Trump Wins, But He’s Got a Lot to Prove: He Needs to Start by Acting Presidential

Hillary Clinton lost her second bid to become President, and I’m grateful for that.   She can get back to making $100,000 a speech on the lecture circuit. 

But Donald Trump as the next President will be a challenge in itself.  Since he’s been on both sides of just about every issue, I’m more than a little concerned about his positions.  Let’s get out and say it…he’s not an experienced politician.  He’s an entertainer.  I’d feel better if he had at least one other elected position under his belt, like Ronald Reagan did.  Reagan was an actor, but he had been governor of California (twice) before taking office as President in 1981. 

As Trump’s real positions develop, my support or opposition will develop accordingly.

I am enjoying how much the press is wailing and how bad the pollsters look after royally screwing up their numbers.   This isn’t the first time that the polls got it wrong.   Some people are squirming and I’m enjoying every moment of it.

Trump needs to hire some wise and experienced advisors and listen to what they’re telling him.   And he needs to make nice with the other 48% that didn’t support him.  He also needs to limit his Twitter time and stop feuding with people.   It’s un-presidential to do that kind of stuff and we really need him to be presidential.

It’s Become Clear That the American Voter Will Have to Deliver the Justice That the FBI Won’t or Can’t: Vote Your Conscience, America

I do believe that the FBI Director has been overthrown, possibly from within his own agency in a worst-case scenario, or by the Department of Justice, which has become a personal shield for Democratic Presidents and their appointees.  He was trying to do the right thing and appeared to backtrack when he said that there was nothing new in the emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer.  I think he will be sacked before President Obama leaves office.

I’m also wondering where the number 600,000 came from with references to the number of emails found on he-who-will-not-be-named from this point forward’s laptop.   Was that his own personal emails mixed in with the Clinton emails, or were these 600,000+ emails from the Clinton campaign?  That’s pretty unclear.  In their prior statements, the FBI referenced some 33,000 emails that they were looking at from Mrs. Clinton’s private server, plus an unknown(?) number of emails that were deleted. 

Now, since the FBI isn’t going to move forward on delivering justice in this case, the American voter has the opportunity to do the same thing tomorrow.  Do not elect Hillary Clinton.  There are plenty of other candidates who aren’t criminals who would do a acceptable job as President, whether they have an (R) after their name, or an (I).  Whether they would be able to get anything done with a deeply polarized Congress is an open question, but they’d be confronting the same issues as a Clinton or Trump Administration.

We will see what happens, but all I’m going to say is this: vote your conscience, America.    I’ll have a lot to say about the celebrities who have vowed to leave this country if Trump wins. 

No Clowns Got Shot on Halloween: A Bit of Rationality Takes Hold in Crazy Times

There have been no reports of any costumed clowns getting shot by armed parents over Halloween, but several incidents from before Halloween remain under investigation.

Hopefully this is the end of this particular phenomenon. 

Trouble-Making Clowns, Beware: People Aren’t Acting Rationally and May Be Armed on Halloween..Do Us All a Favor and Stay Home

I am predicting that nationally, at least two costume-wearing clowns will be shot and killed on Halloween by people who will be very quick on the trigger.

Some people are using the fear inspired by horror movies involving killer clowns to dress up and scare the living daylights out of other people.  It isn’t funny.  There are tons of videos on YouTube of various pranks, with clowns jumping out of bushes, brandishing weapons, laughing crazily and chasing their frightened victims down the streets.  This has been going on for a while, but it really picked up this year on social media.

People are not acting rationally—both the clowns and the victims are prone to miscalculate and someone may die.   It’s not just a U.S. thing either—it’s going on internationally too.  I just watched a video of a man going berserk after being ambushed by a clown in broad daylight and breaking a bottle over the clown’s head in London.  If someone tells you to “wait here!”, RUN!!

Everyone needs to settle down and think about what’s happening.

Trump Suckered Everyone Again With Comments on Accepting Results of Election: This is a Ploy to Generate Media Attention

Politician after politician and media outlets have piled onto Donald Trump’s comments that he will only accept the results if he wins the election.

Trump is an entertainer and he knows how to entertain people.  In that area, he’s a genius and no one in the entertainment industry can match him for the publicity he can generate, almost at the drop of a hat.  Politicians and the media (who are supposed to be experts on entertainment reporting) have played right into it.

I think he’ll challenge only if something looks fishy, or if Hillary’s campaign sues first.

Anybody But Trump, Glenn Beck? Darrell Castle, Then, Not Hillary Clinton!

Glenn Beck seems to have started back up on his “Anybody but Trump” motif again and seems to be indicating that conservatives should vote for Hillary Clinton to stop Trump.

Bad move.

If conservatives don’t want to vote for Trump, then they should vote for the Constitution Party.  Darrell Castle is the candidate for the Constitution Party, which used to be called the U.S. Taxpayer Party.

He’s pro-life and pro-gun, which are big sellers for me.  He’s also in favor of the U.S. getting out of the United Nations, getting rid of the Federal Reserve (not sure about that move) and other conservative initiatives.

I’d rather see Beck supporting someone like Castle and drawing attention to his platform, rather than fall into the trap of “anyone but Trump.”

Another Example of Global Warming Hubris and Their Settled Science: “All the Arctic Sea Ice Will Be Gone by September 2016!”

If global warming is “settled science,” then why do they keep getting stuff wrong? 

And their unwillingness to accept that the scientific method is the only sure way to properly vet out fact from fiction is playing out again.  How embarrassing for them.

In 2012, certain climate change scientists predicted that the Arctic would be entirely ice-free by September 2016.  Yet there’s currently 21% more ice than in 2012 when the prediction was made.  This prediction was flat-out wrong.

Any responsible and reputable scientist wouldn’t be as inflexible as this in their climate model predictions.  But because there’s a political aspect to the science now, and it’s “settled,” they can’t deviate from the global warming alarmist position, which is in itself flawed by the political narrative.

Climate change scientists need to be more independent and report on what they find, regardless of the established political narrative. 

Russia Deploys Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missile Batteries to Syria: If a Single Shot is Taken at a U.S. Aircraft, U.S. Should Immediately Provide Stinger Missiles to Rebels Being Bombed By Russia and Syria

Russia continued its humiliation of the U.S. by deploying anti-aircraft missile systems in Syria to protect Syrian government facilities.

Enough!

It’s time to give Stinger missiles to the rebels and train them as U.S. forces trained Afghan fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s during the Soviet invasion.

Russia didn’t deploy those weapons to fight the ISIS Air Force.   They’re there to shoot down coalition aircraft, inbound cruise missiles and anything that goes against their stated support of Assad.

I think a limited war with Russia is possible, now that they’re engaged in a full-court press to humiliate the current Administration.  I think Russia will pull the trigger to make a point because they don’t think we’ll respond in kind.  We must.

Better to turn all of Syria’s airspace into a total no-fly zone than to allow Syria and Russia to keep bombing civilians with impunity.

Global Warming Alarmists Are Trumpeting Their Hot Air Again: CO2 Levels Hit 400ppm and They’re Saying That Levels Will “Never Return to Environmentally-Friendly Levels for the Indefinite Future”; Who Wrote This Piece of Crap?

The hubris is getting mighty deep over at Climate Central.

They’ve gone out on a limb with a sophomoric piece entitled “Enjoy Earth While It Lasts: Atmospheric Carbon Levels Reach Point of No Return.”  It looks like it was written by a high school English student who has just been handed a major science article and skipped to the last page without reading the rest of it.

First of all, legitimate scientists avoid absolutes like the plague, and this article is full of them.   The reason why is that if they’re using the scientific method, they realize that a hypothesis may have to be changed once the hypothesis is tested.

But global warming alarmists don’t use a recognizable version of the scientific method, and if research emerges that disproves their hypothesis (which they label “settled science”, the offending research is suppressed, the authors demonized and then marginalized. 

I also found it interesting that they mentioned a little tidbit near the end of this high school writing assignment that the Arctic “…hasn’t reached the 400ppm level in millions of years.”  What?  You mean it’s been above 400ppm before?  Why of course it has.   It’s been up to over 5,000ppm before.  And human industry wasn't around in those days either (during the Ordovician Era, some 440 million years ago).

They’ve also conveniently failed to define what “environmentally friendly” levels of CO2 are.

By all means, slow down the production of CO2 and quit destroying the rain forests, but don’t try shoveling this “ever” and “permanent” business down our throats.  There’s no such thing.

The planet doesn’t need saving.   It’s survived everything up to planetary impacts and is still here.   It’s our struggling civilization that needs saving, and the sooner global warming alarmists get with the program, the faster that can happen.

I’m not going to get worked up over the CO2 levels reaching the 400ppm -level.  The planet will take care of that too, and if we’re not careful, it’ll take care of us at the same time.

Manhattan Bomber Uses Pressure Cooker Bombs: This Has the Look of Another Chechen Terror Attack

I hope the Manhattan bombings were not carried out by another person from Chechnya.  But explosive experts are pointing out “shocking” similarities between the pressure cooker bombs used during the Boston Marathon bombings and the recent attacks in New York.

Hope they catch this scumbag real soon.

Airstrike Coordination with Russia on ISIS Targets in Syria is Not Practical Without U.S. & Russian Agreement on What Syrian Leadership Will Look Like After End of War: Without That Common Goal, Efforts to Jointly Fight ISIS Will Fail

Coordinated airstrikes with Russia in Syria against ISIS?  Not likely.  Russia will stab us in the back at the drop of a hat, and I’m not sure if the current U.S. leadership will have the backbone to do anything about it.

The problem will be in defining where ISIS is.  Russia thinks they’re in rebel-controlled areas who are actually rebelling against Syrian President Assad and also fighting ISIS themselves.  The U.S. is actually bombing ISIS in Syria and in Iraq.

In order for the U.S. and Russia to be effective with their airstrikes, they have to have common cause.  And that includes who will be running Syria after this civil war draws to a close, which it eventually will.  The U.S. wants the rebel opposition running the country, while Russia has been bombing them to support the existing Syrian leadership, who is a friend of Russia’s. 

It doesn’t bode well that the first joint airstrike managed to bomb a Syrian army unit, and that the U.S. coalition dropped the bombs.  I think this will happen again since Russia is involved in the targeting.   I also think Russia will refuse to bomb U.S.-suggested targets.

I doubt this alliance will last, unless there’s a shared vision between America and Russia of what post-civil war Syria will look like first.

If National Anthem is Going to Be Used to Further a Paid Athlete’s Political Agenda, Stop Playing It at Sporting Events

I’m not a fan of people abusing the national anthem to further their own political agenda, nor am I a fan of the news media even bothering to cover the story.

It occurs to me that if the media had covered the original protest once, then let it fade that this “protest” would have also faded, like most of the others do.  But the media became part of the story, again, which they’re not supposed to do on purpose and hit the “zoom” button on the cameras to focus attention on one or two players and away from the rest of their fellow players, teams and games.

They did the same thing when Tim Tebow was praying during football games.  The media hit the zoom button and focused in on one player for the sole purpose of ridiculing Tim for his religious belief and practices.   The media coverage was very offensive, especially when Tebow’s team lost a game here or there. 

I don’t watch sports to get my politics.  I watch sports to take a break from all the political garbage that’s on TV and prefer not to see politics during a sporting event.  I would imagine that if I had paid for expensive seats to an NFL game that I wouldn’t be happy to have politics turn up there.

If the National Anthem is not going to be done respectfully, don’t play it at all.   Keep the political garbage out of pro sports too.  We get enough of that already without having to pay for it too.

If Hillary Has a Coughing Fit During a Debate With Donald Trump, She’s Going to Get Annihilated: Trump Will Zero Right in on Her Health and So Will the Press

Hillary Clinton may need to disclose what’s really going on with her health prior to her first debate with Donald Trump.  The reason why is that if she has a coughing fit during the debate with Trump standing right there, he’s not going to show any mercy.    He’ll be all over that situation, and demanding that she come clean in the presence of everybody.

I’d rather she have the coughing fit during the debate.  That’ll make for some excellent viewing and drama on TV.

Fox & Friends Stars Contributed to $60 Million Payout Over Sexual Harassment Lawsuit: Doocy & Kilmeade Have to Go

I’m a fan of Fox & Friends, but Gretchen Carlson’s lawsuit put the show into a different light, and not in a good way.  And I’m having a very hard time watching it now.

Fox recently settled the lawsuit that Carlson filed with a $20 million payout plus a public apology to her.  This is in addition to the $40 million severance paycheck that Fox gave to outgoing chair Roger Ailes, who was the target of the lawsuit.  He did a tremendous amount of damage to the company.

Ailes wasn’t alone in his sexual harassment of Gretchen Carlson.  Fox & Friends co-stars Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade contributed to the hostile work environment that Carlson and other female employees experienced and were stupid enough to express their sexist comments on-the-air.

I can’t see how they’re going to be able to hold onto their jobs.  They contributed to this public relations disaster, and if they keep degrading their female co-workers on the air as they already have, they run the risk of another high-profile lawsuit. 

Sexual harassment is ILLEGAL.

Doocy and Kilmeade need to be publicly taken out to the woodshed, or fired.   It’s very unfortunate, but they brought this down on themselves.   Doocy was named in the lawsuit.

I’m very sad that it’s come down to this.  Fox needs to fix this problem.

Are Guns Being Seized From Flooded Homes Again in Louisiana?

I’ve been reading reports of pets being rescued by authorities in Louisiana, which is good, but are guns being taken out of evacuated homes by the authorities too?

In 2005, during the Hurricane Katrina recovery, authorities were going into flooded homes in New Orleans and taking legally owned firearms out of those houses, and then were slow in returning them to their owners once the owners returned home to begin cleaning up.

The NRA and Second Amendment Foundation sued New Orleans and then settled when the city agreed to return the firearms to their legal owners.

Question:  with all the flooding happening in Louisiana over the last week or so, are guns being taken from homes again?   If this is becoming a standard procedure, it should probably be standard procedure for homeowners to take their firearms with them as they evacuate their homes. 

Yet they don’t seem to want armed citizens in emergency shelters.

I think they need to have a written procedure on what to do with firearms if an emergency situation requires a speedy evacuation.   They need to hash all of this out and come up with an acceptable plan.

Hope Solo Needs to Set an Example for Other Aspiring Female Soccer Players: Crying Over a Winning Strategy Employed by the Swedish Soccer Team Isn’t It

Hope Solo branded the winning strategy employed by Sweden’s women’s soccer team as “cowardly” instead of congratulating the winners in their victory over the undefeated United States team.

Yeah, losing hurts, and I feel for our national team, but sportsmanship in the face of defeat is the mark of a true champion.  The U.S. team will rise again down the road, I’m sure, but setting a proper example for other young soccer players and teams is just as important.

I hope that Hope Solo and the U.S. women’s team pulls it together and displays some respect for the Swedish team, whose winning strategy the U.S. team probably should have executed themselves, or at least adapted to better than they did.

I hope Sweden takes the gold medal.

Front Line Air Force Fighters Should Have Ample Supplies of Replacement Parts: They Shouldn’t Have to Go to the Boneyards to Find Parts

America’s fleet of military fighters are the oldest in U.S. military history, and it’s lead to some interesting and troubling situations across all the military services that fly combat aircraft.  

The Marine Corps recently grounded their fleet of fighters after two F-18s from the same squadron crashed in one week.  One pilot was killed. 

They’re also resurrecting 23 retired older model F-18s as they’re short on fighters until the F-35 enters production.   This will increase the risk to the pilots and their missions.

It’s too late to do anything about it now, but the fighters and bombers that the military is using in America’s wars need to have thirty year supplies of every single part that could break or wear out.  I hope that Congress gives the military the funding they need for the new fighters and bombers to have the parts that they need to stay in the air for decades, not years.

Hope Congress and the military work together on this problem, so we don’t get into this situation again.

System Bias is Not the Problem in Baltimore’s Freddie Gray Case: Prosecutors Bringing Charges Due to Public Pressure Instead of Evidence IS

I’ve been watching the unfolding story in Baltimore with regards to the Freddie Gray trials, and am not surprised at what’s happening.  It’s not because of system bias, as some think it is.  It’s because the prosecutors brought charges against the police officers without enough evidence to prove their case.  This is reckless prosecution in it’s purest form.

It’s wrong and should be stopped from proceeding any further.  The family has already received $6.4 million from the city of Baltimore to settle the civil lawsuit, and with police officers already suing the prosecutors for their reckless handling of this case, it will probably cost the city even more to put this case to rest.

There can’t be true justice unless the prosecution does their job for all the right reasons.

This Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words at Least: Obama’s Ties to Islam Becomes Clearer

The above photos recently emerged and started making the rounds on “Obama is a Muslim” web sites, and conservative sites as well.

I don’t have a particular issue with President Obama being a Muslim, but if he actually is, why doesn’t he just come out and admit it, and be done with it?  Is he afraid of not being reelected or something?

He’s been treating ISIS with kid gloves so far, and if a religious belief is preventing him from taking decisive action against those monsters, I think the American people deserve some honesty from President Obama.

All GOP Candidates Who Signed The “Pledge” Should Fulfill Their End of the Deal and Endorse Trump After the GOP Convention: Trump Has Every Right to Expect Their Support

Remember all of that hooplah about all the GOP candidates signing a pledge to support the eventual nominee?  Trump was the only holdout, and he eventually gave his word that he would not stage an independent run if someone else won the nomination, with the caveat that if he was treated “unfairly” that the pledge would be null and void.

Many of the former candidates have refused to endorse Trump, even though he’s the last man standing from their primary campaigns. 

Now Trump has called them out, calling on them to fulfill their pledge.  I hope they do, for the sake of stopping Hillary Clinton.