Category Archives: Elections & Voting

In the midst of what undoubtedly will be the nastiest and most expensive presidential campaign in American history, it is important to remember that the question is not so much whether a candidate is a good or bad person, but rather what should and will be the policies, objectives, and consequences of her or his administration? What do the People of the United States really want and expect their government to do on their behalf? Who should make political policy, the People, or the politicians they elect to represent them? Continue reading →

In 2008, Hillary Clinton was forced to accept and support Barack Obama’s nomination for the presidency, something that everyone thought she had locked up. Continue reading →

Call it the sour grapes crowd. When things don’t turn out its way, it demands another go, hoping for a different result. Continue reading →

Brexit, a loss for not only British but also European and global capital, is ultimately a victory for humanity even though the mentally beleaguered brigades of all-is-always-lost are made to see it as a triumph of the racist right. Continue reading →

Last time I watched mainstream TV, I was with my sister Laura, traveling after attending our niece’s wedding. One of the interchangeable anchors asked a Trump fan about her candidate’s obvious lies. (Funny, since they all lie.) She said she doesn’t care. She likes him, will support him, regardless. Continue reading →

The upset victory of the Brexit campaign for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the Europe Union has all the usual suspects pulling their hair, gnashing their teeth, clutching their pearls, and looking for the nearest fainting couch. The gloom and doom predictions that the world now faces an economic catastrophe are on the lips of George Soros-paid operatives and Wall Street con artists who have managed to book themselves on the blathering “news” shows found in the vast wasteland of cable television. Continue reading →

What does it mean? Continue reading →

There’s a virus infecting our politics and right now it’s flourishing with a scarlet heat. It feeds on fear, paranoia and bigotry. All that was required for it to spread was a timely opportunity—and an opportunist with no scruples. Continue reading →

Donald Trump is the ill spoken, boorish, graceless version of every American president in modern history. He differs from them only in his unconcealed appeals to white nationalism. But Democrats aren’t much better. They pretend to work on behalf of human, civil and economic rights but those claims are lies. They are meant to hide their partnerships with corporate America, very wealthy individuals and the worldwide imperialist project. Continue reading →

With the increasingly likelihood of a presidential contest between the generally despised Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, millions of angry voters are considering protesting the lineup by either sitting out the election or writing in alternatives. With almost one-third of all eligible voters already failing to participate in elections, a greater abdication of voting responsibility in an election between the lesser of two evils could lead to a tyranny of the minority. On the other hand, by carefully writing in the names of their true choices, voters can exercise the only power available to them. If sufficiently widespread, such a protest could have a lasting effect on the course of the Nation, including the abandonment of the two major political parties and the emergence of new—more relevant—alignments. Continue reading →

Imagine a want ad for the position of U.S. President: Seeking a Daddy or Mommy to perform the duties of the president of the United States. Based on what we’re witnessing—the venomous, venal, and vehement aspirants presently hardballing shit at one another as well as past and current officeholders—I have an image of the ad and its contents. Continue reading →

“We have been watching for nearly a month a steady buildup of American and NATO forces along Russia’s borders—on land, on sea and in the air. There has been nothing like this on Russia’s borders, such an amassing of hostile military force, since the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.” Continue reading →

Long gone are the days when the path to the White House was open to anyone who met the Constitution’s bare minimum requirements of being a natural born citizen, a resident of the United States for 14 years, and 35 years of age or older. Continue reading →

British expatriate writer Andrew Sullivan recently returned to the public eye with a piece that has aroused considerable comment, some of it reasonably on point, and some bloviatingly incoherent. Continue reading →

I’ve run for political office a few times myself, and even though I have always met constitutional qualifications, I always have been told that I was not “qualified.” Continue reading →

In 1967, the United States was digging itself deeper into the war in Vietnam. Continue reading →

It doesn’t seem so long ago when an ambitious political couple holding preteen Chelsea Clinton by the hand was moving from the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas, to the august quarters of the White House in D.C. A young Democratic president had just defeated Ronald Reagan’s heir, Papa Bush, and a prophetic populist with a Texan twang, Ross Perot, in the colorful presidential fray of 1992. Continue reading →

American exceptionalism, the “indispensable nation,” an “empire of liberty,” the “leader of the free world,” a “shining city on a hill,” and other patriotic slogans mask hard truths about the most ruthlessly dangerous regime in world history. Continue reading →

To paraphrase the words of that Scottish master Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice, men—and women—go often astray, or “gang aft agley,” as they say in the Highlands. No one knows this better than Hillary Rodham Clinton. Continue reading →

Some roughhousing at a Democratic Party convention in Nevada over the weekend shocked party leaders and the mainstream media. The official custodians of propriety demand that Sanders control his followers and denounce their actions. The double standard on this issue is simply appalling since the Clinton campaign represents failed policies that got 350,000 killed and future plans (the “no fly zone” for Syria) that will cost even more lives. Continue reading →

In November, US voters get to choose between two deplorable business as usual presidential aspirants—a billionaire demagogue v. a war criminal/Wall Street tool, both hugely anti-populist. Continue reading →

There’s probably never been a US presidential election where both likely nominees are more despised by more people. Millions on both sides plan to vote for the least despicable candidate. Do you need more proof our political system is corrupt to the core? Continue reading →

Savannah State University in Georgia will offer a three-credit course this summer, “The Trump Factor in American Politics.” The professor is Dr. Robert Smith, who says the students will read Trump’s policy statements and excerpts from Trump’s books, and then discuss his political philosophies. Continue reading →

Finally, after three-plus decades of unmitigated adventurism, both domestic and global, the [economic] chickens are coming home to roost in this 2016 presidential election. And this time around we can indisputably state that “the economy matters.” And it matters much more than at any other time in our nation’s history. Why? Continue reading →

Watching the mad, mad, mad, mad world that is the 2016 presidential campaign, I was trying to remember a presidential campaign that was as jaw-dropping, at least in my lifetime, and easily settled on 1968. Continue reading →

I thought I’d write about it. And then I thought I’d write about something else. And of course today there’s another something. There always is. By the end of this piece, I may be chasing a tangent that’s unrelated to the paragraph following this one. Continue reading →