

A significant number of Trump supporters still believe President Obama is “a secret Muslim”… including Donald Trump… who has repeatedly suggested the reason he has yet to defeat ISIS is because he secretly sympathizes with them. If he didn’t secretly sympathize with ISIS & alQaeda, he would have just “nuked” them years ago.

Let there be no doubt. That IS Donald Trump’s “secret foolproof plan to win the war”, which he said would be “100 percent” effective and defeat ISIS “quickly”. Trump is not nuanced. His plans are not complicated. Simply drop a nuclear bomb on them. Because in the tiny minds of simplistic terrified Republicans, all of ISIS lives in one place, attacks our troops and plots acts of terrorism from 9 to 5, and then goes back to their fort (or “crawl into their cave”) for the evening. And all we need to do is just drop one bomb to turn the entire Middle East to glass, take their oil (meaning we leave behind hundreds of thousands of troops there permanently to protect that oil), and be done with them forever & ever. Pfffft.

Now, as I’ve pointed out several times before, ISIS is spread across several countries (mostly Syria, put partly in Northern Iraq… which is now a U.S. ally… in an area that is mostly occupied by our long-time friends The Kurds.) Certainly our allies won’t mind if we drop a nuclear bomb on them if it means getting rid of ISIS “once and for all”. Nuking a region of 30 million people just to get 30,000 ISIS fighters… 0.1%… isn’t just just “the logical thing to do” in Trump’s eyes, it’s Genocide (and Trump naively believes would “guarantee permanent victory”. It’s not like anyone else would ever take up arms against the United States after something that, right?)

Okay, so Trump is a dangerous threat to global stability that heaps praise upon megalomaniacs like Putin & Kim Jong Un, with no compunction against using Genocide to achieve peace, BUT he’s “a successful businessman” that’ll know how to “fix” our economy!

First off, anyone who thinks our economy is worse today than it was eight years ago has no foothold in reality. No need to rundown the disaster that was George W. Bush. You already know. But I have long doubted that Trump is anywhere near as rich & successful as he claims (update: one week later, we find out he lost a Billion dollars in 1995). Quite honestly, I think he’s broke and deep in debt. This video from ShareBlue makes the same case as I do that Trump is actually a lousy businessman, with an endless string of failed businesses, bankruptcies and lawsuits against him. Everything about him says “con man”… most notably, using other people’s charitable donations to purchase items for himself at charity auctions and then bragging about how charitable he has been (not a dime of his own “fortune” to charity in the last 8 years.)

Remember eight years ago when Republicans complained that “the presidency isn’t an entry-level position” and Barack Obama’s lack of political experience was a handicap? Flash forward 8 years later and Trump’s total lack of political experience is exactly what they love about him and think is a huge asset.

A dangerous con-man who lies without shame (still says he opposed the invasion of Iraq despite being on tape supporting it), political novice with no core principles and an itchy trigger finger ready to blow up the Middle East. Oh, and did I mention “Climate Change denier” too? He thinks it’s a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. If you’re a Conspiracy nut who believes our president is “a secret Muslim born in Kenya, plotting the invasion of Texas by way of tunnels beneath vacant Wal*Marts, and staged the murder of 20 school children and 8 faculty at an Elementary school in Connecticut as part of a secret plan to take away your guns… have we got a Party for you!

Which brings us to…

Hillary Clinton

According to a CNN poll last May, slightly more than half of Hillary Clinton’s support is simply “anti-Trump”:

For someone as unpopular as Hillary Clinton, she is incredibly lucky… not just to be running against someone as wholly unfit to be president as Donald Trump… but for a Republican electorate that is SO removed from reality that saner candidates that actually stood a chance of defeating her were turfed out early (most never polling beyond single digits) in favor of the more irrational, disconnected-from-reality candidates. Let’s not forget who came in second in the GOP Primary: Ted Cruz. An evangelical end-times nut who wasn’t even born in the United States! Had Cruz of ended up the GOP nominee, he would not be doing any better than Trump is now. Hillary’s best friend in this election isn’t Trump, it’s an insane GOP. And because of that, this wildly unpopular candidate could conceivably win the biggest Electoral College landslide in recent history (48 states) while only narrowly defeating her opponent by less than 2% of the Popular Vote.

Hillary is not Trump. That’s her biggest selling point. Next is the novelty of becoming “the first woman president”. She’d be the least likeable presidential nominee in half a century (since Nixon) if she were not running against Donald Trump.

I first critiqued Hillary back in February, so there is no need to rehash that again.

Clinton is a closet Conservative. As I’ve pointed out numerous times before, her first instinct on every issue is to take the Conservative side of an issue first, tacking Left only once that position proves unpopular and she is shamed into retracting it… kinda. It all depends (she eventually flip-flopped on her support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, only to say a month later that she only opposed it “in it’s present form”.) Like most Conservatives, she still supports the idea of “Free Trade” (update 10/09: Clinton dreams of “open trade & open borders”), and would support another disastrous free trade bill like NAFTA approved by her husband if passed by a Conservative Congress. But much like George Bush never actually claimed Saddam was connected to 9/11, Hillary is more than happy to leave the misimpression out there that she is (now) opposed to Free trade deals and would veto one if it reached her desk as long as it gets her what she wants.

Here is a quick rundown of major policy positions Hillary took the Conservative position on first only to flip-flop on later:

We all know she authorized the use of force against Iraq (which she later had to apologize for), but Hillary is a hawk. She has always been quick to threaten the use of military force. She was on the “pro” side of aiding the ouster of Kadaffy (which left a giant power-vacuum in Libya that was quickly filled by ISIS, threatened the use of force against Iran on multiple occasions, bragged of being praised by her “friend” Henry Kissinger, and believes the key to success against ISIS is a sustained aerial bombing campaign using drones that are notorious for the amount of innocent collateral damage they inflict.

Hillary feigned an appeal to Sanders voters to close out the primary, but since then, she has reached out FAR more to Conservatives than Bernie supporters (and Clinton’s own supporters are STILL openly hostile to Sanders supporters.) And you will see in the next month as we near Election Day, Hillary will move further & further to the Center-Right, attempting to appeal more to disaffected Conservatives than Bernie supporters that she believes she already has enough “locked up” that she can scrape by with what she already has of them.

She says she believes in Climate Change, yet hemmed & hawed for months waffling on whether or not to support the Keystone XL pipeline (the greatest threat to the environment since the invention of the Atomic Bomb) because she believed the nonsense it would create “a lot” of jobs (damn the consequences.) Maybe we should bring back DDT while were at it? That would create “a lot” of jobs too! In the end, it wasn’t the warnings of environmental apocalypse that changed her mind, it were revelations that the claimed number of “jobs” it would produce were total nonsense, coupled with wild claims of “energy independence” that weren’t based in reality that finally convinced her it “wasn’t worth the risk”. But you know, if it has just meant a few more jobs, maybe approving “a carbon bomb” that would have spelled “game over for the environment” might have been worth considering?

She asks us, “What is he hiding?” when Trump refuses to release his tax returns, yet SHE has yet to release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches (42 of them at more than $225K a pop.) If you don’t think these corporations were hoping to buy access to the likely next president of the United States, then you probably also believe they kept inviting her back at tremendous cost because they enjoyed listening to her criticize them and threaten to “break them up” and “investigate them” should she become president.

Even if you believe there is nothing to the “controversy” surrounding Hillary’s emails, the secrecy regarding her email server is disturbing. One question I have repeatedly asked that I have yet to hear anyone ask her is: “Why? Why did you set up a private email server in your home at great personal expense when the State Department provided you with a secure email server (maintained by the State Department) for free?” Setting up & maintaining a server at home is neither “convenient” nor “free”. Even if you are a hacker like myself, building and maintaining a private server is time consuming. But Hillary didn’t build/maintain her server herself. She had to hire someone to do it for her. And the expense grows exponentially when it must be a “secure” server that requires an “on-site” technician with enough security clearance to enter the home… not just of the acting Secretary of State… but the home of a former president as well.

So why the secrecy? We may never know. My own suspicion is it has something to do with circumventing FOIA (the “Freedom of Information Act) that mandates that all government-owned records must be made available to the public upon request. A private email server in a person’s home is not subject to FOIA. Now what exactly she might have wanted to shield from prying eyes is anyone’s guess. Maybe nothing. But the almost Nixonian need for secrecy seems to be a recurring theme with Hillary Clinton.

Having a private email server? Yeah, that’s “a mistake” she admits to now, just like her vote to entrust the invasion of Iraq to George W. Bush. Oopsie! Saying she believed “Marriage is between a man and a woman?” Yeah, that was a mistake too. The problem is there are no “Backsies” when you’re president of the United States. Your first instinct is all that counts. And on a host of issues, from Civil Rights to war, Hillary’s first instincts tell her to fall on the Conservative side of an issue first.

Polling guru Nate Silver has predicted that no matter who wins the election, there is a 52% chance they will have a Republican Congress (both House and Senate). The idea of Trump with a Republican Congress is almost too abhorrent to bear, but a President Hillary with a Republican Congress is a certain nightmare as well. Endless investigations and gridlock for the next four years ensuring little to nothing gets done. If you thought the “do nothing” Congress under Obama was bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Besides both being Conservative, Clinton & Trump are two of the most secretive presidential nominees in history. They both lead to the same destination: a more Conservative America, still at war four years from now with Wall Street dictating the global economy. The only difference is whether you wish to get there by rocket sled or rowboat.

Jill Stein

I don’t have as much to say about Green Party candidate Jill Stein for several reasons, but primarily because much of her platform in the way of “actionable” policy simply doesn’t exist. And by that I mean, she has lots of aspirations, but few details on how to achieve those aspirations. And with the absolute certainty of being strapped with an uncooperative Congress, Stein has yet to put forth a case for HOW she achieves ANY of her goals.

Without question her goals are noble, but a goal of moving America to “100% renewable energy by 2030″… a mere 13 years upon taking office, just isn’t going to happen. Such an extreme position likely isn’t even necessary. If we simply cut global carbon emissions in half, we can arrest Global Warming and even start to see a decline in rising temperatures. Such childlike naivete is no less silly than Donald Trump thinking we can “ban all Muslims” or “nuke our way to peace” in the Middle East.

Two other positions that drive me crazy about Stein: Her support for “Reparations” and basically calling Edward Snowden a hero.

First, “Reparations”… the call to financially compensate black people for the scourge of slavery and civil rights violations inflicted upon them.

Once again, Stein finds herself every bit as disconnected from reality as Donald Trump. Every bit as unworkable as Trump thinking he can spot a “Muslim” on sight, how does Stein intend to determine whether someone is the descendant of a slave? Many Northern states NEVER permitted slavery, so just having an American lineage going back 200 years doesn’t ensure someone is the descendant of slaves. And do we compensate people whose ancestors moved to America in the last 100 years less than those who lived here longer? And where does the money come from to pay these “Reparations”?

“Reparations” are also hugely insulting, thinking someone can be “bought off” to compensate for what was done to their ancestors (not they themselves). Believing most blacks are eager for a government payoff is no less insulting than Donald Trump assuming all blacks live in deep poverty in crime riddled urban wastelands.

They’re also dangerous. Much the same way racists argued that the election of the first black president proved “racism is over” and therefore programs like “affirmative action” and the “Voting Rights Act” were no longer required (and they got part of the later repealed… to disastrous consequences.) Not only would “Reparations” stir up animosity between blacks & whites (over whether such compensation is fair or justified) but also between blacks questioning how much compensation some truly deserved. Is a half-black person deserving of compensation too? Just as much or half as much? It’s a ridiculous logistical nightmare people like Stein clearly never think through. But in their child-like simplicity, it just sounds like the right thing to do.

Stein’s admiration for Edward Snowden irks me to no end as well. Over two years ago, I wrote “A Liberal look: Snowden no hero” pointing out that he wasn’t “a whistleblower”, he took a job that gave him access to NSA computers with the deliberate intention of stealing information because he wanted to be a hero. He didn’t “stumble” across information he believed the public had a right to know. He stole the information first… not knowing what he would find… leafed through that information, then decided for himself what he believed we had a right to know. He’s a Glory Hound.

And Stein wants to pardon him and appoint him to her Cabinet. That’s just stupid beyond words. Yes, by all means lets put a man who can’t be trusted with Top Secret information in charge of Top Secret information and give him the highest security clearance. It’s not like he might jeopardize national security because he wants to be a hero or anything, right?

Gary Johnson

Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” begins: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” That’s Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Something for everyone to love. Something for everyone to hate. Progressives like Johnson’s non-interventionist (aka: “isolationist”) foreign policy position, his belief in legalizing marijuana and his support for gay marriage. Conservatives love his “free market ideology” that believes there’s nothing the private sector can’t do better than the government. Johnson brags that he is “the only candidate who supports the TPP.” Privatize everything. No more public schools. No more government services. Turn Social Security over to Wall Street and get rid of “ObamaCare”. The government serves only ONE purpose: “security”. Military and the police. Period.

Like Trump & Stein, Johnson has his own naive beliefs. One is the idea that if we ~~cut the Minimum Wage in half~~ ELIMINATE the Minimum Wage, we would create “millions of new jobs.” No. Employers don’t… out of the goodness of their heart… suddenly double their workforce (and liabilities) just because you suddenly cut their payroll in half. No, they hire based on NEED, and if their current workforce is big enough to meet their needs, they will just keep the number of employees where it is and pocket the savings.

So now you’ve cut people’s wages in half, but the price of things like oil/gasoline are set on the world market and don’t get cheaper just because tens of millions of people are being paid less. So now they must work twice as long to afford they things they used to (barely) afford.

And even if you don’t make Minimum Wage, don’t think YOUR wages won’t be affected too. Your own wages are based on the Minimum Wage. If what you earn is not cut in half, you can forget about a raise for the next few years. Don’t like it? There will be a long line of people waiting to do your job for less money.

Eventually, you dramatically gut the money supply. The amount of money flowing in the economy is severely cut. As people buy less, the demand for employees plunges. This is what happened when the price of gasoline broke $4.00/gallon in July of 2008. Everyone was spending so much more of their income on gas they has less to put into the economy. Eventually, the demand for Goods & Services crashed, taking the economy and millions of jobs with it.

This is Johnson’s plan to revive our economy.

Johnson is a supporter of the “Fair Tax”… a national sales tax in place of our dysfunctional Income tax. This would be something I could get behind if it were done properly… and by “properly”, I mean exempting staples like unprocessed food & drink, basic clothing and other necessities of life. But that’s not the Johnson/”Fair Tax” plan which calls for an unworkable “prebate” that compensates people in advance to offset the taxes they will pay on the first $10,000 or so worth of purchases. I’ve never understood having the government paying you back money they never should have taken away in the first place.

In any case, some may spend more on staples than others. We would of course have to give families with more children a larger prebate (cue the cries of “Welfare!” and accusing some racial groups of having more children just for the larger prebate checks.)

Johnson is also a Climate Change denier that doesn’t believe the government should be spending one thin dime to prevent it. In Johnson’s world, if Climate Change turns out to be real and we start having problems, that’s just a business opportunity for dealing with what was once a preventable problem now at 10x the cost.

No matter who wins this election, Americans are screwed. There is little enthusiasm for ANY of these candidates because voters know: 1) Trump & Clinton will say whatever they think voters want to hear at the time, and 2) Stein & Johnson haven’t a clue what they are doing. Four candidates, zero good choices.

Enjoy the debate Monday night.

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September 26, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, Politics, Rants

Why No One is Buying Trump’s Renouncement of Birtherism
September 19, 2016

Last week, in a desperate bid to attract minority voters and assuage whites he isn’t a bigot, Donald Trump finally, after 8 years, conceded that Barack Obama was born in the United States, giving NO explanation for his sudden reversal. It was absolutely comical listening to Trump surrogates over the weekend trying to defend Trump’s 8-year campaign of questioning the birthplace/legitimacy of the first black president. His new campaign manager, Kelly Ann Conway, even tried to claim on “Meet the Press” yesterday that Trump IS NOT a “Birther” and was “only reminding people” that Hillary questioned Obama’s provenance first. Trump NEVER believed Obama was born in Kenya! Where would anyone get a crazy idea like that?

All of this was brought about of course when major Trump supporter and campaign surrogate Rudy Giuliani made the ridiculous and easily disprovable claim on several news shows a week ago that “Donald Trump admitted President Obama was born in America two years ago!” Except that he hadn’t. As recently as last month, Trump called Obama “the founder of ISIS”… literally. Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt repeatedly tried to “Trump-splain” what his guest actually meant, suggesting to Trump that what he was really saying was that President Obama’s foreign policy failure resulted in the formation of ISIS. But Trump stuck to his guns and repeatedly rejected Hewitt’s attempt to put words in his mouth, instead implying that Obama was somehow sympathetic to ISIS, thereby explaining his reluctance to go after them in a way in which Trump believes needs to be done to defeat them once & for all (ie: “nukes”), thereby suggesting a connection between the two. It’s all part of the “otherness” Trump supporters attribute to Obama. “He’s not like us!” “He’s a Muslim!” (that spent 20 years in Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church. Wright is also a “secret Muslim”.) “He was born in Kenya” and therefore ineligible to be president of the United States. Yesterday on “Meet the Press”, another Conservative radio host, Alex Castellanos rejected the idea Trump was a racist, explaining that “there’s an ‘otherness’ about Obama” that explains away Trump’s questioning the president’s place of birth that isn’t steeped in racism. An “otherness“? Hmm. I can’t quite put my finger on it. What is it about the first black president of the United States makes him an unrelateable “other” to Conservatives like Castellanos? Figuring out that mystery is going to keep me up tonight. Not.

It’s all quite ludicrous of course, and NO ONE that previously believed Trump was a bigot because of his Birtherism, is suddenly going to vote for him now thinking maybe they misjudged him.

On my Facebook page, one angry Trump supporter felt the need to defend his candidate against accusations of bigotry (even though the thread was not about Trump nor racism), posting a photo of Trump with his arm around a black Conservative radio host and citing support from other incredulous African-American Conservatives like Ben Carson and former Congressman Alan West. Then, just to make sure he made his point, he punctuated it with a photo contrasting neatly pressed police officers on parade to some angry black rioters smashing a police car (because “it isn’t racist if you’re simply stating a fact”.) Of course, if these racists idiots weren’t idiots, they wouldn’t be racists now would they? Chalk one more up to a total lack of self-awareness.

So why is it no one is buying Trump’s 11th hour conversion to renounce Birtherism? What does a bigot have to do?

When I was 9 years old, my new step-mother was incensed that I no longer believed in Santa Claus. One might guess it had something to do with depriving her of the joy of playing Santa and missing the wonderment in a child’s eyes. But no, this was a joyless person, and threatened that I would not receive a single Christmas present if I didn’t renounce my disbelief in Santa (and don’t doubt for a minute that she didn’t really mean it.)

As any child would upon being threatened with “no toys for Christmas” if they didn’t play their silly game, I caved. I declared that I suddenly “believed in Santa” and… in an explanation that was as much to convince myself as it was my tormentor… I attributed my epiphany to “they wouldn’t have written all those songs if there were no Santa!” It was enough. I got my Christmas presents (all labeled “From Santa”) and I was never asked again. And don’t think for one moment she was bluffing. You had to know her (but be glad you didn’t.)

Listening to Conway, Pence and Christie tie themselves up in knots trying to convince voters (and themselves) that the REAL Birther in this race is Hillary Clinton, was almost painful to watch. But, as I pointed out last April [ibid first link], it WAS someone inside the Clinton campaign in 2008 that first released a 2006 photo of then-State Senator Obama dressed in ceremonial garb during a visit to Kenya that started “a whisper campaign” that Obama was “a secret Muslim”. The Obama Campaign attacked the Clinton Campaign for releasing the photo with clear malicious intent, to which Clinton responded indignantly that Senator Obama was “trying to change the subject”, yet never outright denied that someone from inside the Clinton Campaign leaked the photo. Nor did they try to correct the misimpression they created (reminiscent of how the Bush Administration never outright claimed Saddam was responsible for 9/11, yet they certainly gave that impression, and were more than happy to leave that misimpression out there to gin up support for the invasion of Iraq.) So when Trump claims Hillary “started the Birther movement”, there is a case to be made (though Trump turned her spark into an inferno.)

And so it is with Trump declaring that “President Obama was born in America. Period!” In the back of everyone’s mind, they are noticing he didn’t preface it with: “I am now convinced that…” Add to that, Trump gave no explanation for his sudden turn-around on the matter (even suggesting he NEVER believed Obama was not born in America, ergo there’s no reason to explain his reversal since this isn’t actually a reversal.)

But I will bet you a years salary that if you asked most Trump supporters if they believe Trump truly believes Obama was born in America, or is only saying it to get The Lib’rul Media off his back, they’d say the later. I’m even willing to bet most of Trump’s supporters themselves still believe Obama was not born in America despite what Donald Trump is now saying. Trump is a Conspiracy Theory aficionado… as is, I’m certain… most of his supporters: Small minds who see enemies everywhere and therefore “cling to their guns & religion” are also typically Conspiracy Theorists (FEMA Camps, Jade Helm, fluoridation of our drinking water, etc). Lovers of Conspiracy theories don’t suddenly reject their core beliefs of the last eight years.

He’s not fooling anyone. I doubt he’s even fooling his supporters. “Obama was born in America!” declared Trump. Yeah, and Santa Claus is real.

Trump flip-flops (to date):

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September 19, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Civil Rights, Election, myth busting, Racism, rewriting history, Right-Wing Hypocrisy

Mugsy's Rap Sheet

Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.

Will Trump Resolve His Business Conflicts Before His Inauguration? Doubtful.
November 28, 2016

The CEO President. THIS is Trump’s idea of “The Best People”?
November 21, 2016

Nearly Ten Million Fewer Democrats Voted in 2016 Than 2008. Why?
November 14, 2016

Okay DNC, You Own This. 10 Positives to come from a Trump victory.
November 9, 2016

Mugsy’s Electoral Predictions (2016 edition)
November 7, 2016

The Most Frightening Thing This Election is that One Of Them Will Win
October 31, 2016

Could 1990 Texas Governors Race Foretell a Surprise Win for Hillary There?
October 24, 2016

Increasingly Unhinged, Trump Preps Supporters for Epic Loss with Talk of Election Rigging
October 17, 2016

BREAKING: Major Party Candidates are Duplicitous Frauds. Oh, and we’re all screwed
October 10, 2016

Smart Businessmen don’t Lose a Billion Dollars, Mr Trump
October 3, 2016

Mugsy’s Pre-Debate Analysis: Four Candidates. Zero Winners.
September 26, 2016

Why No One is Buying Trump’s Renouncement of Birtherism
September 19, 2016

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Mugsy's Rap Sheet

Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.

Will Trump Resolve His Business Conflicts Before His Inauguration? Doubtful. November 28, 2016

The CEO President. THIS is Trump’s idea of “The Best People”? November 21, 2016

Nearly Ten Million Fewer Democrats Voted in 2016 Than 2008. Why? November 14, 2016

Okay DNC, You Own This. 10 Positives to come from a Trump victory. November 9, 2016

Mugsy’s Electoral Predictions (2016 edition) November 7, 2016

The Most Frightening Thing This Election is that One Of Them Will Win October 31, 2016

Could 1990 Texas Governors Race Foretell a Surprise Win for Hillary There? October 24, 2016

Increasingly Unhinged, Trump Preps Supporters for Epic Loss with Talk of Election Rigging October 17, 2016

BREAKING: Major Party Candidates are Duplicitous Frauds. Oh, and we’re all screwed October 10, 2016

Smart Businessmen don’t Lose a Billion Dollars, Mr Trump October 3, 2016

Mugsy’s Pre-Debate Analysis: Four Candidates. Zero Winners. September 26, 2016

Why No One is Buying Trump’s Renouncement of Birtherism September 19, 2016

Past posts

Archives

Resources

FREE Movies

Recent Posts

Most popular:

Access

Social Media

Blogroll

Subjects

Referral

Will Trump Resolve His Business Conflicts Before His Inauguration? Doubtful.
November 28, 2016

The CEO President. THIS is Trump’s idea of “The Best People”?
November 21, 2016

Nearly Ten Million Fewer Democrats Voted in 2016 Than 2008. Why?
November 14, 2016

Okay DNC, You Own This. 10 Positives to come from a Trump victory.
November 9, 2016

Mugsy’s Electoral Predictions (2016 edition)
November 7, 2016

The Most Frightening Thing This Election is that One Of Them Will Win
October 31, 2016

Could 1990 Texas Governors Race Foretell a Surprise Win for Hillary There?
October 24, 2016

Increasingly Unhinged, Trump Preps Supporters for Epic Loss with Talk of Election Rigging
October 17, 2016

BREAKING: Major Party Candidates are Duplicitous Frauds. Oh, and we’re all screwed
October 10, 2016

Smart Businessmen don’t Lose a Billion Dollars, Mr Trump
October 3, 2016

Mugsy’s Pre-Debate Analysis: Four Candidates. Zero Winners.
September 26, 2016

Why No One is Buying Trump’s Renouncement of Birtherism
September 19, 2016