Latest Count: Clinton Has 395,000 More Votes Than Trump

Her lead is up from 225,000... and all the votes still have not yet been counted.  Welcome to American "democracy".  We can stick our heads in the sand and ignore this (again), or we can work to change our electoral system.  It would be helpful if we all stopped drinking the Edward Bernays style Propaganda Kool Aid.

Long ago, James Madison said that the opulence of the wealthy must be protected from the majority.  He also stated that democracy is the most vile form of government.  John Jay, also a signer of the Constitution and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, stated that those who own the country (property owners) should rule it.  Benjamin Franklin defined democracy as two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.  Other Founders referred to the tyranny of the majority.  Benjamin Rush, one of our Founders, said that a simple democracy is the devil's own government.  John Adams, the second U.S. President, claimed democracy soon degenerates into an anarchy.  Gouverneur Morris, the writer of the Final Draft of the Constitution, stated that the tumults of democracy terminate in despotism.  Fisher Ames, the framer of the 1st Amendement to the Constitution, claimed that democracy is the most violent of despotisms.  Even the respected Thomas Jefferson said that democracy is mob rule.  Long story short--- our Founders were against having democracy as our form of gov't.  They succeeded in that quest.

Despite the above, our current/recent leaders at the highest levels keep referring to "our democracy".  They rarely ever refer to our form of government by its proper name, our Republic.  The two types of gov't are not the same.  We don't have a democracy in the USA.  We've never had one.  Most other developed countries do have a democracy...and they haven't devolved into anarchy, or tyranny, or mob rule.  What they have done is a better job of protecting the majority from the Super-Rich... a better job of it than our gov't has done.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

It Turns Out That Trump LOST...

the popular vote.  Plus, almost one-third of the California vote has yet to be counted.  The Don won the election due to the constitutional electoral college system.  It's all legitimate; it just isn't democracy.  I suspect that many Americans don't understand the electoral college system, and further, don't realize that our Founders were not in favor of democracy.  That's why they created a Republic.  Perhaps it's time to reconsider our electoral system.

This is not sour grapes--- I didn't want either one of the major candidates to get elected.  My main point is that Trump and his following most likely believe they have a popular mandate... but that's not true.  He lost the popular vote.

It's a testament to the power & persistence of Propaganda that most Americans believe they're in a true democracy.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well

A Con Artist Has Conceded to Another Con Artist!

It just goes to show you:  no one can predict everything with accuracy.  Mea culpa.

Trump borrowed a page from a man he can't stand, Obama:  the Don sold a bit more than half the voters* on HOPE and CHANGE... with little to no details.  I give Trump voters less than a year from January 20th before they become disgruntled.  [I forget how long it took Obama voters to become disgruntled after January 20th, 2009.]  *Later I discovered that he lost the popular vote.

The good news---
1.  IF Trump was sincere, the TPP is dead.
2.  The rule of the dictatorial, major political Parties may be over.
3.  A war with Russia is now somewhat less likely...hopefully, much less likely.
4.  If we're lucky, the Clintons are out of politics.
5.  Wall Street is bewildered.

The bad news---
1.  Trump's economic "plan" consists of only two parts:  put the brakes on so-called "Free Trade" deals, and Trickle-Down Economics.  Only the first part of that is good.  The second part doesn't work because of false assumptions.
2.  America's Police State will grow... especially if Giuliani is in the Cabinet.
3.  Crony Capitalism will expand.
4.  The economy will worsen.  First will come the next Financial Crisis... soon.
5.  The Super-Rich will get richer.
6.  The Middle Class will continue to be hollowed out.
7.  The Poor are just plain shafted.
8.  The International Financial Coterie has won... the next Financial Crisis will make them even richer, and increase their Power.
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The Asian Stock Markets already are taking a nosedive:  the Nikkei is down almost 1,000 points; the Hang Seng is down almost 500.  Let's see what happens when the NYSE opens... hopefully, not much.

Good Luck to Us All
Be Well

Why Trump Will Lose...Big Time

Preface
Again, a reminder that I am vehemently against both Clinton and Trump.  Both of them are Corporatists and serve the so-called 1%...the Oligarchy.  [I'm aware that Trump True Believers don't believe that about their man, but they are dead wrong.]  By the way, Corporatism is not Free Market Capitalism.  Corporatism is Crony Capitalism, AKA, Fascism...the perfect marriage of the State to Big Biz.
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In politics, one cannot be 100% certain that any prediction will be accurate.  That's because politics arguably is the most despicable profession in existence; one never knows what sleaziness is going on behind the scenes.  Nevertheless, based on Logic and plain ol' common sense, here's why Trump will be buried at the polls today.  [It's now about 2:40 AM (Mountain Time) on Election Day.]  He has about one chance in a trillion of winning.

1.  The billionaires at the highest levels on Wall Street want Clinton to win; they usually get what they want.

2.  The majorities of the following groups will vote for the Corporatist Clinton, rather than the Corporatist Trump:  Millennials (ages 18-35, 31% of the electorate), Latinos (15% of the electorate), Blacks, all other minorities, college-educated Whites, Women (52% of the electorate), Independents (42% of the electorate), and the Super-Rich.  All of them together make up the overwhelming majority of voters.  Game over.

Trump supporters don't appear to get it--- this election is pretty much a repeat of the Goldwater v. Johnson election in 1964.  I'm intimately familiar with that fiasco.  One of the major differences between the two elections is this:  after his devastating loss, Goldwater went on to become a Senior Statesman... well respected by both Repubs and Dems.  That won't happen with Trump.
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The real winners in this election are the Mega, Globalist Financiers of the world... the Ruling Oligarchy.  The election should have been boycotted on a massive scale.
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Not only my opinion.  Be Well

Existence of Nukes & the War on Painkillers Support the Case Against...

Governments/Elites/Corporatists/the Ruling Oligarchy.  What is that case?  It's the proposition that governments no longer represent the will of the People... that is, on most significant issues.  In general, that's because governments are puppets of the Corporatocracy, and in fact, a part of the Corporatocracy.

I suspect that, except for a few "True Believers", no sane person on Main Street thinks any gov't should be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.  It's simply common sense.  And yet in this country, we have a situation in which I'm not allowed to buy over-the-counter (OTC) codeine for my chronic pain, but the Fed Gov't is permitted to not only possess WMD, but also to launch a one trillion dollar program to develop "tactical" nukes.  Then the weapons will be more usable... supposedly.  We'll make smaller areas uninhabitable for 10,000 years.  Such wisdom.

In my lifetime, codeine was available as an OTC drug.  [It's probably the most innocuous narcotic painkiller in existence.]  Then the Neoliberals began to take over our puppet gov't.  [It began with Reagan & Thatcher and the "Washington Consensus".]  Of course, I could get a prescription for codeine...except that wouldn't do me any good.  The only rural clinic I'm able to access around here doesn't carry any painkillers other than OTC drugs.  And why is that?  Because the DEA compliance requirements are too burdensome, that's why.

What's ironic is that the "Washington Consensus" (developed & promoted by Neoliberals) and its True Believers promulgated deregulation and privatization.  At the same time, they accelerated the so-called "War on Drugs".  What a contradiction.  What hypocrisy.

To those who argue that opiate painkillers are "dangerous", I would counter with the following:
1.  So is booze, America's drug-of-choice.  Adults are allowed (in a "free" country) to manage their own affairs and buy all kinds of "dangerous" substances without a Permit.  Every year, about a dozen people celebrate their 21st birthday by drinking too much...and then keeling over, dead.  Thousands of drunk drivers kill thousands of innocent people every year.  Hundreds of thousands of alcoholics die each year from alcohol-related disease.
2.  Until moving to this rural area, I was taking codeine for chronic pain for 12 years.  Guess what?  I functioned just fine, worked, lived Life, & didn't die.  Now, and for the past four years, I'm debilitated every day by pain...simply because Neoliberal Nanny won't allow OTC codeine.
3.  Pencils don't misspell words.  People do that.  If some adults can't manage narcotic painkillers properly, that's not my problem.  My problem is distracting, debilitating pain.
4.  To extrapolate this issue--- prohibition of substances doesn't work; it never has, and never will.  But, you see, the so-called War on Drugs is a huge government industry.  It's also a way to incarcerate people, and thus benefit another huge government industry.  Finally, it's easier to catch blue-collar, drug "criminals" than to catch those with white collars in the Financial Sector.  Besides, the white-collar criminals contribute greatly to political campaigns.

Again on the subject of nukes, the current situation in the world is Orwellian.  It demonstrates the inability of We the People to peacefully combat Oligarchs and their puppets.  [Violence against the Ruling Oligarchy is NOT a sane option.  It would usher in the Mother of All Police States, much worse than the one we have now.]  Thus, we are treated like "the bewildered herd" (a term coined by the "Progressive", Walter Lippmann).  We are propagandized into believing that we can't properly defend our country without these insane weapons.  That's BS.  There's nary a peep from us when Obama launches a trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade program that will take ten years to complete.  A trillion dollars.  Meanwhile, bridges collapse, roads crumble, trains run off the tracks or into each other, water systems turn to poison, vehicles are unsafe, highways are inadequate, air pollution continues, nuclear waste storage is inadequate, veterans are mistreated while more of them die from suicide than from combat, the mentally ill are shot, the Fed Reserve tanks our economy while giving free loans to Elites, and on & on.  Oh, yessir, we really need to spend gobs of money on more and different nukes.  Don't you know, we don't have enough of them.  Yeah, right.

It isn't that we can't bring Neoliberal Oligarchs under control peacefully; rather, it's that we don't have the will to do it.  I guess that's due mostly to Propaganda, partly to distraction, partly to apathy, and perhaps partly to a feeling that it's hopeless to oppose the Powers-That-Be.  All of that must be overcome if we are to have a truly free, participatory democracy.  Until then, we're the bewildered herd, the spectators, the ignorant masses, etc. (all terms from Oligarchs of the past).  In the 1970's, the Trilateral Commission---a Globalist Think Tank---came out with its first Report.  It was book-length, and the title was The Crisis of Democracy.  It was written by Globalist "Liberals".  According to them, the "crisis" was that America had too much democracy.  They said that had to change.  It did.

Not only my opinion.  Be Well