Donald Trump and David Duke

By now you probably heard that the former head of the KKK David Duke told all his racist ilk to vote for Donald Trump.  Basically he endorsed Donald Trump in an off handed way.  However Donald Trump has not condemned Duke or even rejected the votes of his KKK brethren and similar.  What would easily have been an open and shut case for Trump to shut down and reject racism as a motivation for electing elected officials, Trump has refused to do.  Trump even claimed that he never heard of David Duke even when he was talking about Duke back in 2000 and his membership in the KKK.  Fox showed the clip of him in the year 2000 where Trump says he would not be part of the "reform party" because someone like David Duke, a member of the KKK was in it.  And yet when interviewed by Jay Tapper of CNN, Trump says he does not even know who David Duke is.  Trump according to reporters with respect to his record is not a racist, but what the heck is going on?  That is what I would like to know.

Final Thought:  What the hell is wrong with you Trump?  You do not condemn David Duke and you even make yourself out to be a liar by claiming you don't even know of him.  Trump should have condemned Duke and his ilk by saying he does not accept any of their votes or their support.  Yet he says nothing and just prattles on like usual.  Donald, are you even in your right mind.  I would feel violated if I were in Trumps position that any of my votes are from openly racist individuals like David Duke (hell I would feel that way already knowing closet racists were voting for me).  This shows poor judgment at minimum with respect to Trump.  As far as I am concerned, he should be done.  He should lose the election right now for this stupidity and outrage with respect to the American people who are trying to eradicate racism from American culture.

Trump Versus Rubio!?

So I was watching some analysis of who has to win what on the Republican side to win the nomination.  What I saw surprised me, but was overall interesting.  The analysis comes from Glenn Beck and his crew at the Blaze and also from Fox News.  Here is the summary of what the pundits think has to happen for Trump to stand the greatest chance to win the nomination. 

Trump has to beat Rubio in Florida to kick him out of the race.  The reason is that Florida is Rubio's home State and that if he loses the support of his home State, then he will be seen as incapable of winning the election and thus lose his support.  As to why it is so important for Rubio to lose is simple.  If the nomination goes to the Republican National Convention, the delegates will choose Rubio as the de facto establishment Republican who has the greatest chance of winning the election.  You see the delegates for the Republican Party are there to act as a counter to insure the candidate chosen is not too radical.  As such when a delegate is chosen, those votes to choose a delegate to represent republican districts in Blue States like New York have a greater value.  In other words you can have a Republican Primary or Caucus vote in New York with a population of two thousand versus a heavily Conservative district in Alabama with over 200,000, but still wind up with the same number of delegates.  The logic is that Blue State Republicans are more to the center.  Needless to say, these delegates favor Rubio according to the pundits.

If Rubio loses Florida then it means that Trump has to only take on Ted Cruz for the nomination as they are the top two non-establishment candidates with the greatest chances of winning. As such, outside of Kasich, there will be no more establishment candidates left.  It is important to note that if Cruz loses his home State of Texas then he would also be out, but he is not as important at the moment with respect to who Donald Trump has to defeat in the near term.  The analysis from the Blaze and Fox News says that if Rubio bows out after losing Florida, then the delegates will favor Trump over Cruz.  As such, Trump has an easier time versus Cruz so long as he keeps up his popularity with the establishment and the voters.

Final Thought:  So this is what I heard.  I am repeating this like a parrot, except that I condensed it to make it less boring.  Anyway, this also highlights how undemocratic the nomination process has become with respect to parties nominating their candidates.  It is kind of sad, but if Trump or Cruz gets the nod, then the system will change again with the party attempting to adjust to prevent candidates like Trump and Cruz from gaining power ever again.  Needless to say, I am favor of Cruz, but a vote for either means sticking it to the establishment.  Rebel my fellow Conservatives, Libertarians and Constitutionalists.  Rebel by voting for Trump or my guy Cruz.

Guantanamo Bay!?

So apparently the Guantanamo Bay prison complex is still open.  And I think this is a good thing.  While I understand people's view that it has become a symbol with respect to the waterboarding happening there I would like to keep it open.  For those who do not know, people considered waterboarding, which simulates drowning, a form of torture.  Now we could put the people housed there in mainland U.S. prisons as we already house domestic and international terrorists in both State and Federal prisons in the United States, but these individuals are prisoners of a form of warfare which has yet in my opinion to be truly understood.  We exist in a world today where small terror groups can actually topple nations, and it is just those type of people who are being held in Guantanamo Bay Cuba (the part we own).  It functions as a prison for these enemy combatants that have been apprehended on the battlefield or are under suspicion of being collaborators or terrorists themselves.  Some are U.S. citizens and others are foreign nationals.  Truth be told, while I want transparency with respect to what goes on there, I think a facility like this is needed.  Not to mention the fact that if not this facility another one will be made somewhere else out of the public eye where worse things than waterboarding can possible occur.  As such, by keeping it open and monitored by the public we can ensure no torture actually takes place, or if it does take place that it is warranted beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Final Thought:  I had nearly forgotten about Guantanamo bay.  Reason being was that the incident was so long ago and no other such incidents have occurred since to my knowledge.  So the CIA/Military have been on their best behavior, or should I say the real truth, they are following orders.  They followed orders when they performed the act of waterboarding and now they follow the order saying that it is not allowed.  Basically they follow orders, and it is the government's fault when our military is made to look bad with respect to the issue of torture.  People are forgetful save the people who have a passion for something like getting this prison shut down.  But, with lives of terrorists so finite, and the world's attention span so short, it is not a symbol of torture, but a symbol of what happens when government goes too far to protect us.  Don't shut it down, for it is the embodiment of a lesson that needed to be learned by my country, The United States.

Reaction to Democratic Town Hall.

So I was watching the Democratic town hall and here is my reaction.  Bernie Sanders was excellent with respect to his responses.  He knew what he had to say and said it.  He addressed a number of issues which primarily seemed to revolve around his economics principles.  What is key about Sander's though is that his economic and social views are intertwined.  As such, the reason he wants free college is because he believes people should support each other.  That we do not live in a vacuum and what affects one person affects everyone else.  So if a negative thing happens to a person, it affects their families negatively, their friends, and then ripples out.  Therefore providing healthcare, raising the minimum wage, free education, etc. all contribute to saving people from being broken down by the negatives of debt, inadequate health care, and not being able to afford a higher quality of life.  If it was not for the fact that his solutions scare the heck out of me due to how he would tax us all more and that our freedom of choice would be limited, then I would probably have voted for him.

Hillary on the other hand seemed to meander through some of her answers.  Her questions focused mostly on social issues like the white black divide with "Black Lives Matter", Social Security reform and women's issues.  All her answers though had no specifics and took on a shotgun approach in their attempts to give a satisfactory response.  I think this was due to two things.  The first is that there is no easy answer to solve these issues and thus trying to solve issues with white on black crime and bringing up women are almost impossible to give a quick answer too.  It would need something like an interview to answer.  However, the short answers that give no specifics give Hillary an advantage as she need not be beholden to any specific solution and that giving a specific answer can be political suicide.  Imagine if she answers with specifics, but the American people or worse "her backers" for her campaign don't like it.  She would be out of the race.

Final Thought:  This was one of the few times I was able to watch a Democratic town hall, and I was pleased.  Bernie shows why he is popular as he is the outlier that people want because he is completely away from the establishment and represents what the people in the Democratic Party want.  Hillary could have answered more concisely as she seemed to lose me at points with how she meandered through each question.  Needless to say she tried and lost none of her supporters to say the least.  Overall a good town hall.

Candidates attacking each other.

I am probably preaching to the choir, but I am sick of the political attacks.  If candidates speak truthfully and explain their differences with their opponents that is one thing, but now the candidates in the Republican debate seem to be eating their own.  They are openly calling each other liars, cheats and are just dragging each other through the mud.  This however does not do the Republicans any good with respect to showing that they are above the influence of party politics and mudslinging.  Carson and Kasich seem to be the only ones who seem to be above it all, but they are generally not attacked because they are not front runners at the moment.  Carson however is the only one with the right to criticize anyone with respect to the Cruz campaign claiming he was out of the race back in Iowa.  You see, while history shows that these attacks are not uncommon in elections, we have seemed to devolve back into the almost vicious nature of them with candidates calling each other liars and cheats.  As such, they feed the people's perception that politicians are nothing, but conniving and dishonest men and women who solely want power.  This perception is not entirely wrong, but it is not entirely right either.  Truth is, many politicians seek power to do the right thing, but either get stuck in the quagmire of political power struggles or are pushed out.  We the voters however seem to fail to see the good from the bad as we seem to be losing our ability to judge people of character.  What we need is a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington type, along with an Eliot Ness Untouchable.  This means an actually honest politician who stands for what is right and a person who can receive donations and aid from anyone, but will never take a bribe.  But our Republicans, and to an almost equal extent the democrats fail on both counts. 

Final Thought:  Attacks on each other and on opposing members of the political party are symptoms of the problem, not the problem itself.  We need people like Carson, and Sanders who refuse to run attack ads so that one part of the symptoms of corruption is held back long enough to push back the tide of electioneering, and party segregation that occurs in Washington D.C.  We need term limits, we need a truly fair tax system that does not enslave the citizens, and to have a nation of people with character and are not ideologically separated.  In the same way atheists claim that religions start conflicts, so too does ideologies like liberal and conservative, republican and democrat.  As such I personally call for a nation that rejects ideology, but returns to the principles of the rule of law.  What the Constitution says goes as it is the law, but if there's a problem, change it.  It is that simple.  After following the rule of law, it all becomes about freedom.  And freedom is what all people should seek.

Jeb Bush is out! It's a Three man race!

So Nevada and South Carolina happened just this weekend.  For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders with MSNBC attributing the victory to the Black American vote in Nevada.  Interestingly though, Clinton was campaigning in Nevada with an eye toward the minority vote in general and a portrayal that Bernie did not represent minority groups, but was the "old white man representing white values" in the democratic party.  That analysis comes from a Fox News contributor.  Basically if Hillary had lost she could portray Bernie as a guy who represents just the white members of American society.  

As to the republicans.  Carson, Kasich and Jeb were the overall losers.  With a poor showing there, Jeb left the race which means the top three contenders will benefit with respect to the next set of Primaries and Caucuses.  Those top three are Trump, who actually lost some of his lead in South Carolina (it was reduced by half), Rubio who is the only establishment candidate left that matters, and Cruz who is tied with Rubio and is the only other non-establishment candidate in a lead position.   Kasich and Carson both are waiting to see the results of Super Tuesday (when the largest number of Primaries and Caucuses occur at the same time) to decide if they are going to leave the race.  

I feel bad for Carson because he is a good man who at this point, based on what I heard him say, wants to change how elections are done.  He wants to prove that a clean campaign without attacks and built on real debate can win and thus eliminate the status quo of lies, cheats and attacks done in elections.

Final Thought: I hope Carson pulls through enough to show that you can do well without the need for attacks and lies, but unfortunately it is a three man race.  With each establishment candidate leaving one by one, both Trump, Cruz and Carson benefit, but if the Republican leadership has its way, the candidate would be Rubio and not Trump, because in case you have not noticed, Trump is practically uncontrollable.  I think Trump has matured though and has gotten better as a candidate overall, but I am still fearful of the possible consequences if he should win the White House (that and the democrats have attack ads and documentaries waiting to crush him).  So now we wait till this weekend with another debate (yea another one) and the next primary occur.

Justice Scalia and Privacy rights.

I felt one more issue on Scalia was warranted due to his opinion on privacy rights.  In this case he said the fourth Amendment did not protect one's right to privacy.  Interestingly though, he ruled in favor of people's rights to privacy on many occasions including the cases of police using thermal imagers to see into people's homes, DNA swabs and placing tracking devices on people's cars.  He also ruled against the police with respect to them searching a car after a traffic infraction in the search for evidence of another crime and against the use of drug sniffing dogs without a warrant.  In all these cases Scalia noted that while it is noble for police to want to try to solve crimes, exceeding the limits of a warrant or an infraction violates the people's right to be secure in their "persons, houses, papers and effects."  However, he was not opposed to wiretapping.  The reason being that conversations are not protected by the Constitution as they are considered public.  As such, he deemed that phone calls were public conversations in the same way a conversation may be carried out in public at a restaurant or park.  However, emails in my opinion, including text messages count as papers for they are not spoken allowed and act like letters in the mail thus legally protected if we apply his textualist views.  Likewise, espionage and eavesdropping laws would not be protected if you apply Scalia's view of the United States Constitution and shared his disagreement with the 1965 Griswold case which decided that we have a right to privacy. 

Final Thought:  I find myself agreeing with Scalia here with respect to anything verbally spoken not being protected. As a matter of fact it brings to question if anything transmitted through the internet to another is considered private as the internet can be considered part of the public square.  As such, Facebook, Twitter, and anything publically posted is absolutely without protections. But our bodies and the things on us, our homes and what goes on in it, and our other property like our cars and the items in them are protected due to the 4th amendment and its specifically listing these as protected from search and seizure without a warrant.  So if Scalia and his legacy is used as a springboard for a more textualist view of the Constitution, it may bring forth an entirely new approach to rulings in the Supreme Court and the rule of law.  In fact it may create a link between liberal and conservative judges like it did between Scalia and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  If used as such, the liberal conservative divide can be shrunk!  I look forward to seeing the results of Scalia's legacy in politics and law.