Trump Wins 2nd Presidential Debate

I know how the pollsters and news media are trying to slant the 2nd presidential debate. They are slanting it the way one would fully expect.

That Hillary Clinton won.

But, and I say this despite any admitted bias I may have with regard to Donald Trump's candidacy, I think it is clear and undeniable that Trump came out of this debate as the clear winner. Hands down. Look, I try to be fair in any analysis I make—on both sides for that matter. I thought Trump also clearly lost the first debate, and for a variety of reasons. That is, to my mind, a fair and honest judgement.

One thing that stood out for me in this second round was that Trump appeared way more prepared than usual to discuss the issues, and to lay out in more detail exactly what he wants to do, and more importantly, how he intends to do it. He was also considerably more contained than is his usual modus operandi as well. Something that I think is exactly what he needed to do in order to sway some on-the-fence voters, and perhaps to also solidify any voters in his base who may have been considering, for whatever reason, to jump ship.

Forget any establishment republicans who may have already jumped that ship. They are jumping for other reasons—of course.

The truth is that Donald Trump was on message, and frankly on-target. The one thing that few in the liberal media will give him credit for is how he effectively managed to shut down the discussion of the leaked tape. Both the moderators and Hillary Clinton, I think, quickly drew the conclusion that if they were to further discuss the issue, Trump would have effectively unloaded myriad talking points with regard to Bill Clinton's infidelities and misdeeds—and Clinton would have been in a very uncomfortable and difficult situation defending that. It took only a few strong words and a suggestion to allow the moderators, and even Clinton, to move on to the next issue. Had Trump not been so effective in his response to this issue, it may well have been the entire focus of the evening and he would have lost.

And of course, winner of the best line of the night also goes to Donald Trump when he suggested that had Trump been in charge of the law, Clinton would have been in jail. Despite obvious gasps from some in the audience at that remark—but I suspect many of those gasps came from Clinton supporters—I think the audience at least understood more clearly the seriousness of the issue of her emails as a whole. In preceding and following remarks I think Trump was able to convey two key issues with regard to the emails.

• Hillary Clinton has stated over and over again that she is best equipped to handle classified information, yet clearly her handling of the emails sent and received while she was Secretary of State via an unsecured server clearly breach that assertion—Trump also reminded voters that she lied to the FBI, and even reminded Clinton herself of her statement that she did not know what the letter "C" meant.
• It is impossible to know who may or may not have had access to her server and who may have gotten hold of any of the emails she sent or received—missing or not. This is potentially a serious threat to national security.

There is one more thought on the question of whether or not anyone who may be our enemy may have potentially gotten hold of classified information. How do we know that someone may not be holding on to that information to use it much later against us in some way? The server was not secured, no one really knows whether or not it was in fact compromised, and if it were, it would be difficult to know who was responsible for it.

Trump was very right to point out that only the media has seen this issue of her emails as "one to sweep aside as not that big of a deal." And I think he did so brilliantly.

And of course Trump also, I think, won the argument about taxes when he pointed out that even had he not paid taxes, he was still operating within the law—unlike what she had done with her emails—and that he was simply using the tax code as it was written by lawmakers. And he was very good to point out as well that singling him out for using the tax code as it was intended was foolish since every single rich person, armed with accountants and lawyers, would use the tax code in exactly the same way regardless of their party affiliations. His comments regarding this issue were much more effective, I think, than simply saying he was "smart." This laid out a more detailed rationale. And I think the audience got it when Trump also effectively pointed out two key things about taxes.

• Trump was not in a position to CHANGE tax laws. He was only in a position to FOLLOW tax laws, and to USE provisions in the tax laws as they were written by lawmakers. Clinton, on the other hand, was clearly better positioned in her former roles to make changes or push for changes if that is what she had wanted to do. She did say she was always against this or that item in the tax code—but while touting 400 pieces of legislation with her name on it, she did not single out a single piece of legislation with her name on it that addressed changes to the tax code. 
• He clearly stated an area of the tax code he wanted to change, and that would be carried interest. He said he used it like anyone would because, under the current tax code, it's what you do. But if he had his way, he would change it.

I think all in all Donald Trump explained most of his positions well. Be it his position on Syrian refugees, illegal immigration, the corporate tax rate and how lowering it would help businesses to better compete, and put more money in the pockets of the middle class, to explaining effectively why it can be harmful to let our enemies know what our intentions or timelines happen to be in any action we may take.

I have always advocated that nations need some secrets in order to ensure national security. 

Clinton, on the other hand, and for the first time for me, looked a bit frazzled—even surprised—by what was going down. I think Clinton was thoroughly convinced that this debate would go entirely a different direction. I can just hear the discussions before the debate, "With this tape out there, Trump will have nothing else to talk about...and we finish him." But that of course did not happen, and Clinton did not see any of what Trump delivered coming. The fact that he delivered with mostly tact and only once really raised his voice, and was well versed in the issues—all of this put Clinton clearly off kilter, and if anyone looked unprepared for this debate it was Hillary Clinton.

To be honest, despite my misgivings regarding the moderators which still leaned obviously left, I did find myself a bit surprised by some of the audience questions which put Clinton a bit in the hot seat. But, it was a town hall style. And even staunch Clinton cohorts will readily admit that when it comes to town hall's, Clinton always fares poorly. 

My thinking is because she has trouble actually talking about issues that aren't rehearsed, has trouble with questions she does not expect, and does not resonate well with the American people in general. 

As I said in an earlier post, the media and the polls that follow will all do their best to tell a story about a Clinton victory. They will do their best to suggest that the entire election is tilted in Clinton's favor. They will continue to flaunt any gains she may make in polls as "huge support gains" even though we all know that the steepest gains during this entire election has come from Donald Trump. 11 point swings are huge support gains in polls. Not 1 or 2 percentage point swings, But that's not how the media likes to tell the story.

In a nutshell, Trump won. Nuff said. Will he go on to win the final debate? Who knows? It depends on whether or not Trump can continue in the way he did with this last debate, and it depends on how well he can defend or deflect from any other garbage the left may try to pull out of the woodwork to shift the discussion from the issues, to what Donald Trump says or does.

Be Smart Tonight During the Debate!

Don't fall for it!

That is my suggestion as you prepare yourself for what is expected to be a monster debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, which by the way, is a calculated and orchestrated timed event if you throw in the recent release (or leak, whatever you want to call it) of tapes showing Donald Trump engaged in vulgar language directed at women.

Look, this what the DNC and the media are all too well known for. They want to skirt the issues and the reason they want to do that is because they cannot speak to the issues. This is a tactic the media and the DNC have been engaged in for years and for years they have gotten away with it.

Don't fall for it!

Do I think that the leaked tapes shed good light on Donald Trump? Of course not. But really, you could easily suggest that the words he used, and the conversations he engaged in are not unlike conversations that occur every single day in nearly every facet of society. It's real talk even if it's not necessarily appropriate talk.

And by the way, has anyone questioned statements Hillary Clinton made to secret service agents while she was First Lady? There's some pretty damning language there if you ask me. And while her language may not necessarily be directed in the way Trump's comments were in the leaked tape, they are still nonetheless foul, and certainly disrespectful and outright horrible.

May I use the word deplorable?

The DNC and the media want nothing but one thing to happen, because it works for them. They have designed campaigns around finger pointing—if you put all of the emphasis on the other guy, and you push hard enough, all you have to do is simply sit there in the debate and watch the nuts go after your opponent and eat up all of the time in the debate without ever once having to have your positions or your failures addressed at all.

If you fall for it then the media and the DNC will have their way once again. Hillary Clinton will not have to address her 33,000 missing emails, nor the clear and numerous lies she made to the FBI, which Comey has confirmed, nor the clear and numerous lies she made to the American people about the whole thing. She will not have to address what she did with the more than 600 calls for help by U.S. Ambassador in Benghazi, Chris Stevens, who of course is now dead along with three other Americans due to a lack of concern and action by the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton while she served as Secretary of State. And while we're on the subject, neither will she have to explain to the American people why she lied about that too, not only to the American people, but to the very families of the dead. You have to ask the question, because anyone paying attention knows the reason the lies were made in the first place was to secure a second term for President Obama, "Mrs. Clinton, how can you guarantee that you will put America first and keep Americans safe from clear and present danger when it is clear that you put lives in danger in order to support a false narrative that 'Al-Qaeda was on the run,' that would have been proved false had the true nature of the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi had been revealed?" And the question also has to be asked, "Mrs. Clinton, how can the American people be assured you will be honest with them when it was clearly illustrated that you lied to the American people and to the FBI about the nature of your missing emails?"

And then we're back to the issue of what Trump said in those leaked tapes which should directly lead anyone paying attention to now shift focus onto the stuff that Trump made all too clear he did not want to touch. And that is the question of Hillary Clinton's own attitude towards women which is—again for anyone paying attention—deplorable.

Yep, I chose to use that word again.

Hillary Clinton allowed a child rapist to get off while she was a defense attorney. This was a 13-year old girl, keep in mind, who was raped. And tapes that exist of Hillary talking about the case show very clearly that she knew the guy she was defending was guilty. She knew it. And not only did she know it, she reveled in the fact that she got the guy off, and she also reveled in putting the onus and emphasis on the girl who was raped.

She put the onus on the girl who was raped. She blamed the victim. When she knew the guy she was defending was guilty.

This bears emphasis and it is why I chose to repeat it in italics. War on women? This is what this essentially comes down to right? Only the DNC and the media are painting it with a different brush and they have been doing this right from the moment it became clear that Trump was going to be the nominee for the republican party. They have focused on Trump's three marriages. They have focused on Trump calling women this or calling women that. And now there's the leaked tape.

And not a single question to Hillary Clinton about her own husband's infidelities nor about documented attempts by Hillary Clinton herself to silence the victims.

Hillary Clinton's own record with regard to women is deplorable and yet no one is reminded of that, no one brings it up—which is especially amazing when stuff like this comes up in regard to Trump. It should. Any reasonable person should conclude that this entire issue is really an issue of the pot calling the kettle black, and if you ask me, the DNC and the media knowing this should steer clear of any mention of any of this sort of thing because under normal circumstances it would be damning because there is enough on the other side to bring up that it would make the entire issue moot to bring up on the Trump side.

Don't fall for it like the media and the DNC are sure you will.

How clear it is that the media and even so many Americans just don't pay attention. Even in the first debate (and even Trump missed the opportunity), while Clinton smugly shirked her shoulders and did some weird little torso dance at the podium saying, "By the time the night is over I suspect I will be blamed for everything," it should have been brought to the fore that that was the excuse made for every single failure of the Obama administration including the failures of Clinton while she was Secretary of State that all of it could be blamed on the mess that George W. Bush left for them all. George W. Bush was blamed for everything. Why didn't anyone bring that up? Why didn't Trump bring that up? Why didn't the American people catch that? Why didn't the media catch that, or the moderator of the debate? Hell, even the pundits didn't catch that.

Don't fall for it!

Look, in no way am I defending anything Trump has said or done during or before the time he was running for president. But clearly there are defenseless things on both sides, and frankly I think the things on the Clinton side are more defenseless—but that may simply be an opinion. So again, why the focus on Donald Trump's statements? Why the focus on Donald Trump's actions? Why can these defenseless acts not be put to bed like they should be by the mere fact that both sides have defenseless things in their bags?

I stand before a man having killed someone. I too killed someone. It is established we're both

murderers. So, logically one should conclude we go on to the next topic. Neither of us can point toward the act of murder because we are both guilty of the same thing. It's moot.

Okay, both sides have horrible records with women. So let's just move on shall we? Let's move on, in fact, to what is important for Christ's sake and not again fall for the tactics employed to skirt the important issues.

What are we going to do about ISIS? What are we going to do with the Iran deal? What are we going to do about jobs? What are we going to do about the economy? What are we going to do about the failures of the Veteran's Administration? What are we going to do about North Korea? How will we address the issue of illegal immigration?

And again, if we fall for it, if we allow the DNC and the media to do it again, we won't hear about these issues and the American people will have effectively been duped yet again. We'll only hear about how bad a guy Trump is while not hearing about how bad a woman Clinton is. How bad her husband was.

The entire thing just irritates the hell out of me because I so badly want to believe that not only are the American people supposed to be smarter than all of this—for crying out loud republicans are supposed to be smarter than all of this. But they're falling for it. So many are falling for it. Smirks on their faces, haha's in their commentaries, I told you so's and innuendos...

Can you not read between the lines? Can you not see past the smoke and mirrors? Are you unable to see the forest for the trees? Are you so easily duped and swindled? My God, if this is so easily accomplished by the DNC and the media—how the hell do you get through life without the wool constantly being pulled out? Do magicians seem like a real thing to you? At this point I swear if the DNC and the media worked hard enough at it you might even believe that world is indeed flat. The DNC and the media is so convinced of your stupidity that they comfortably report it as news that the Syrian conflict, and the greatest threat to national security is absolutely climate change.

That last thing should really allow you to see what's going on here because surely you don't believe that climate change is responsible for a fucking war! Clearly you don't believe that climate change is the greatest threat to national security!

Don't fall for it!

As for the line of questioning we will witness in tonight's debate, of course it will be more of the same. Skirting the issues, focusing on Trump this and Trump that, Clinton smirking and smiling, moderators clearly in the tank for Clinton, and hand selected robots of the DNC and the media who will ignore Clinton and trounce sharply on Trump. And you have a choice when you watch this go down. You can either show your true intelligence and see the writing on the wall...

Or you can fall for it.

And now for something completely different:

The Gang of Two In the GOP

I have to admit that these days it is becoming real tough for me to call myself a republican, because as much as I have long identified with the party and its core principles, I also happen to be an American, and I believe in the will of the American people over all other things. The republican party these days seems more interested in making their own pick for nominee than what the American people and many in the party are deciding.

That would be Donald Trump of course.

You could say, as many have implied throughout this race, that Trump has turned the presidential race into a circus. But I would argue that the real circus is being created and directed by the republican party itself, and by the other candidates in the race who—let's face it—are clearly losing as the delegate counts stand right now.

Sure, maybe there is some hope on a second, third, fourth...whatever...ballot. But even if Trump does not get the necessary 1,237 delegates needed to be an uncontested nominee, there is no way at this point in the race that either Cruz or Kasich are going to get anywhere near the number of delegates Trump will ultimately wind up with. Now we of course have this "teaming up," which I will just go ahead and call it ganging up, between Cruz and Kasich to try to keep delegates from going to Trump in the final leg of the journey to the nomination. In a word it's simply ludicrous to me. For all of the complaints of whining the others on the trail have lambasted Trump for, this seems to me to be the ultimate whining.

It's not fair! It's not fair! He's not one of us and now he's winning and it's not fair!

So what is the core argument they are making for the teaming up? Trump can't win, and in order to protect the country from Hillary Clinton they have to stop the front-runner dead in his tracks to "save the party." But let's be clear about one glaring thing I see—if the American people feel that the nomination has been hijacked, and they will feel this way, what makes anyone think Cruz or Kasich are ultimately electable? They're not. They will be considered shills of the party, the "chosen" ones, not by the electorate, but by the establishment, and whether or not any rules were in place and followed through the course and into the selection process, the American people will not care. And they will not perceive things any other way than an election and candidate was literally stolen from them at the hands of the very people that the voters love to hate these days.

You are NOT going to win ANYTHING if, when all is said and done, it is clear that you are the runner up and are GIVEN the trophy anyway. Rules be damned, the voters will not give a rat's ass about that. And Hillary will get to be president by default.

I am actually quite a bit surprised that the GOP is failing to see this. It seems to be one of the dumbest and most naive maneuvers I have seen the republican party attempt in a very long time.

Let's take a moment to examine one other thing here. So the republican party thinks, with certainty, that Trump cannot win in the general. But all throughout this race Trump has defied every poll, every odd, that showed him in a bad spot. Whose to say he can't do it again? In the general.

I just think that the republican party is shooting itself in the foot right now with all of these antics and tactics it is trying to deploy against the clear front runner. It will all backfire if Trump comes out the clear winner even without the needed 1,237 delegates and he does not get the nomination. What's more, you mean to tell me that if Cruz had the most with 1,236 some rule would not be changed to allow the lack of needed delegates and make Cruz the nominee?

Hogwash!

The only reason the delegate rule is being so coveted right now is because the candidate who is winning is not one of their own, not the one they want, and frankly the GOP doesn't give a damn what the American people or even many republicans want—

And that, folks, makes me ashamed right now to call myself a republican.

Boy or stream Jim Bauer's PINK FLAMINGOES LP on iTunes

Taking "Pay Yourself First" One Step Further

The age-old adage in the art of saving away a few bucks for a rainy day and beyond, pay yourself first, is still one of the best ideas to not only plan for, spend around, but to also live by with absolute determination and commitment. For years I have advocated what I like to call the 80/20 rule which basically states that you only live on 80% of your means, and save and invest the 20% you don't need. These days the amount I save is actually higher since the 20% affords, eventually, an increase in your means through dividends, capital gains, and other things that the money "in the bank" tends to generate.

Money makes money is another thing everybody says, but that is also absolutely true.

Something that I find often gets overlooked in all of these concepts surrounding saving money is actually a very important factor that can, if not considered, eat away and terribly counter a great deal of the effort you put into your savings commitments.

The COST of money.

Where this factor is most encountered, it is when we are dealing with how we manage and use credit. Most people who understand credit also understand that there is a difference between good debt and bad debt. Naturally there are some people who will tell you that there is no such thing as any good debt. I am not in that camp. By my definition good debt is debt which leverages an  appreciating asset such as your home. In this instance the cost of the debt is typically negated by the appreciating value of what has been financed. Bad debt is debt that is used to leverage depreciating assets, such as a vehicle. But even I am guilty of making use of this kind of debt—although I do everything I can to minimize the impact. For example when my wife and I purchased our Ford Edge a few years back we put down $10,000 to keep the monthly payments down and reduce the overall interest we would pay. I did the same thing recently when I replaced my old Ford Sport Trac with a newer Ford F-150 and laid out $14,000 cash at the bargaining table.

But the worst debt is the credit card.

Credit cards can be used in ways that actually help you toward your savings goals. For example, I use a Discover card which pays me cash back on every purchase. The trick here is to pay the card as you use it otherwise the cash back rewards are really worthless.

But rather than use credit cards, and finally we're getting to the meat of what I meant when I said let'syour own line of credit? I call this little concept the Credit Savings Account, or CSA. Key here is that if you are following strict savings plans, there should be plenty of money sitting around somewhere that you can allocate to a "credit card" where you are your own bank. My CSA sits in my checking account and when I use it, it is as simple as swiping my debit card.

take the concept of paying yourself first one step further, why not simply establish

And by the way, this is a great way to also avoid overdraft fees, and WORSE, paying for overdraft protection which is absolutely a total waste of money.

Here is how I set up my CSA:

• Establish an amount to fund the account with and determine this to be the credit limit.
• Establish a day each month when you will make payments. Mine is on the 20th of each month.
• Establish an interest rate you will charge yourself. This can be whatever you want it to be. I typically charge myself anywhere from 15%-29.9% depending on the balance, but I never pay myself less than 15% interest.
• ALL INTEREST PAYMENTS MUST BE EITHER PUT INTO SAVINGS, OR USED TO INCREASE THE CREDIT LIMIT. THIS SHOULD NOT BE SPENDING MONEY.
• Establish a minimum payment based on at least 3%-5% of the balance. But of course you can repay yourself any way you want.

When I calculate the interest I don't bother with how credit card companies actually do it, using daily periodic rates and average daily balances etcetera. But of course if you want to you can do it this way—but it is naturally much more time consuming. Here is an example of how I will determine my payment and interest:

• Balance ($300) x 15% interest =  $45 / 12 months = $3.75 (this is my interest charge). Balance ($300) x 5% minimum payment = $15. In this example I will pay $15 on the 20th (my due date). Of the $15 I will apply $11.25 to the principle (balance) and direct $3.75 to interest (which will be deposited to my savings).

There is a caveat here. When you set up this account for yourself you must avoid playing games with yourself, such as forgoing making a payment, or playing around with the interest you charge yourself. This will foil any benefit a CSA will afford you. You are the banker. Act like one and fiercely demand payment and interest, and penalties when you don't pay.

Establishing a CSA takes paying yourself first one step further because it will accomplish two very important things. 1) it will force you to save more money away and 2) it will reduce your cost of money since you are using the CSA in lieu of traditional credit cards.

Perhaps even when I bought my vehicles I should have simply paid cash and set up a loan for myself.

Hmm. Something for me to consider on the next set of wheels I think. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Ford doesn't actually come out with a new Bronco or I may have to revisit this idea sooner than I would like.

Brokered Convention A Win For Hillary

So, we are of course still having to have the discussion, when it comes to the GOP convention in July, that there is a strong possibility of a brokered convention if Donald Trump, the clear front-runner in this presidential race, does not garner the 1,237 delegates he needs to seal the deal on the republican nomination. But why we are having this discussion at all is really the begging question, is it not?

In other circles someone commented to me that, "So you are okay if we break the rules for Trump if he doesn't get the required delegates?" I responded, and I think quite rightly, "Would we even be having this discussion if, say, Ted Cruz fell short of the 1,237 delegates before the convention?"

Of course that ended the discussion. Because the person who made that comment knows all too well that he would be okay if Ted Cruz, or anyone else for that matter, got the nomination without the required delegate count—but because we are talking about Trump here, that changes everything.

Because no matter how many times the GOP tries to give the impression it will support the front-runner, those of us who pay attention to what's between the lines know all too well if the GOP can find any way possible to deny Trump the nomination, that is exactly what they will do.

The thing that I find a little bit surprising here is that for years the republican party has been wanting desperately to find a candidate who can reach reach out and grasp hold of voters who might never even remotely consider voting for any republican candidate.

Donald Trump is doing that.

He is getting support from evangelicals and non-evangelicals alike. He is getting broad support (believe it or not) from women. He is getting broad support from (again, believe it or not) Hispanics. And while he may be falling a little bit short garnering support from blacks, there are still wide swaths of other demographics he is pulling toward the republican party that the party itself has not been able to do for a very long time.

He's even pulling in democrats.

There is another very big factor to keep in mind here and that is that Trump has also provided the republican party a huge (or should I say yuge?) increase in voter enthusiasm and voter turnout—when you look at voter turnout as a whole, enthusiasm and turnout is up 65% for republicans and down 45% for democrats.

How did Barack Obama win, partly? Voter turnout. Voter enthusiasm. Voters all but fell over themselves to get to the polls, and of course there were great efforts by PACs and other groups to load up buses and get voters to the polls to check the box for Obama.

Without a doubt Mitt Romney screwed the pooch on the campaign trail and I lay that down easily as a large contributing factor to his defeat, albeit a nominal defeat, by what was clearly a failed incumbent president. But you can also attribute low voter turnout as a large reason why Romney could not fill the gap. Many republicans were so unenthusiastic, and so not smitten with Romney as the candidate, that they just stayed home. If even a fraction of those people would have gone to the polls, it may have sent Obama packing.

I think even the GOP has to know that, in part, this is precisely why they did not win the last election.

So along comes Trump and gets the juices flowing. It may not be the guy that the republican party had hoped for to bring this along. But nobody else has been able to do it. And instead of embrace the victory this is, they only want to trounce Trump, stay the course, and disenfranchise large swathes of the very voters they have been trying to attract that Trump has attracted. Hell, he has practically laid these voters at the very doorstep of the republican convention.

Of course part of the problem the GOP and other republican and conservative voters have is that he's too brash, he's offensive, he's inexperienced, he's unrealistic, and whatever other word one can derive to relate to, "He will destroy America and bombs will fly."

Horse pockey.

The fact is that Trump is doing exactly what every single other politician has done before him—and I think we can now safely call Trump a politician. Donald Trump is telling the American people what they want to hear. It's that simple. And it is resonating and that is why the voting public is responding the way they are.

Read my lips, no new taxes. You can keep your doctor. We will attack pork barrel spending...

All of a sudden we are actually believing that everything a politician says he will do will actually be done? I mean, really. Are we really trying to say that here? We're trying to say this with a straight face?

When Donald Trump gets into the White House, if that is what happens, he will face the same realities and the same challenges as every single president always does. Not only that, but what defines an administration's accomplishments or failures is also largely dictated by what the focus of the day happens to be. Things happen, things occur in the world that cause presidents to have to shift focus, and of course there are multitudes of people that will surround any president and provide him or her with whatever current intelligence on a variety of issues happens to be...

And with reality front and center courses change.

Why would Trump be any different? I mean, don't get me wrong, he has my support in large part because he will do some things differently to my mind. But there are myriad things he won't do just because he can't, or because there will be enough smart minds surrounding him to give him some very important statistics and data and examinations into what the real and true impact may be of anything he has proposed. And like all president's do, he will change course.

Look, the bottom line for me is that if Trump gets the nomination we may lose the general election. Okay fine. Or we may not. Who really knows, right? Polls have been wrong, pundits have been wrong. It's always so easy to try and make an idea a truth when we all know it's not. But a few things are certain to lose the general and ensure Hillary winds up in the White House. To my mind, and without any doubt, one of those things is to broker the republican convention. If the GOP actually denies Trump the nomination no matter if he has the 1,237 delegates or not, there will be far more anger from the voting public than ever before that their voice is not being heard, that the establishment is rigging outcomes, and that the American people are sheep while the government and all of the power-mongers within the system don't give a flying rats ass about what the people want.

Precisely, by the way, one of the reasons that right now a guy like Trump is blowing it out of the park.

At the end of the day I think we should simply be looking at who out of the remaining three candidates have the most delegates (or two if Kasich finally comes to his senses that he has no chance of winning) and say okay. That's the nominee. Because otherwise what is all this other process about? Why did we waste our time with campaigns at all? Why did we bother to go before the American people and see what they think about who is running? Why waste time with all that if at the end of the day it doesn't matter, and no matter who the PEOPLE want it comes down who the PARTY wants?