It's the climate, stupid

Hillary trotted out Al Gore yesterday in Florida  to bolster her standing among millenials worried about the effects of climate change on their lives and those of their children.  Neither party has spent much time or effort to educate or discuss plans for combatting the effects of mankind's promiscuous release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  Now that Clinton's election is virtually assured, maybe it is time to listen to the Al Gores of the world.  The science is indisputable to anyone who accepts the scientific method.  At a certain tipping point, the amount of heat trapping gasses in the air will bring about catastrophic changes which may be inimitable to life on earth as we know it.  Every time I see my 2 year old grandchildren and think of how their lives will be impacted by climate change I shudder.  Too many other people have chosen to either ignore or actively deny this change is happening.  Droughts, floods, warmest months of all time followed by even warmer months;  this is all in line with predictions by climate scientists.  I hope Hillary and her closest advisors realize the gravity of the situation.  It's a sure bet Trump and his crew, who are now engaged in a scorched earth political suicide have not spared a moment's thought for the future of our plante.

Women for Trump?

How any woman can support a man who objectifies virtually every portion of the female anatomy, who is fine with a radio shock jock referring to his daughter as a "piece of ass" and who speaks like a sexual predator is way beyond me.  However, the spectacle of a few women at a Trump rally behind a banner saying Virginia Women for Trump, juxtaposed with a male carrying a sign proclaiming "It's better to grab a p***y than to be one" put's the dilemma into an easy to understand slogan.  If you are a woman who supports the republican candidate for president,  expect to be denigrated and marginalized by the misogynistic, racist a-holes who support this worthless excuse for a human being.

Another debate post-mortem

Despite the "brave" insistence of many if not most cable commenters, the public seems to have felt Hillary won last night's debate by a pretty wide margin.  Despite the carefully vetted presence of so-called undecided voters, both the moderators and Trump decided to virtually ignore their questions and focus on the prurient interest of the Donald's sex innuendo tape.  He, in turn took a swipe at Bill Clinton's indiscretions, going so far as holding a press conference attended by most of the women who have called out Clinton for sexually abusing them.  This was the prelude to Trump's scorched earth policy of trying to drag Hillary down to his level.  Unfortunately for him there were some actual questions from the audience he had to answer.  After a few "believe me's", he usually launched into a spate of gibberish instead of any concrete policy statements.  On health care, he is going to replace Obamacare with "unbelievably good" policies, blah, blah, blah.  On the middle east, I doubt he could have identified Syria on an unlabeled map, let alone Aleppo.  Clinton adopted the Pence strategy, namely not engaging on complicated issues like her e-mails and ignoring Trump's attempt to tie Bill's sexual indiscretions to her.  It was ugly, but most of the time she appeared to know she was supposed to respond to the audience questions, unlike the insult comedian.  The CNN poll showed most of the public appreciated that.

It's all fun and games until the planet gets hurt

Making fun of the sort of people who absolutely know Obama is a Kenyan muslim socialist, Vince Foster was murdered, global warming is a hoax, etc. is an amusing pastime.  Then, you wake up one morning and realize some 30-40% of Americans believe these tropes and are willing to bet the nation's future on them.  Donald Trump is the pentultimate creation of the conspiracy peddling fifth estate of alternative social websites and right wing media outlets like Faux News.  These "truthy" sources have blurred the line between fact and fantasy to the extent many people have turned against mainstream papers and other sources which traffic in inconvenient facts which contradict the conspiracy theories which seem to comfort so many of our neighbors.  I guess it is easier to believe in UN black helicopters and "false flag" operations that explain why things are not the same as they were in some golden yesterday when white Americans held all the world in their hands and everyone else knew their place.  Yes, Trump will almost certainly lose this election, but the damage he has done to our polity is incalculable.  His politics will almost surely lead to a person who will plausibly explain how we will  make America great again.  May the Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on us all.

"Smart" people and the peril of democracy

One of the things that always impressed me about my mentor, Jerry Shulman, was his dedication to democracy.   He took his civic duty seriously, including paying taxes.  While he didn't enjoy the annual ritual, he always said it was a good year if he  had to pay his share to keep government and all the services it provides running smoothly.  He had many good years.  I would contrast that with the antics of the insult comedian running for president.  Evidently , The Donald has not paid federal taxes since sometime in the 1980s.  As chronicled by various reporters, his business past is littered with failures, most of them bailed out by his father.  If he had not been tapped to host "The Apprentice" series of reality tee vee shows, which showcased all the horrible aspects of his personality, he would probably be a greenskeeper at one of his golf courses.  As he no doubt knows, releasing his tax returns would be the final nail in his political coffin.  It would also show that despite his protestations of patriotism, he is unwilling or unable to support the nation he aspires to lead.  Jerry Shulman would be shaking his head in disbelief that such a charlatan could be one election away from disgracing America.

Not the Beer thing again

So, it sounds like more Americans would like to have a beer with Mike Pence than Tim Kaine.  As noted bully and interrupter Chris Matthews opined,  Kaine seemed more aggressive and combative than Pence.  Well, the clash of ideas in a public forum can be a messy business and Kaine's agenda was to tie Pence and the republican party to Trump.  Pence refused to defend his putative boss and made many in his party yearn for a Pence candidacy in 2020.  If the debate was judged on points scored by an impartial panel, I have little doubt Kaine was the winner.  However, these encounters are more often judged on style than substance and many pundits judged  Pence was cooler.   He also  lied far more and better than his opponent.  He simply refused to answer or lied about any Trumpism called out by Kaine.  The refusal of the moderator to force him to stay within the parameters of the debate allowed him to throw The Donald under the bus without having to actually defend anything.  As one pundit put it, Kaine is running for vice president in 2016.  Pence is running for president in 2020.  Pence is a nasty piece of work who is not noted for his grasp of foreign or domestic policy, a sort of George W. Bush lite.  But on the limited stage of a VP debate with a mandate to stop the bleeding of his ticket, he accomplished the job, albeit by dropping Trump like the proverbial hot potato.

October surprises

October is definitely my favorite month.   Cool weather, beautiful scenery, bountiful harvests of fall vegetables and perfect golfing weather.  This year, there is the stress of a presidential election, but the latest news on that front is comforting.   The release of a few pages of Trump's taxes are not going to convince the racist misogynist base of his bad faith.  On the contrary, it will only reinforce their belief in his "genius".   I won't even speculate how these people can square this circle, but certainly anyone who was genuinely on the fence should now be falling onto the Clinton column.  I look forward to more revelations regarding The Donald's prowess at gaming the system to his advantage and his feeble explanations as to how this qualifies him to be president.  The laughs keep coming...