Sometimes Events Conspire Against Candidates

In terms of politics sometimes events conspire against certain candidates.  We know the third democratic debate was just before Christmas on a Saturday.  What the democratic party wanted and got was one “sudden death” debate where they hoped Bernie would be exposed as an inferior candidate.  Hillary was unusually on her game in a way she hadn’t been before, but even so Bernie won all the early telephone polls.  But the Media got ahold of the news and they hailed Hillary as the great victor of that first debate.  Now we have this whole Paris terrorism thing which totally eclipsed whatever candidates were planning and studying their material to introduce at the debate.  It would be like throwing out your whole term paper on some sociological subject because of some news event in the headlines the previous night before you turn the thing in.  It’s silly.  Because we’re going to forget about this Paris event eventually and come January of 2017 all of the economic and other security and banking and environmental stuff Bernie talks about will still be relivant.  But if we’re really serious about ISIS terrorism we know what to do.  We need to work closely with the Russians and lean hard on Putin to go after ISIS and leave out “moderate rebels” alone.  I don’t know who these “free Syrians” are but supposedly there’s enough for some credible fighting force.  But now they’re saying we’ll have to reintroduce forty thousand fresh fighting troops in this extension of never ending war in the Mideast.  I’m not sure we’re ready for that.  Saudi Arabia has the third biggest army in the world they tell us- - or at least the fourth largest and what are they doing to help us?  To me Saudi Arabia isn’t part of the solution; they’re part of the problem.  Senator Sanders and O Mally are buried by this news and both have undergone a major loss of power and prestige in the past month.  In terms of cosmic news- - - Bones alias Stewart Sutcliffe has re-emerged as of November 4^th on Sirius A and even he admits he doesn’t remember the previous couple of months or so almost as if he astral projected into another body in that time.  (These things are known to happen)  He agrees with me this morning that Bernie Sanders was conspired against by these news developments.  Of course Washington’s Blog will no doubt weigh in on all of this terrorism stuff in Paris.  And they can be pretty synical and tough on the United States and their motivations.  For instance there was a convoy of fifty or more white trucks doing down a desert road and the United States didn’t fire so much as a single shot.  What's the use of having attack aircraft if you don't use them?  Washington’s Blog has said that the United States and ISIS are actually working together to quelsh Putin and Assad of Syria and that’s the goal of the United States.  We want Assad of Syria gone seemingly at any price.  Even two years ago people were saying when there was talk about “moderate rebels in Syria” that there IS no such thing as a “moderate rebel” and all the rebels fighting Assad are dangerous as hell.  I’ve heard a lot of questions and situations posed in the news in the past two days, but precious little – or nothing- - in the way of workable step by step solutions.  It should theoretically be as “easy” to defeat ISIS as it was when the whole world came together to defeat the Nazis.  We had a goal and in a few years the Nazis were gone.  Why can’t it be just that “easy” with ISIS?   Yet people only speak of ISIS as continually growing and all of are bombings are just “pin pricks” and have no effect on ISIS.  This is what Shawn Hannity alledges.  Donald Trump and Rand Paul are still against our getting involved in what could be a major war that actually eclipses the Iraq War of 2003.  Back then we thought it would take six weeks to handle the problem.  This is what Donald Rumsfeld said.  Now nobody is at all optimistic.  ISIS is like that cow pasture in our neighborhood that isn’t going away.

That KFI fellow indicated that the reason why America hasn’t been attacked by terrorists are three things.  Our Muslims are more assimilated than Muslims are anywhere else in the world.  America is a gun culture and it’s these gun free zones that are magnets for terrorists.  And our police have faster reflexes and can fire more quickly at suspicious people.  But also our internet activity is heavily monitored such that nobody could get away with looking at how to build bombs and not attract the attention of the US government.  These are all good talking points for Shawn Hannity.  It’s a mindset worth considering the validity of.  It’s pointed out that our (liberal) media has distorted the news in that most terrorists - - a k a refugees coming over to Germany and France are young Arab males and not the women and children as they are perported to be.  And they are also ungrateful because if you give them water then will pour it on the ground in contempt and demand to be taken to Germany right away.  It could be that now France will be more like us in response by monitoring their internet more closely and being more trigger happy and altogether less trusting of “them”.

David Duke has rushed to the defense of racists and bigots on the University of Missouri campus who draw swastikas in feces on walls, and say that denying racists the right to “self expression” is a dangerous abridgement of their civil rights.  Except it wasn’t David Duke who said this but Dr Ben Carson.  Donald Trump has chimed in calling the President who resigned a weakling and if he had been Chancellor he wouldn’t have resigned.  It struck me as kind of funny that it was when the football team threatened not to play their scheduled games causing loss of revenue to the school- - is when this Chancellor decided to resign.

 I’ve heard a lot fewer clips from this round of debates than I heard the last time.   I’m hoping “Hardball’ will show a lot more to better judge how bad the silliness really was.  Maybe they’ve played almost nothing because almost nothing was said.  I had the krill and fish oil combo thing from Purity products on with the B 12 jell caps.  If Mom wants to do something for me she can fix me up with some good vitamins from Judy.  Before this was this Republican from Montana saying that Obama Care was an irreparable mess and we need to scrap the whole thing because rates are continuing to rise forty percent with increasing deductables.  In the morning I got up a few minutes to six.  Glenda says it isn’t grammatically proper to speak of serving “egg” rather than “eggs”.  I got my medication from Tom.   Silva was saying that Larry Cramer had cold flesh.  I sat in the front room a while and then went to the liquor store for coffee at five to seven.  Joe was getting coffee from himself and Glenda, both large cups.  Phyllis was in there but not getting coffee.  I caught Obama’s Veterans Day speech on KNX radio, which I’d turned on earlier.  I drank the coffee in my room.  We had oatmeal for breakfast followed by a fried egg and toast and butter and jelly.  I had black coffee from Rico.  

Conservatives Believe in Their Rights - to Oppress Others

It’s disconcerting that the political right seems to be anti worker and anti consumer and think that’s some patriotic act or something.  They put these arbitration clauses in all contracts now where you barter away your right to sue or even a class action suit.  That to me is just wrong.  There ought to be a law that says that NO arbitration contracts can be signed unless you specifically request that a forced arbitration clause be inserted as part of some grand bargain where you actually get something in exchange.  In fact when I took business law, there was such a thing called “consideration” where you don’t just get something for nothing.  If you don’t get anything in return then the contract’s not legal and binding, or at least that part of it.  The right to sue is a constitutionally guaranteed right.  It says so right in it that suits in excess of value of twenty dollars have the right to go to a jury.  Consumers don’t seem to have the right to anything anymore.  On the Thom Hartman show they had that lady substitute.  Cox cable, or I guess it’s Comcast- - wants to charge you for excess data usage over the internet.  People want movies a la carte where you don’t get the hundred dollar cable package of a bunch of channels you don’t want to get the one or two that you do.  In a perfect Shawn Hannity world consumers have no rights and banks can get away with anything they want.  I take exception to Chris Le Boy who didn’t like that caller who reminded us that Barock Obama is the biggest fraud ever to come down the pike as far as his being a progressive is concerned.  OK we got gay marriage and we got the Lilly Ledbetter act, which was supposed to increase women’s pay.  Yet women’s pay is still only 78% of a man’s for the same job.  And you can be fired if you compare your pay with other workers.  That sounds like an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech.  How can they control what you casually say to a co worker or friend?  It’s a little absurd to think you won’t ever find out you’re working for less.  They never discuss issues involving real people and their lives at Republican debates.  Donald Trump propertedly said that people are getting paid too much for their employment.  Why do we, the common people, have to put up with whatever bullshit a bunch of multi-millionaires pull on us, you know, the “Job providers”.   The economy is demand driven.  The correct way of putting it is “If they come, we will build it” and not the other way around- - and any businessman worth his salt will tell you that’s how it is.

Success isn’t being villanized, success is being hoarded and momopolized.  Can Shawn Hannity sit there and honestly say his success is being punished and that because of the taxes he pays he wants to chuck it all and go live ass a hobo on the street panhandling food?  Rush Limbaugh has spent his whole life in radio and works a three hour day and spends most of his time on the golf course anyhow so I doubt he's scarcely notice the difference.  No.  What we democrats want is the goal of people coming to America to begin with and that is a chance at success for all Americans.  Sure for Donald Trump to say "Work hard and you'll get ahead" is sound advice.  And I wouldn't deny the truth of that.  But in case you haven't noticed it's millionaires telling the rest of us to vote Republican if we don't want our success punished, when we're not the ones that have it to begin with.  THEY have it.  They hoard the money on off shore accounts and get bored just buying more mansions and yachts.  What they really love is power and that is they give to people and organizations that will oppress the rest of us.  Paul admitted back in 2004 that he plans to give to groups that sponsor conservative causes.  That translates to taking OUR rights away - - just like that song said in the lyrics.    The tax laws say that you can be sued if you don’t maximize profits by tax code manipulation and throwing employees out into the street and giving their CEO’s fat bonuses.  Norman Goldman says it's an urban myth that they are REQUIRED to be as greedy as possible and only think of profits rather than either their employees, their product and consumer satisfaction, OR their impact on society at large.  Liberals care about the rights of individuals.  Liberals care about the Planet.  Liberals care about the welfare of society at large.  Conservatives don't care about people, only money and power, the power to oppress others.

Supreme Court Rules on Police Shooting Fleeing Suspects

This is Tuesday November 10, 2015 just before dinner.  The Supreme Court just ruled that fleeing “suspects” can be shot at will by police and have no rights.  This has always been a hazy area, because some PD’s like the LAPD say “You can only exercise deadly force if your life is threatened, or to preserve the lives of others in dangers.  In the old days the line was “stop or I’ll shoot” but now I guess you don’t even have to warn fleeing burglars before you gun them down.  At least that’s what Norman Goldman says.  The other news is that the Fifth Circuit Court consisting of southern states, ruled that Obama was wrong in its DACA and CAPA regulations.  One in 2012 pertains to children of illegal aliens who came here when the children were small and they don’t know any other language or culture.  The “P” part of the ruling was 2014 where parents were kept united with their legally born children in this country but they themselves immigrated from Mexico.  Not only were the “legal steps” not properly done, but the President is not allowed to “change the law” even by selective enforcement.  They quote the portion of the US Constitution that reads “- - to take care that the laws are faithfully executed” and the President didn’t do this when he granted de facto amnesty to all of these illegal children and parents.  Well, the Highest Court has spoken so I guess that closes the issue on the subject.  This one should be headliner knows but knowing the networks these days, you never know.

It’s almost five right now but I’m not even going to try and get “FOX business” because I’m sure I won’t be able to.  There are eight people at the big kids debate and four at the small table debate.  The four there are Rick Sandorum, Bobby Jindell, and newly added Chris Christie and Mike Huckibee, who have foundered in the polls.  Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and that other guy couldn’t even get above zero percent in the polls and were disinvited.  This is Wednesday morning now and apparently since none of the "facts" coming out of people's mouths were screened because the fact checkers took a holiday- - meant that we might as well have had sixth graders up there.  We'd get a more rational reciting of the facts than we got and basically I'm just as glad I didn't watch.  My guess is that their ratings were way down.

  Last night on Eye Witness and ABC news they announced that Shamoo shows will not be held after next year.  The era of the sporty black and white “killer whale” shows are over.  Now they will portray these whales in a more “natural environment’ and highlighting “natural whale behavior”.  But it’s only in the San Diego Sea World and not at Sea Worlds in San Antonio or Orlando.  I wish Sea World hadn’t caved on this issue all because this one state legislator has submitted a law banning all whale shows at theme parks like this.

Here is more review of Ben Carson.  He’s said that he knows homosexuality is not genetically inherited because criminals go into prison as straight and come out gay.  He’s said that under no circumstances would he ever sign a budget that wasn’t in balance.  And yet Andrew Jackson, the only President to pay off the national debt, spawned a major depression in 1837 because people had no place to safely invest their money.  He said that if the Jews in Nazi German had guns the Jewish death camps would not exist.  And Ben Carson talks about that Popeye’s incident where he had a gun pointed at him and he referred the criminal to the cashier of the place, in some act of cowardess.  Ben Carson is against raising the minimum wage above $7.50 saying (apparently) that the lower the minimum wage the more youths are employed.  If this is the case we should have very little minority or youth unemployment now.  When Bush raised the minimum wage- - the next move in the unemployment rate was down. There is a lot of talk about not just containing Al Qaeda but completely wiping them out.  How do you propose to do that?  They said "well they are recruiting people successfully from other countries because people see them as winners and the United States as losers".  This is a vast over-simplification.  If we use the Collin Powell doctrine we could wipe them out if we want to amass a hundred and fifty thousand troops to do it.  My personal feeling is that the Republicans use red hearings such as Al Qaeda and ISIS to cover up the fact that they refuse to deal with pressing issues such as declining incomes and the corruption on Wall Street and the TPP deal, which I bet was not talked about much at all- - since these people are detail and "fact" averse.

This video from LiveLeak purports to be an Apache attack helicopter following a huge ISIS convoy of white pickup trucks crossing from Iraq to Syria … and – instead of attacking – more or less “escorting” it across the border. I watched this video. Another blog is saying that the US engineered this “rebellion” against Assad and what protests there were were precipated by droughts and bad crops rather than “barrel bombs” dropped by Assad. Today the President met with Netanyahoo and both parties appear to be back-tracking in their former statements as a spirit of consiliation and cooperation seems to be in the air.

 

I watched most of Days of our Lives before the thing even got started.  Chad knocked on Benjamin’s door, which is suicide because the last time he did that he almost got killed.  Justin things Hope’s murder may be by a copy cat killer.  Mr. Hernandez and Kate Roberts have been making social overitures to each other.  Gabby has been roaming around the courtyard today.  The plot will completely break down when they show Theo still as a ten year old boy and Sierra, two years his junior, as an eighteen year old woman.  We have Chase with the newfound knowledge that his father is a psychotic murder, who, by the way is dead now.  The sudden aging of Chase and Sierra by about eight or nine years hasn't been explained.

They played November 1957 songs on Rhapsody in Black.  They played ‘Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby” and “Rock and Roll Music” by Chuck Berry and Bony Marone by Larry Williams.  They even played the B side of that single called “You Bug Me” or something.  They played “Cilliuette” by the Rays, “You Send Me”, and both versions of “Raunchy” first by Earnie Freeman and then by Bill Justice.  They played “Mr. Lee” and “Peanuts”, which is the actual name of that song and “This is the Night for Love”, a song I’ve heard about once in my life before.  And they played “This Could Be Magic” and “You Keep a Knocking But You Can’t Come In” by Little Richard.  All in all it was a high number of songs I recognized.

Ben Carson Is Pathological -In His Own Words

I believe Ben Carson is pretty close to being a pathological liar.  Some would say why even look at his background at all.  "Those things shouldn't matter" he claims.  But it mattered with Mitt Romney and it mattered with President Obama.   But when asked about it Carson said he was "being singled out for special scruteny by the media because he is a political threat to Hillary Clinton and the powers that be - - want him out of the race".  That's pretty close to being a full fledged paranoid.  Other candidates actually have records in congress or as governors or what have you, or like Trump they have economic experiance.  All of this is lacking with Carson.  The people who were saying "Run, Ben, Run" are the ones who need to be looked at.  We learn Ben Carson is kind of a cult figure in the home school education business.  Ben Carson is shall we say simplistic to a fault.  Like Carley Feurina he seems to be one of these people who wants to reduce the thousand page tax code to a three page document.  Ben Carson believes we should follow the Bible and go back to tithing.  And yet he's even ignorant of OT law because if you paid every tithe they tell you to there the figure would come to about 23%.  I bet Ben didn't know that.  This government cannot opperate on ten percent and Ben knows that.  So he's not thinking ahead suggesting measures that would be chaos if implimented.  He wants to get rid of Obama Care and calls Obama Care "worse than slavery".  This is a dishonor to the memory of every Black slave.  He also says amatures are inherently better at things than those who are professionals, and he brings up Noah's Ark verses the Titanic as his example.  Of course he misstates the Truth because most Declaration of Independence signers were professionals in some field.  We now come to the many claims he's written in his book.  By the way "books" are important to Ben because he's taken a break during his campaign to go on a book signing tour.  We come to in his own words saying he had pathological disease when it comes to violence.  But again the violence appears to be made up.  He may well have not attacked his mother with a hammer.  His mother had alzheimers, so for this reason we can not varify the story.  He said he personally as a high school ROTC student talked with General Westmorland, head of the troops in Viet Nam.  Westmorland is not available for comment.  He said that Westmorland offered him a full scholarship to West Point.  But getting into Westpoint is a multi tier process and Carson had not even begun upon the path.  There is this perception test in college where Carson was the smartest student in the class able to see through the experiment.  We can't find confirmation of that either.  Carson says he rescued or sheltered White students who were under attack in a riot situation.  Then we have that friend who was almost stabbed in the belt buckle.  As Trump points out mostly a belt buckle would just turn and not stop the knife.  And then we have another Bible remark about how Joseph built the Pyramids of Egypt as grain silos.  Clearly pyramids are solid stone structures and used to burry pharoahs and not to store grain.  I'm sure a lot of people believe his Christian conversion story.  No doubt he has vast numbers of followers.  Even a fifth of the population would be a vast number.  However there can also be mass pathologies.  The people at large are becoming pathalogical.  Look at how many democrats have bitten the dust since Barock Obama became President.  I copied some numbers.  The democrats have lost thirteen senators, 69 house members, twelve State houses, and over nine hundred state legislators, and the republicans have gained control in thirty legislative bodies.  The media has their explanation for this tidal wave phenominon.  I can't explain it.  But I point up these grim political realities for democrats just to remind you that Hillary Clinton being elected President is not a slam dunk, even should Bernie and O Mally step aside.  The way Caron tells it- - he's the only candidate out there who can beat Hillary Clinton.  If that statement were to be true- -it would be the scariest statement I've come accross in a long time.  We heed to continue to scrutenize this dangerous maniac, Ben Carson.  We've all read the Dead Zone about strange presidential candidates- - and Ben Carson is sure the strangest real candidate I've seen in my lifetime.

Robust Economic Growth in October

U.S. job growth surged in October and the unemployment rate hit a 7-1/2-year low of 5.0 percent in a show of economic strength that makes it much more likely the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December.   Nonfarm payrolls increased 271,000 last month, the largest rise since December 2014, the Labor Department said on Friday. In addition, average hourly earnings rose a respectable 9 cents.  The unemployment rate now stands at its lowest level since April 2008 and is in a range many Fed officials see as consistent with full employment.  Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, called the jobs growth figure "astounding."  "It's pretty clear that the Fed would be justified in hiking in December if the economy doesn't hit another air pocket," Jacobsen said.  The reaction in financial markets was swift and sharp.   Prices for U.S. Treasuries plummeted, pushing yields higher, and the dollar rose to a 6-1/2-month high against a basket of currencies as investors braced for higher borrowing costs. U.S. stocks were trading lower.

I don’t know what to think of Dr Ben Carson.  Maybe he’s not as “stabby” as we thought because CNN has interviewed people and don’t remember him coming at people with rocks, hammers and baseball bats.  They called him a skinny nerd with a pocket protector.  So he makes things up to get “street creds”.  Now Ben Carson has a rap song out trying to appeal to his own race.  At least he doesn’t sing in his own song.  Carson is now saying the Pyramids of Egypt were really grain silos built by Joseph.  Of course the pyramids are solid for the most part and not hallow and we have written records saying they were built as tombs. 

All of the C02 in the air now is making us dumber.  We are supposed to have 500 ppm or something but when the figure goes to 950 ppm signs of mental lethargy are apparent and over 1200 ppm there are very obvious signs of mental sluggishness and an inability to make decisions.  So our C02 pollution is affecting the next generation’s education.  This morning President Obama made a little speech being officially against the XL Trans-Canadian pipeline.  This is a good thing but yesterday the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty came out to the public.  It’s the news we’ve all been waiting for for months and yet the media said nothing about it.  This is a toxic issue to the corporately owned media for sure.  The only interests that are served by this treaty are the large business investors.  Nobody has the right to sue in their courts- only them.  National sovereignty and security take a back seat.  Labor is cut out of the process.  The interests of the anti global warming people aren’t listened to.  And consumers have few if any rights to sue in these kangaroo courts.  Whether they are harmed through an unsafe product or drug, or whether they are being ripped off in what they pay- - consumers have no rights.  Back in the old days they used to speak of business investments as taking a risk.  That’s because you had no idea what laws would be changed or legal rulings coming down or contracts that would be awarded or not affecting the price of your stock.  People still invested large sums of money in the prospect of making a lot more money and “being proved right”.  But now these international investors are so risk averse they want their income- -their “revenue” as guaranteed by force of law and enforced in their own courts run by their fellow businessmen, and from which there is no appeal.  The Trans Pacific Partnership for this reason is completely unconstitutional.  (Selah)

Hillary Clinton, John McCain, David Petraeus and other hawks have long called for a no-fly zone over Syria.  The U.S. is now sending F-15 jets to Syria.  That should terrify Al Qaeda and other baddies, right?  Nope … Al Qaeda leaders are actually begging for a U.S.-imposed no-fly zone.  American reporter Reese Erlich interviewed several top Al Qaeda leaders in the area including Abu Qatada, and they told him they feel that the U.S. has been too weak in Syria, and America should have introduced shoulder-fired missiles to shoot down Assad’s planes, and set up a no-fly zone over Syria.  Erlich says that Al Qaeda sides with Clinton, McCain and Petraeus in calling for a U.S.-imposed no-fly zone.  Why?  The A.Q. leaders explained to Erlich that – in the short run – increased U.S. intervention would topple the Syrian leader Assad, who is one of Al Qaeda’s main enemies.  In the long run, they explained, Al Qaeda would end up with all of the U.S.-provided weapons, and so they would be able to take over in Syria. 

We then come to the soap opera.  Here's Wednesday's commentary.  Yesterday's episode was so non compus mentus I don't know how to rightly respond to it because there were so many things "wrong" about the episode.  Here's Wednesday.  As far as the soap opera one might call it a super wealth of evil.  Bo and Patch got arrested and are spending the night in jail with no phone calls, so the next time Bo does see Hope it will be at her funeral.  And all of those jerk-offs at the wedding were the ones who put Hope in her grave, particularly Kayla Brady.  Andre told Chad (at the police station of all places) that there would be another necktie murder tonight and nobody could stop it.  But no matter who Chad tells they just think he’s completely nuts.  There would seem not to be a ray of hope for Hope’s surviving the night.  It seems now to be only a matter of time – and very little of that.

 Paul called just before dinner and we talked a while touching all the bases.  Paul is going to some Calvary Chapel thing he’s taking off work for.  (?)  Paul remarked about how the weather has gotten cold so suddenly.   The topic of Mom never came up.  I see Judy gave me a link on how to get the debates in five parts. Then they announced dinner and I peaked in the dining room then headed out for a cigarette.  Paul had said that [name] had sent me two letters I haven’t responded to yet.  I didn’t see any new ones from [name] but wrote him anyhow.  We will be having Thanksgiving at Marie Calendar again this year the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  [name] expressed concern about Bill’s lip cancer.  I told Paul and [name] both about my gum irritation.  Glen gave me some baking soda to rinse my mouth out with and I tried it.  I informed [name] that my blogging frequency and my reader numbers are both dismal.  Norman Goldman still gets testy with callers he can’t be whitty enough to beat in honest debate.   And Governor Christie made a statement earning Norman’s praise about all lives matter- - even sixteen year old female drug addicts.   Norman is the one not being philosophy consistent on the abortion thing.  I think the caller was right in expressing concern for those four hostages we still have in Iran right now.  I too am puzzled this issue was never addressed by the nuclear negotiators.

Riding the Right Wing Tide to Ruin

The right wing tide continues.  Voters in Ohio turned down the marijuana initiative that would legalize both medical and recreational marijuana.  Part of the anti Prop 3 campaign was that they should not turn the business over to just twn growers.  Meanwhile in Kentucky as stated below- - the tea party continues to ride high.  This “red shift” we observed so much of in the mid term elections a year ago continue.  Back then a lot of races were “too close to call” and virtually all of them broke for the Republican candidates once the votes were counted.  And this guy isn’t just a Republican but a far right republican- of the sort that’s been sweeping government lately.

(CNN)Matt Bevin, the controversial Kentuckian who attempted to dethrone Sen. Mitch McConnell last year and has vowed to eliminate the state's Obamacare programs, orchestrated a remarkable political comeback on Tuesday to win the state's governorship.  In an upset victory by a surprisingly large margin, Bevin bested Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, a Democrat, in the contest.  Bevin, a Republican often at odds with more mainstream elements of his party, solidly beat Conway 53%-44% in a race that Bevin was not expected to win by any significant margin.  The wealthy businessman has pledged to shutdown the state's healthcare exchange and he's also expressed concerns about the expansion of Medicaid in Kentucky under the Affordable Care Act.   In a related story Ohio voters got rid of gerrymandering so that from now on congressional districts will be drawn fairly.  This is one bright spot of hope.

We now move to the latest polls, all of which now are showing Ben Carson leading the Republican pack.  Trump has stepped up his attacks on Carson calling him unqualified to be President and this I agree with Trump.  Carson would be one of the most supremely unqualified people to ever be President, shades of Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, who should never have gotten that job either.  But now the worst news of the day is that Hillary Clinton is beating every Republican challenger except she’s tied with Ben Carson.  That’s scarey.  Given this “red shift” we’ve been talking about- - the door is left open a bit for Carson to win.  If you look around to other states such as Texas and Virginia, the news isn’t good either.

There is a new survey that’s featured on Washington’s blog and Thom talked about it this morning that whites between 34 and 55 or something, peak working years, are dying off younger than they used to.  The rates are rising in only this group and it’s not explainable by environment such as pollution or cancer.  It’s alcohol and drug addiction.  These people were part of the old guard of white unionized factory workers.  But when NAFTA passed it threw them all out of work and they haven’t felt purpose in their lives since.  I’m Glad that Hillary is stating that she is neither running for either Bill Clinton’s or Barock Obama’s third term, but that she’s running for her own first term.  Good.   People can change and it’s very likely that Bill Clinton genuinely regrets all the garbage he allowed the Republicans to pass and for him to sign.

On Days of our Lives, Benjamin kidnapped Abigail to some abandoned shack, and we’re not sure how.  If I were him I’d be worried about harm to the baby because that baby is his and his father’s meal ticked to all that land in Ireland when the relative dies.  It’s better not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs before she lays the eggs.  The crowd at Martin Manor or whatever it’s called doesn’t believe that Caroline Brady actually talked to her son, Bo.  Now Caroline is just shouting “stop this wedding”.  Bo and Patch plan to make their enterance on a motorcycle.  What else would be fitting?  But this time they’re going to be a little late.

Shawn Hannity reminds us that there were many victories for the right wing yesterday.  There was some gay and transsexual rights proposition that was overturned by the voters from something passed in Houston.   The Virginia senate stayed Republican and no republican lost his seat there despite avid campaigning by the democratic governor.  And this sheriff in San Francisco was promoting sanctuary cities- - was booted out of office.  Shawn regards that as particularly satisfying.  Shawn reminds us that since Obama got elected in 2008 America has been transformed all right.  We are far more racist and we’ve become gun crazed nuts and even more avidly anti union and anti “entitlement program”.  They used to call Social Security and Medicare the “third rails” of congress, but this is true no longer.  When you add up all the congressmen and state legislators that have gone republican it’s impressive.  We have about double the number of states now with Republican legislatures- - about thirty state legislative boties have flipped, not to mention the number of republican governors themselves that we have now.  Democrats can say till the cows come home that “This time we’ve learned our lesson and now we know what mistakes we made and how to do better”, but they don’t.

Yesterday I had Shawn Hannity on till 12:20 and then I switched to Bill Carol.  His topic today was “banning the box”.  This is the box you have to check if you’re a convicted felon, and once you check it you can be pretty sure your application will go in the trash can.  One female said she was utterly against banning the box.  However this lady is also dead set against hiring felons under any circumstance it seems.  To her people don’t make “mistakes” –ever- .  Circumstances don’t matter to her; each felony conviction is the result of a willful act for which one must pay the consequences.  And one of those consequences is not being hired by her.  If everybody did what she did there’d be even more felons roaming the streets being tempted to get into their old line of work.  Bill Carol is for giving felons a chance “once you get out of prisons”.  But despite the fact we are warehousing prisoners in record numbers now, Bill Carol doesn’t think the average felon spends [nearly] enough time in prison.  Some people also want to penalize people convicted of child molestation from 20 or 25 years to a life term, where the only suitable exit is suicide.  They say things like no living within fifteen hundred feet of a school or park or perhaps spend your whole life never venturing closer than that far from a school or park.  That would be pretty difficult.  President Obama wants to do more to re-integrate ex convicts into society.

Commentary from Yesterday:  Thom Hartman among others are talking about one of two of Ohio’s big voter measures today and that is marijuana legalization for both recreational and medicinal use.  Of course we are reminded by opponents that “this is not your father’s marijuana”.  It’s a lot more potent.  And Thom notes that the selling of the weed will be restricted to ten producers - - growers.  But Thom also reminds that in terms of airlines or health care companies or broadcasters we have a lot fewer than ten choices in this modern era of merger mania.  He has a point.  The other measure Ohio will be voting on is to get rid of gerrymandering their congressional districts.  This measure was put on the ballot by a Republican state legislature and that’s a good thing.  It could be that of people see the republicans being for it they’ll conclude it’s kosher and vote for it.  I don’t feel so optimistic about this contest for governor in Kentucky.  The Democrat is pledging to keep Obama Care and “Kynnect” the exchange for Kentucky.  The Republican candidate wants to throw all these new applicants off the rolls.  I can hardly see how such a measure would meet with any broad approval but after the election of 2014 virtually anything is possible.  The Democrat is only leading by a little in the polls and you know what that means.  With the “red shift” that invariably goes on (since 2004) you know the Republican candidate is going to win under such a situation.  We’ll have to pray and keep our fingers crossed.

Royals beat Mets in Game Five Winning World Series

I had Face the Nation on and the commercials were back this week.  It was nice not having them last week.  Marco Rubio is an articulate speaker.  There is no question about that and he explained his conflict with Jeb Bush well.  He has the ability to sway people to his side and it’s been my contention for quite a few months that Rubio will end up being the nominee.  Well, I was right about Biden and Hillary wasn’t I?  He raised a point about Syria I hadn’t entirely thought about.  Putin wants to completely wipe out the Syrian rebel moderates so he can say to the world, “Look there are no moderates.  It’s a choice between our leadership with Assad as our installed puppet, or else ISIS.  You don’t want ISIS do you?”  President Obama has made a different argument.  His claim is that Assad is a “recruitment tool” for ISIS saying “Look at that bad ol’ repressive government in Damascus.  You don’t want that, do you?”  But if there were moderates out to tamp down Assad then ISIS would have less appeal.  Others would just say “Look, the United States is an empire.  And we need stomping grounds all over the world where we are held supreme and for this reason we need a presence in the Mideast so that we can exercise “leadership”.  I’ve weighed all these arguments in my mind and I still say that it’s better, as Donald Trump says, just to let the two protagonists fight it out between then weakening them both without our having to lift a finger.  They had Paul Ryan on after this and I’ve really learned nothing from Paul Ryan.  I’ve heard his words about a new beginning, which is kind of a variant of “hope and change” but I still have no idea what direction he will lead the House in except he says he wants to “let the house decide”.  This is what John Boehner did.  But for Boehner “the house” consists of that contingent of forty or fifty “freedom lobby” congressmen and so you will have a continuing case of the tail wagging the dog, if Paul Ryan continues to adopt this philosophy.  If however he means “all minority interests should be listened to” then maybe there is a ray of hope.  After this it was Steny Hoyer on.  However they were going to stick in yet another commercial so I turned away.  “Sweet Child of Mine” is a lot nicer piece to listen to when you get to hear the lyrics and not just music.  The worst thing about Ed Schultz is this as a bumper music theme sucked.  For one thing even all the good guitar playing was edited out.  KRTH was having an all eighties weekend and this song takes you to about 1988.

I had Chris Matthews on and he talked about the Republican convention a lot.  These Republicans are just a bunch of whiners because Hillary was asked just as tough questions but she didn’t throw a hissy fit over it the way so many of these Republicans did, almost as if there were strength in numbers.  I got two cups of iced tea from Rico in the courtyard and two decent sized pieces of our Halloween cake and I had the orange icing this time because at the party I got no icing.  Both of these pieces were way bigger than that one.  I don't know how they are able to do such good 3 D on Google Earth now.    Last night I was looking around Euclid and the Santa Ana Freeway on Google Earth and today in Google Earth I had downtown Santa Ana and the high rise business district in San Francisco.  I'm typing this Monday morning and the Rude Pundit was on the Stephanie Miller show on this morning.  The questions the moderators asked of the Republicans were things like "Even conservative think tanks think your tax plan is unworkable.  Can you please explain to us how your tax plan could possibly work?  Sarah Palin was asked a question like what she likes to read or her oppinions of various Supreme Court decisions and she calls those questions as "Gotcha questions", so you can't win for losing if you're an objective watcher.

The Kansas City Royals are world champions today having won game five in New York.  I never guessed that the Series would end so soon.  The Royals won games four and five in New York.  That Harvey pitcher had the game in the bag through eight innings.  At some point they announced that Denver defeated Green Bay in the battle of the undefeateds on NBC.  But Harvy demanded to stay in and pitch in the ninth when management wanted to take him out.  Clearly the Mets let pitchers stay in too long.  But even after the first run the Mets could have won the game even when it was two to one.  But the Royals are good base runners and their motto is "We don't make mistakes; we make the Other Guy make mistakes".  So the score was tied up two and two at the end of the ninth with the Mets failing to score at the bottom of the ninth. They played innings ten and eleven and there was no score.  But then in the twelvth the Royals scored a bunch of runs and there was a pitching change and I decided to go to bed because it was like Chinese water torture watching an outcome you know know to be inevitable.  The Royals won game five 7 to 2 having scored five runs in the top of the ninth.  I didn't stay for any of the trophy presentations.

The air conditioning is on in here and we don’t need it.  It’s actually starting to get a little chilly outside.  Tonight for dinner we had a chicken drumstick.  Part of the reason why people complain about having so much chicken is that it’s been stale meat, and far from its optimum.  We had mashed potatoes and peas with that and bread pudding for dessert with whipped cream on it.  Gary saw it and thought it was pumpkin pie.  Jeff saw it and thought it was carrot pudding and I had to tell them both the sad news and how we used to be plagued with bread pudding all the time.  This will make the third day I haven’t done a blog entry if I end up not doing one today.  We have slowed our pace all the way back to about 2006 levels now.