Bush v Trump (you know things are bad when)

If the Bush v Trump takedown yesterday proves anything, it's that America, and democracy itself, is in big trouble now:

Yes, the patriotic-sounding speech that former president George W. Bush delivered at the "Spirit of Liberty" conference in New York on October 19th was an elegantly-written rallying cry against fascists and Russian meddling. But it's also a fine piece of historical revisionism too, as far as "free and fair" elections go.

Bush, you may recall, was the first presidential hopeful ever to sue for and win the presidency, defeating bona fide president-elect Al Gore in 2000 merely by begging a loaded U.S. Supreme Court to "stop Florida's recount." 

At that point in Florida's automatic hand tally, Bush's tenuous claim of victory there had shrunk from about a 1350-vote lead to only 300-plus, with tens of thousands of cast ballots yet to be examined. So, even with the bogus "hanging chad" clamor he created as a distraction, the GOP candidate saw he wasn't going to win.

Exit polls on election day had already made it clear to the notoriously-litigious Bush family that their illiterate, draft-dodging and politically-incompetent progeny "George W" had been rejected by Florida voters in favor of ex-Vice President Gore, handing Gore the presidency. 

And exit polls don't lie because that's actually the only time people do tell pollsters the truth.

Florida, however, with all its electoral college members and W's own sibling the sitting governor, was his last chance to seize the oval office -- and anybody who's studied law knew this 'fix' was in the works the minute the supreme court justices agreed to hear Bush v. Gore.

How a state manages any of its elections, even federal ones, is firmly a 'states rights' issue, so the U.S. Supreme Court had no jurisdiction over the subject matter of Bush's desperate appeal, nor any right to thwart Florida's attempts to "count all the votes" properly.

The federal government via its judiciary selecting our American president in election-year 2000 made the United States look like an unstable banana republic, vulnerable to attack by both foreign and domestic enemies. And on September 11, 2001, just a few short months after George W. Bush dubiously assumed office, that's precisely what took place in lower Manhattan.

The rest, to use an overused phrase, is history. But it's because we the people entertained and tolerated the un-American antics of Bush, his powerful dynasty, and his fellow Republicans 17 years ago that we're now facing the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War:  Floridian *billionaire* Donald Trump.

The Bush family owes us for boldly meddling in our 2000 election and thereby emboldening Russia-loving Trump and his likeminded band of traitors to do the same in 2016. Belated lip service, though, is not enough, and, well worded as it might sound, Bush's much lauded speech yesterday reads more like a eulogy than a call to arms.

editorial by Eponymous Rox

America's Half-Assed Election

The elephant and donkey have long represented America's two major political parties, but as the Clinton / Trump contest continues to inspire disgusted Republicans and Democrats to cross party lines, a political beast never seen before has been birthed: A half-assed hybrid.

The two "most unpopular" presidential candidates in U.S. history -- and their vicious knockdown dragouts -- have alienated so many people this election cycle that it's feared a good number of voters may not cast their ballots at all now, in a quiet protest some pundits blame on "election fatigue."

However, an even larger percent of the remaining *animated* electorate, as well as their elected representatives, have begun switching parties altogether, because, they say, they can't identify with and refuse to endorse their party's nominee.

This by far is the situation for Donald Trump, whose poll numbers continue to nosedive as the end of the 2016 campaign nears, despite his claims to the contrary or the FBI director's 'October Surprise' regarding a "possible" Clinton-aide link to ex congressman Anthony Weiner's x-rated emails.

Trump's own potty mouth and his hallmark bigotry appeals to an exceptionally loyal subsection of the American populace who observers describe as mainly "angry" and "uneducated" white men "feeling threatened" by this era's remarkable sociopolitical gains by women, gays and minorities.

But that same hate rhetoric is also a liability for The Donald, since it's steadily eroded support from embarrassed GOP faithfuls, including many prominent Republicans and businessmen, who believe Trump is mentally unsound and long ago abandoned his listing ship.

Trump's incoherent rants, taped sex-assault claims, dubious financial dealings, and apparent illicit alliance with America's longtime enemy, Russia, are just some of the thorny issues which have allowed his historically more-democratic opponent to take disgruntled Republicans into her fold and seize the moral high-ground too.

Yet Hillary Clinton has still failed to prove herself the "lesser of two evils" for certain important voting demographics, like Millennials and former Bernie Sanders supporters, who continue to harbor some doubt about her "truthfulness."

And, according to a recent poll conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, the hostilities generated by both of these controversial candidates in their bid for the highest office in the land has not only caused unprecedented tensions among traditional GOPers and Dems, but also increased strife in the workplace.

For large, midsized and small industries alike, this presidential election's overpowering negativism is now also negatively impacting employee relations and "business-as-usual," confirmed one weary HR consultant whose corporate clientele includes Cisco Systems and Microsoft.

Clinton versus Trump is "the biggest and best reality-show we’ve ever seen,” she cynically said.

Eponymous Rox