And that’s the way it is

The editor said if it bleeds,

it leads . . .

talkin’ bout them newsworthy stories

when journalists  were in their glory,

back in the day

before this present cranked-up fray.

Oh, but

that newsworthy rule was back in the former times,

when readers paid in nickels and dimes;

reporters had a pencil tucked o’er their ear,

and readers held our heritage dear.

Nowadays, if it provokes,

it’ll stoke

the facebook fire

and whip up tweeter ire,

as our frantically repulsing extremities

drum up crank polarities.

I hate to break it to ya

but here’s our newsworthy brouhaha:

The user who insults

gets results.

Read ‘em and weep

I said;

watch a talking video creep

instead.

Now fake news and hyped-up spin

constitute our gravest social media sin.

Meanwhile . . .

and I do mean mean,

Journalism gets lowered to the grave,

final resting place of the brave.

In this land of the free,

internet froth is mainly

what we see . . .

in this republic, if we can keep it,

‘though as we sow

we’ll surely reap it.

And that’s the way it is

in  21st-century democracy shobiz. . .

(as Cronkite might have said

if Uncle Walter were not dead.)

Glass half-Full

DemmieAss v. RepubliBrawn

While Republicans skate perilously closely to an imperial presidency with a chief executive whose escape from impeachment cultivates inappropriately excessive inflated hot-air hubris. . . Democrats must ask themselves if the United States of America is  really ready for a Chief Executive who is: 

a) a silver-tongued socialist?, or

b) a smooth-talkin’ gay mayor who would bring a first-man to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?, or

c) a fem-firebrand whose hot-air pop-culture propulsion allows  no admission of real budget-balancing?, or

d) a white-privileged-Establishment guy who thinks he can waltz into the nomination without any early primary kudos because the other prospective candidates are operating on the loosey leftist fringe of lala land?

. . . and they slog cluelessly through the detritus of what used to be conscientious, responsible American guvment.

Meanwhile, hunkered-down in the flyover outback, their hulking Gross Ole Party  nemesis inflates itself with visceral followers whose clueless devotion to their intrepid bull in the china shop commander drives up the ante on an impending viral-video-driven quasi-final episode of russian-assisted rulette!

Glass Chimera

The Dark Spots in Our Republic

I am defining Dark Spots this way.

Dark spots: locations in which election vote numbers are suspect, due to fraud, corruption, tampering, discrimination or miscounting.

Dark spots in our democratic republic are everywhere. No doubt they can be uncovered in numerous locales throughout our entire system of governments. Such dysfunction is a symptom of our human predicament and the institutions we devise to help us all solve our problems together.

I think the number of suspect dark spots is revealed in higher and higher numbers as our counting moves downward to the local level.

There is no statistical explanation for this except that the complexity of voter rolls gets progressively higher and higher as the numbers get bigger and bigger.

In our massive system of vote-counting, the likelihood of corruptive shenanigans is everywhere throughout the nation. The extent of corrupt data/numbers is directly proportional to the number of polling stations in the nation. There will always be a few bad apples in any batch. Knowing which ones are suspect probably requires more time and integrity than our civil authorities can effectively monitor.

It is partly because of this fully expected complexity that the founders of our democratic republic instituted an Electoral College. Admittedly, there are other factors that determined the outcome of this foundational decision, such as: all the writers of  our Constitution were middle-aged white guys who had plenty of land and money. But that was 18th-century politics in the New World and there is nothing that can change that.

To amend the Constitution is a very long, difficult process involving all of our state legislators and Congress. If there are any parties among us who have a mind to do so, you are welcome to go for it. Good luck with that. The Constitutionally-prescribed procedure would require a lot of time and coordinated effort on the part of a large number of citizens.

Now, as to the matter of the dark spots, I continue.

Regardless of the inevitable hundreds or  thousands of illegal or deceased voters and subsequent illegal votes cast throughout our United States– the final number that actually determines who will be President —that number is systematically honed to  a very manageable, low number that is easy to count. So that we can make a definitive appointment that will be held as legitimate for the next four years.

538 electors is the number of Constitutionally determined delegates who declare who will become our President in each four-year period.

270 is the majority number that establishes the outcome of that Electoral College.

In 2016, those numbers were: 306 for Trump and 232 for Clinton. All ye Democrats, read ’em and weep. That’s life in the big country. There’s always next election, so get busy.

The integrity of our selection procedures, from the lowest precinct level all the way up to Congress and the Presidency, is a matter of interest for all of us in both parties.

Let’s keep it as clean and legitimate as we can, from the top to the bottom.

Now, what about those dark spots of electoral meddling that I mentioned earlier. . .

My theory is that in a democratic republic, especially one as huge as ours, there will always be some dark spots somewhere; to sniff them all out and correct them would be an impossible, never-ending project.

We will never get rid of all the irregularities of selective process that our Constitution has prescribed and our  nation has retained for 238 years.

We can try to clean up corruption, tampering, illegal voting and dead people voting etcetera etcetera.That’s all well and good, But we’ll never undo all the evil that men do.

Especially men; blame the men, haha, especially the ole white guys like me, although I am not one of the rich privileged ones.

Nevertheless, as a citizen of the United States of America, I am entitled to a vote, which figures at a certain level in the selection process. Then those who are selected by the compilation of my vote and yours will go on to vote on the larger decisions, including who will actually be President.

Along with the vote I am entitled to my opinion,  and I am endowed by the Constitution to express it in any ways that do not infringe on the rights of my fellow-citizens.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

And the Constitution, including the Electoral College—that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

That’s our history and we’re sticking to it.

Like it or not, according to the above procedure, 270 is determined as the necessary majority number if you wanna be President.

Now let’s get started on the next election cycle. The American people will select our next President according to the systematic process that our founders instituted and we have retained for, lo, these many years.

And if you Democrats out there have a better person for the job, well let’s see what you come up with. Then we will  collectively render our decision in December of 2020.

May the best citizen for the job win.

Glass half-Full

Mad

They say all the political powers that be are quaking in their boots because voters are mad and nobody can accurately predict what’s going to happen.

Young Dems,  hyper venting under the rhetorical influence of Bernie, are magnetizing progressively leftward toward a newly-discovered frigid frontier which must be the absolute dead-0 Socialist north-pole, heretofore unseen by any yankee marauders, but well-known to their European vanguards. They better get to their fragile pole quick because that could-be black-hole which used to be a white-hole , having been sighted now at the Leftward arctic pole hole is–it is wholly disappearing fast, having fallen under the destructive influence of global warming, climate change and them infamous heat-seeking carbon emission missiles.

Channeling the wicked witch of the North, the possessed pole is reportedly melting because Dorothy blew in from Kansas or maybe it was Texas and put a crimp in their plans by drillin’ in some frickin’ fracking destructionics down south where people are living and taking up space and generally messin’ up the planet. But it’ll be a high tide in hell before anything gets done to stop the global carbon juggernaut, even though they’ve pointed out, from Paris, Lima, Copenhagen and Kyoto,  poles are melting, according to the polls.

Speaking of Poles, where’s Lech Walesa when you need him?

But I digress, although I think it should be pointed out that the opposite of “digress” is “progress”, which I used to advocate until the Democrats absconded the term for their own socialist identity crisis antithesis. That said, I like progress, not progressive.  Progress is what Republicans used to facilitate with their capital by investing it in American industry before all the derivatives and CDOs and MBSs and credit default swaps, and the debilitating .gov regs, and the nuts and bolts stuff  getting moved offshore or wherever it went after Nafta and Chairman Mao got a hold of it.  Now you understand of course you’ll have to take that with a grain of salt as I move into phase II of my political analysis.

Republicans, on the other hand, unlike the hyper-magnetizing Dems, are furiously de-magnetizing, which is to say they’re falling apart at the seems under the hyper-influence of Trump’s methodical craps-table croupier call of snake-eyes, which will damn-shure be a rude awakening for them when those two little black dots show up on white dice, staring back at them, instead of the Seven that the republican rabble thought would turn up when they staked all their chips on Donald Duck, or excuse me, that other Donald. You thought there was trouble in Paradise and Camelot, just wait and see what happens in Dodge City when the chips fall where they may, probly long about May of 2017, after the Donald has terrorized all Washington’s heretofore decent and proper bureaucratic denizens  by trumping their full suited straight-flushes and de-levitating their long-standing no-trump pipedreams of legalese and illegal ease.  After he will have  been yanking their yonder inside-the-beltway chain-games for a few months with very little response from the sedentary Establishment, he’ll get flustered enough to fire them all if not even call down the goons on em. “Get ’em outa here; get ’em outa here,” will be the order of the day.

This is quite different from what, say, Ted Cruz would do.

You see Ted is mad too.

“We’re all mad,” he said to Megyn Kelly yesterday when she asked him something about who is mad or why the people are mad, or something like that.

There we were in closed venue, which happened to be a church in North Carolina, about 600 of us Americans listening to Megyn Kelly interview Ted. I mean, sure, it was a friendly crowd, not like the 47%ers.

And he said that, yes, the people are mad, and something needs to be done to change the way things are done in Washington, so that the .gov reflects the will of the people instead of imposing the .gov’s will on the people.

He mentioned a few revisions, long overdue, such as  abolishing superfluous federal agencies that presume to do for the people what the people can actually do for themselves. Hence, phase out:  the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Housing/Urban Development. He mentioned repealing Obamacare and Common Core, defunding Planned Parenthood, and abolishing IRS by implementing a flat tax.

All of which should be done, but systematically–the way a, say, Constitutional attorney would do it, legislatively organized and judiciously authenticated. Not undertaken recklessly like a Trumpian bull in a china shop would do it.  Let’s just get our government back to Constitutional basics. That’s all we can afford without taxing We the people into scurrilous  servitude.

However, it is obvious that the whole streamlining process could prove to be disruptive.

Therefore, the formidable task of deconstructing our overbloated, overbudgeted, overdeficited Federal government should be entrusted to someone with a Constitutional conscience.  I’d trust Ted to lead it before I’d trust a high-rollin’, trash-talkin’ robber baron with a smirk on his face who’s got a bouncer at the door.

Just sayin’.

Glass Chimera

The Unkindest Cut of All

Last night the three lead dogs of the Republican slog pack spent half their time insulting each other while jabbering over each other like kids on a playground.

On each end of the field, two dignified leaders found it difficult to enter into the A Tu Brutay fray that was was playing out, back and forth over the fifty-yard line, where mister haughty master of ceremonies held court.

The saddest fact of all is that the man best qualified to fulfill the office of the President of the United States is Gov. John Kasich.

But that will never happen because by this time next year that office will be occupied by the guy who thinks he knows how to fix everything.

Trump will be like a Roosevelt, but without the benevolence. FDR was, like the Donald, a take-charge kind of guy, which is certainly what we need now, but. . .

Whereas Roosevelt’s arrogance was to some extent tempered by his polio disability, there is apparently no veiled vulnerability to impose a humility cap upon Trump’s hubris. Trump as President will be like having an Il Duce  in the White House. He will make the trains run on time; he will  make the great Mexican wall get built; there will be something for every Tom Dick and Harry to take home when he gets to the end of the breadline, and Trumpcare will take the tricks that Obamacare had bid on.  But there will be no joy in Mudville when the cows come home.

Which is to say, more like a Caesar than a Roosevelt or a Reagan.

Whereas Trump displays some admirable plain-speaking qualities, his unceasing projection of what is referred to in Psalm 101 as the “haughty look” will ultimately be his downfall; and the cold hard truth is it will ultimately be our downfall too.

America, if you want to hookup with this guy there is nothing I can do to stop you, but be sure you got some Trojan-enz to slip over the projection before it enters into the sacred Oval orifice, because you are about to be violated.

Smoke

Reminds me of kids’ whisper game

Honestly, I think we can do better this this, but maybe not.

The horserace groupthink has taken control of our TV people this year. It happens every election year, but this year worse than ever.

A perfectly deplorable example of how  tribal infighting trivia has taken over vid-journalism has been dissected by Michael Brown, writer for Townhall.com.

I’ll not explain the whole ridiculous chain of events; his exposition is quite sufficient:

    http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2016/02/05/draft-n2115304

Now what I’m thinking is this: It would seem appropriate that the voting citizens of our nation would be considering, in this election year:

~ why our .gov owes so much more money than it can repay to its creditors,

~ and what can be done about it,

~ how we can minimize pollution without being ruled by climate-banging control freaks,

~ how we can reconstruct a manufacturing sector that is relevant to 21-century needs and economics,

~ how our great, unprecedented military capability and its supportive infrastructure cannot be put to good use in making the world a better place for our people and for the nations,

~ how to help men and women stay married so they can raise their children together,

~ why we cannot effectively educate all our children and prepare them for life-well-lived in the 21-century

~ how to judiciously keep the golden door of opportunity open to the homeless huddled masses of this strife-torn world

~ how to get people fed and housed without castrating nor sterilizing their personal independence and initiative,

~ how to encourage, by our policies, personal and collective responsibility instead of systemic dependency,

~ how to make peace, and encourage constructive cooperation, between cops and citizens in our cities,

~ how to enrich, through our common efforts, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all our people who care to make an effort to improve themselves and their children and neighbors,

~ how to select a President and Vice President without all this fluff and bullshit.

So it would seem appropriate that we would build and patronize a communication system that would enable us to talk about these problems in the context of national politics, instead of:

why one candidate tried to take a few days off from the rat race and how it has no effect on what’s happening in Iowa or New Hampshire or Peoria or Pennsylvania or even Pennsylvania Ave.

Maybe some of you hyped-up vid-journalists need a break. Take some time off, go home, like Ben did. If you need someone to replace you in the interim, give me a call. I’m currently unemployed, and gladly will I take your mic and your twitter feed and show you it could be done better. Besides, I’ve never been to New Hampshire.

King of Soul