ELECTION 2016

To vote or not to vote. that is the question.

There does not appear to be a candidate from either the Democratic or Republican party who would make it worthwhile to pay postage to request an absentee ballot, nor to make any effort to cast a vote.

On the Democratic side, a Hillary Clinton nomination appears to be a foregone conclusion.  The party will nominate her and back her, even if it requires a last minute brain transplant and the services of a taxidermist and a puppeteer.  They have no one else.

Her credentials?  Who needs them?  She can lie with the best of them.  And she is as experienced as anyone at ducking questions, passing the buck and destroying evidence.  She learned at the side of a master, her husband Bill, one of the few American presidents to be impeached, and the only one ever disbarred from practicing law. A President whose lasting legacy is that he taught America's teenagers the meaning of oral sex.

Her understanding of economics must be unbelievable.  From "broke" in 2000 to a net worth in excess of $180 million in 2015, without ever having produced anything other than a self-serving autobiography, or provided any service of value is astounding.  She makes convicted swindler Bernie Madoff look like an amateur. Yet he is in prison and she isn't, at least not as yet.

Her ethics?  Again, who really cares?  Who cares that her Chief of Staff, Vince Foster, walked out into the park and killed himself.  Or that she has a former business partner, Webster Hubbell, who sacrificed himself, accepted all the blame for their financial manipulations and served a prison sentence to protect her (and presumably to provide for his family). Or that she keeps a female Muslim 'friend' on her staff. It's a long-term 'friendship', so presumably they have much in common, starting with the fact that they both remain married to perverts.

Nowhere is there to be found any evidence of Hillary's selflessness, only example after example of her selfishness and self interest. Yet, in today's America, she is a brand name and therefore marketable.  People will buy anything if you package it correctly and tout the hell out of it.  In her case, the packaging could stand some improvement, unless overfilled pants suits become the norm.

There it is.  In today's America where half the voters cannot name the Vice-President or a single Congressman or Senator, she will most likely be nominated and win.  God help us.

On the Republican side, we currently have the 'gang of sixteen' (or is it twenty?) wannabe's, who taken altogether don't add up to a Harry Truman or a Ronald Reagan, never mind a George Washington or a John Adams.

Jeb Bush is the self-proclaimed front-runner, although the polls don't support his assumptions.  He is determined to show that he can be a better President than his father or his brother, really a trivial goal, but can't even sell that to Iowans,  The rest of the field will destroy each other by sacrificing their integrity, issue by issue, to try to pick up a few votes from the Black community, or the Hispanic community or the so-called Independents, who will ultimately vote for the candidate with the most television ads.

Donald Trump, not yet even a candidate, has already disavowed the First Amendment, and Ben Carson, who would make a good Surgeon General, is ready to give away the Second Amendment. Rand Paul is still trying to figure out if he is a Republican, a RINO or part Libertarian. Rick Perry, even though he has learned to count to three, is not a serious candidate, and Marco Rubio is the candidate of the latest fad.  And so it goes.  There is no winner here.  God help us.